Small Schools Pose Big Challenges

The federal "No Child Left Behind" Act of 2001 allows states to determine when the number of students in a school or subgroup is too small to make accurate decisions about a school's performance.

Many states have proposed a minimum subgroup size of 30 students to be included in calculations about adequate progress. Other states have added a test of statistical significance to increase the certainty of their decisions. States also are proposing to average several years of test data or to look at multiple years of performance to reduce the possibility of misjudging a school.

But the problem poses a particular challenge for very rural states with large numbers of small schools and districts. In 2001-02, for example, 40 percent of Alaska's schools had 100 or fewer students, nearly 27 percent enrolled 50 or fewer pupils, and 16 percent had 25 or fewer. With statistics like those, even a minimum subgroup size of 30 would exclude large numbers of schools...