Do we need to think smaller?

Reading this interview with Kyle Smitley

of Detroit Achievement Academy really made me think: maybe we are on the wrong track with education.  Over and over again I have heard the following question asked when discussing a great school or a great educational initiative: Is it scalable?  The point being can we do it on a larger—perhaps much larger—scale?  Maybe we are on the wrong track with always questioning whether we can take something and scale it to suit a larger group, but what if the key is to stay small and have a more targeted, specific approach.  Malcolm Gladwell suggests that groups become impersonal when they grow larger than 150 members and we also know that as schools become more impersonal—larger—we lose that sense of connectedness and it is easier for students to disengage from the learning process.  Gladwell, of course, also suggests that class size is not quite as important as many would believe, but there are plenty of folks who disagree with him and believe strongly that class size is particularly important to students of color and students from the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum.  What if the key is to keep schools small in order to create. and maintain. that sense of community?