I asked Darling-Hammond about that optimal size slide in an interview today. Interestingly enough, she said she never defined a school’s optimal size, herself, but rather that she reviewed existing literature about the subject (from various perspectives, including cost-efficiency).

She said she’d send me the information on that review, and I’ll post it when I get it.

Can you reconcile what you heard last night about the Stanford report and what we were being told its conclusions were at the “right-sizing” community meetings?

At the “right-sizing” meeting I attended, this report was characterized as showing that schools under a certain number of students (can’t remember exactly), say 350, were inefficient and unworkable. Time after time, the OUSD spokesperson kept referring to this Stanford report as the grounds for closing many of these small schools. Your summary of the presentation of the report at last night’s bd. meeting makes the report sound almost diametrically opposed to the spin that OUSD was putting on it last week.

What gives? What is your take on this? Did OUSD seem dismayed last night at the Stanford testimony that small schools work in Oakland?