The movement toward small school consolidation was based in part on the presumption that academic achievement was lower in small schools, but the results of a study showed that school size was not significantly related to academic achievement in elementary and secondary schools in New Mexico. To determine the relationship of school size and academic achievement when corrections were made for other possible predictors of achievement, researchers studied enrollment and achievement data for a total of 566 New Mexico schools. They used enrollment figures for the 120th day of school and the "total scale scores" on the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills for students in grades 5, 8, and 11 in 1978, 1979, 1980, and 1981. Although school size appeared to affect academic achievement when no other variables were considered, size was not significantly related to academic achievement when placed in context with other variables. Results showed that two variables, percentage of students elegible for Title I in the lower grades and the student ethnicity variable in the higher grades, were far more useful predictors of academic achievement in a school than school size. (SB)