For Small Schools, an Identity Crisis

By Caroline Hendrie

Three years after starting a school-within-a-school at Chicago's William Rainey Harper High School, Michelle Smith and Sarah G. Howard knew the time had come to declare their independence.

At first, the two young teachers had set their sights on winning approval as a separate school in the city system. But when the district declared a moratorium on creating new small schools in 1996, an alternative they had avoided thinking about became impossible to ignore.

"We had been approached by several people in the reform community who had asked whether we were interested in applying for a charter," Ms. Smith recalled. "We said, 'No, we're not.' We believe strongly in public education and didn't want to participate at...