Choosing Small

Book excerpt: Choosing Small With low achievement and high drop-out rates plaguing our larger public high schools, communities across the country are creating smaller, more personalized schools that share a larger campus. Drawing on the Coalition of Essential Schools' longtime experience in school design, Choosing Small offers practical and strategic guidance for educators interested in transforming their high school. Featuring interviews with educators experienced in school conversion, the book covers all aspects of the conversion planning and implementation process such as engaging a broad array of stakeholders, working with the district, creating vision statements for the new schools, building leadership and management structures, and identifying curricular options as well as instructional needs. Praise for Choosing Small "Choosing Small provides necessary lessons onhigh school conversions, one of the most difficultreform efforts of our time." —Theodore R. Sizer, founder,Coalition of Essential Schools "A guide to creating the kind of schooling thatour young people need and deserve." —Ron Wolk, founding editor, Education Week "Anyone in a school leadership position who istrying to create high schools for the twenty-firstcentury should read this book." —John Welch, superintendent, Highline Public Schools, Burien, Washington "This book is for those who have ever gone toschool, been in a school, or realized we coulddo more for our children." —Jamie Kane, principal, Skyview High School, Thornton, Colorado "A must-read for anyone interested inimproving learning outcomes for young peoplethrough smaller, redesigned high schools." —John A. Sanchez, executive director, East Side House Settlement, the Bronx, New York