High School Size and Student Indiscipline: Another Aspect of the School Consolidation Issue? 1

Abstract

School consolidation is again an issue in rural areas. Traditionally, such controversies have turned on criteria of equity and efficiency: Large schools are alleged to be more equitable and more efficient than small ones. However, the research on both criteria is exceedingly ambiguous; neither goal seems to be routinely served by making small rural schools larger. This article investigates another possible criterion for judging the desirability of creating larger schools, student indiscipline. Both theory and evidence suggest that large schools are more disorderly than small ones. Using data from a nationally representative sample of high schools, this study suggests that creating larger institutions will increase student misbehavior. However, the increase experienced by small rural high schools—those most at risk of consolidation—will border the trivial. Thus, indiscipline provides no less ambiguous a criterion for deciding consolidation issues than does equity or efficiency. Arguably, when “technical” criteria provide no clear guidelines for an important public policy decision, citizen preferences should be determinative.