Might economies of scale not be good for education delivery or school security/safety?

[usmbguest5318]

One key difference between where I and my kids went to school and apparently many a school throughout the country is that economy of scale isn't something the school sought to achieve in delivering education to students. Maybe as a society we just need to face the fact that delivering the highest quality education we can and keeping kids safe at school doesn't happen when optimizing economies of scale in doing so becomes a major factor.

Amid the debates about school safety and education quality, might it be that the "day" of the huge public school has passed? Perhaps if we begin to dispense with large student body schools and shift back to small schools -- up to ~7:1 student-teacher ratio in high schools -- with centralized and shared extracurricular facilities.

• Might that create a better environment for managing school safety?
• Might that create a better environment for delivering education?
• Might it also reduce transportation costs?
• I suspect it'd increase payroll costs for teachers, but perhaps it need not for other employee types. For example:
  • I recall Granny telling me about the one-room schoolhouse she went to for a time. The teacher taught, maintained the interior and did the basic exterior maintenance of keeping the grounds clean, mowing the grass, occasionally trimming a tree, etc. Maybe an arrangement of that ilk, if not of that letter, could work again?
  • Certainly one or two maintenance workers should be able to cover multiple schools if they worked at night rather than during the day.

I think as goes this school security thing, as well as other "ills" of public education, perhaps it's time to disabuse ourselves of what has been considered structurally sacrosanct and consider a new approaches to the structural approach by which we deliver education.


Classrooms in high school.

​

Were public schools smaller so all classes (at least the academic ones) could be like that -- up to about ten or so students sitting around a table with the teacher -- perhaps the education would be better, and, with the facility being smaller, security would be more manageable.

The classrooms pictured above are at a school that has about 1100 kids in the student body and about 220 teachers. That also works scholastically, but I don't think it improves the security profile of schools that aren't also as geographically isolated as is that school. (The town has about 15K people, and something just over 10% of them are students and employees of the school.)

 

[Unkotare]

....

• Might that create a better environment for managing school safety?
• Might that create a better environment for delivering education?
• Might it also reduce transportation costs?.....)

No


Not necessarily


No

 

[OldLady]

One key difference between where I and my kids went to school and apparently many a school throughout the country is that economy of scale isn't something the school sought to achieve in delivering education to students. Maybe as a society we just need to face the fact that delivering the highest quality education we can and keeping kids safe at school doesn't happen when optimizing economies of scale in doing so becomes a major factor.

Amid the debates about school safety and education quality, might it be that the "day" of the huge public school has passed? Perhaps if we begin to dispense with large student body schools and shift back to small schools -- up to ~7:1 student-teacher ratio in high schools -- with centralized and shared extracurricular facilities.

• Might that create a better environment for managing school safety?
• Might that create a better environment for delivering education?
• Might it also reduce transportation costs?
• I suspect it'd increase payroll costs for teachers, but perhaps it need not for other employee types. For example:
  • I recall Granny telling me about the one-room schoolhouse she went to for a time. The teacher taught, maintained the interior and did the basic exterior maintenance of keeping the grounds clean, mowing the grass, occasionally trimming a tree, etc. Maybe an arrangement of that ilk, if not of that letter, could work again?
  • Certainly one or two maintenance workers should be able to cover multiple schools if they worked at night rather than during the day.

I think as goes this school security thing, as well as other "ills" of public education, perhaps it's time to disabuse ourselves of what has been considered structurally sacrosanct and consider a new approaches to the structural approach by which we deliver education.


Classrooms in high school.

​

Were public schools smaller so all classes (at least the academic ones) could be like that -- up to about ten or so students sitting around a table with the teacher -- perhaps the education would be better, and, with the facility being smaller, security would be more manageable.

The classrooms pictured above are at a school that has about 1100 kids in the student body and about 220 teachers. That also works scholastically, but I don't think it improves the security profile of schools that aren't also as geographically isolated as is that school. (The town has about 15K people, and something just over 10% of them are students and employees of the school.)

The overhead is too expensive. In rural areas like mine they are consolidating schools because towns can't afford to maintain the buildings. Maybe it's because of tough winters. I don't know if it would be that bad everywhere, but less roofs, not more, is the way towns are being forced to go.
It's a nice idea, though. My mom's first teaching job was also in a one room schoolhouse during WWII. K-8, 14 students, woodstove for heat and a water barrel with dipper for drinks. Outhouse in the back. She held "PE" in the playground and would blast her car radio for "dance class." She had some interesting stories.