In Chablis-sipping circles, it has become fashionable to condemn the small-school initiative by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The foundation encouraged urban school districts to close large, dysfunctional high schools and replace them with smaller ones, either in alternative spaces or by placing several schools within the building that once housed the large one.
New York City became a poster child of the initiative when New York school chancellor, Joel Klein, accepted Gates dollars and began, in 2002, to create 123 “small high schools of choice.” They were designed to replace 23 dysfunctional high schools to be closed sometime after 2008.
