Schools and communities contend with different circumstances. Small rural schools struggle against consolidation; large urban schools struggle to divide into smaller learning communities. Schools in communities experiencing immigration struggle to create additional space for new students, while schools in communities losing population struggle just to keep the doors open. What is common to these situations is that there are untapped assets available, that schools, parents, and communities must work together, and that educating our children is a primary responsibility for each of us regardless of whether or not we have children or grandchildren in the school system. Educating our children requires national and individual commitment. In fact, it is a matter of national security vital to the long-term viability of our democracy.

Innovation Takes Time: Change requires time, much more time than people usually expect. There will be misunderstandings large and small, and the people involved will make mistakes. But if they have time to get to really know each other and to understand that they are working towards a better school and stronger community, they will learn to trust each other, which will help them give each other the benefit of doubt before rushing to condemnation. That trust must be sustained in continuing dialogue and in hearing varying points of view. And it must be earned daily.

It takes time to change because we revert to old patterns, particularly under stress. Just as parents hear the voices of their own parents coming through their mouths when their children misbehave, so too do people in a new environment revert to familiar reactions when at a loss for solutions. There must be structures in place that protect the necessary conditions: autonomy, good leadership, and the ability to make choices, to develop relationships, to be equitable, and to be committed to real academic achievement, with a defined mission and supportive culture. Communication between the different constituencies--students, teachers, administrators, parents, board members, and people in the community--must allow for honest dialogue and make people feel safe even in a changing and potentially volatile situation.

Change Must Be Fully Implemented: Perhaps most critical to the success of good small schools is that change must be fully and thoughtfully implemented. The danger, as Mary Anne Raywid and others have pointed out, is that the promises of small schools will be undermined by poor implementation. It would be a great loss were the possibilities inherent in small schools denied by failure to create and support them to the best of our ability.

Those who say they want to turn large schools into small ones, or create new small schools, may be lured by federal, state, and private funding that supports the purpose. They may be eager to find what they think might be an easy fix for the problems of their large schools. They may simply want to follow what they perceive as the new "best practice." But it will be all too easy to create bad small schools--schools without differentiation in program or culture, schools lacking autonomy, schools run by petty autocrats, or schools that start small only to be quickly bloated by too many students.

It is too easy to take what might have been a good idea and destroy it by disregarding its intent. James Conant recommended increasing the size of schools so that no graduating class would have less than 100 students. Had districts not followed his advice so literally and subverted its intent by creating schools much larger than those he envisioned, we would not today be looking at high schools and even middle and elementary schools with thousands of students and disappointing results. (D+S 1, pp. 2 - 4) So too would it be unwise to create bad or mediocre small schools now and a generation hence turn back to large schools with the justification that small schools didn't work. We know that properly implemented, small schools are powerful instruments for educating students well and strengthening communities.

Change creates its own momentum and attracts considerable attention and goodwill, from those with good intentions as well as those whose motivations are less noble. Change for change's sake will, for some educators and politicians, be the easiest way to pass responsibility along to the next generation. But the condition of our schools, our system of education, and our place in the world requires we do more. We must follow what we have learned about human nature, about the importance of relationships, about the value of knowing and being known, about the ways in which communities and schools can work together, and about the ways in which our children can learn and grow if we support them.