Research generally points to a negative relationship between school or district size and student achievement. When all else is held equal (particularly community or individual socioeconomic status), comparisons of schools and districts based on differences in enrollment generally favor smaller units. A recent study found that small elementary schools benefitted disadvantaged students most (by weakening the negative influence of background characteristics). A study of higher-order thinking skills found no significant differences in the performance of students in small rural high schools and those in larger high schools in more urbanized areas. Small school size is also associated with lower high school dropout rates. In spite of the apparent benefits of small school size for adolescents, policymakers still employ a powerful rationale to justify the continued creation of larger high schools. The charge is made that small high schools cannot provide a curriculum with adequate breadth and depth to meet students' diverse needs. Yet evidence suggests that a total enrollment of 400 students is actually sufficient to allow a high school to provide an adequate curriculum. In addition, research on grade-span configuration shows that eighth-grade students achieve best in an elementary K-8 setting. If restructuring truly is an aim of school reform, then the scale of schooling is a major structural issue. Making the institution of schooling more responsive to students may require a shift in metaphor from school as organization, where bureaucratic thinking inhibits true learning, to school as community, where learning is "nurtured" or "cultivated." (KS)