City Council speaker Gifford Miller claims too many small, new high schools are opening inside dangerous and overcrowded buildings.

REPORTER: Miller - who is one of the Democrats running for mayor - says the small schools should only share space with other schools if they are similar in size and culture.

MILLER: If you have a large struggling school, it's overcrowded and you throw a whole bunch of more small schools into that large school, you're going to make them more overcrowded and you're going to have existing and continuing problems.

REPORTER: Miller says the small schools should also get their own separate entrances to make them safer.

But Education Department spokesman Jerry Russo says Miller is missing the point of small schools - because they're intended to transform big, underperforming high schools. He also says their 91 percent attendance rate proves the smaller schools are working.