Smaller Schools
Smaller Districts

"Students in states with smaller districts and smaller schools have higher SAT and ACT scores."

-From 'School and School District Size Relationships: Costs, Results, Minorities, and Private School Enrollments' by Robert W. Jewell, University of Chicago

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Thomas Jefferson

On Dividing Government Entities

"The way to have good and safe government is not trust it all to one, but to divide it among the many, distributing to everyone exactly the functions in which he is competent ... [more] ... It is by dividing and subdividing these Republics from the great national one down through all its subordinations until it ends in the administration of everymans farm by himself, by placing under everyone what his own eye may superintend, that all will be done for the best."

Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi

On Community Size

"Men ... should do their actual living and working in communities ... small enough to permit of genuine self-government and the assumption of personal responsibilities, federated into larger units in such a way that the temptation to abuse great power should not arise. The larger (structurally) a democracy grows, the less becomes the rule of the people and the smaller is the say of individuals and localised (sic) groups in dealing with their own destinies. Moreover, love and affection, are essentially personal relationships. Consequently, it is only in small groups that Charity, in the Pauline sense of the word, can manifest itself. Needless to say, the smallness of the group, in no way guarantees the emergence of Charity. In a large undifferentiated group, the possibility does not even exist, for the simple reason that most of its members cannot, in the nature of things, have personal relations with one another."

Ezra Taft Benson

On Local and Independent School Systems

"The best way to prevent a political faction or any small group of people from capturing control of the nation's educational system is to keep it decentralized into small local units, each with its own board of education and superintendent. This may not be as efficient as one giant super educational system (although bigness is not necessarily efficient, either) but it is far more safe. There are other factors, too, in favor of local and independent school systems. First, they are more responsive to the needs and wishes of the parents and the community. The door to the school superintendent's office is usually open to any parent who wishes to make his views known. But the average citizen would be hard pressed to obtain more than a form letter reply from the national Commissioner of Education in Washington, D.C."

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