The Shopping Mall High School Powell

Educational Equity and School Structure: School ... - TCRecord: Article

According to the combination Williams v. California, our goal in this article is on educational equity, particularly the interface between equity and school organization. We focus on two structural issues, school size and school overcrowding, and one specific school structure, schools-within-schools. We organize the article as an interpretative summary of existing studies on these topics, focusing on how these structural issues relate to social stratification in student outcomes, particularly academic achievement.Our evidence is drawn from two national studies and, where available and appropriate, research that examines the effects of school structure in California. We use this data to set the size of secondary schools are the best for all students (600,900 students), whose responses to school overcrowding are appropriate (building more schools rather than adding classrooms or portable multitrack school year), and how to create smaller learning communities in secondary schools can work well for everyone by reducing the potential of internal stratification. Policies in California, however, have not promoted these responses.In many cases they have exacerbated inequality in educational achievement and support the transformation of the social differences students bring to school academic differences. We advocate reforms that are associated with high performance and achievement that is equitably distributed by race, ethnicity, class or family origin. Reforms that raise achievement of children at the lower end of the distribution, without damaging those at the top are those to which we believe our country should strive for.By providing empirical evidence of practices that lead to this important goal, we hope to inform the important debates surrounding the Williams case. Douglas Ready
University of Oregon
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DOUGLAS Ready is a doctoral candidate in educational foundations and policy at the University of Michigan.

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