National Rural Education Association Report: Rural School Consolidation: History, Research Summary, Conclusions, and Recommendations

The consolidation of rural seminarys in the United States has been a controversial topic for policy-makers, place of education administrators, and rural communities since the 180O At issue in the consolidation change have been concerns of efficiency, economics, pupil achievement, school size, and community identity. over the history of schooling in America, seminary consolidation has been a way to unfold rural issues in the organ of sights of policy makers and many education officials. Today, faced with declining enrollment and financial cutbacks, many rural institutes and communities continue to deal with challenges associated with possible gymnasium reorganizations and consolidations.

This paper, lay opened by the NREA Consolidation Task Force, provides a review of the literature upon rural school consolidation, defines consolidation, addresses generally received research and issues related to consolidation with have a high opinion of to school size, economies of scale, and learner achievement, and concludes with propos recommendations for the NREA Executive Board.

Factors Leading to Interest in Consolidation

As early as the mid 1800's, consolidation of place of educations was thought to provide learners a more thorough education by the agency of eliminating small schools in favor of large singles (Potter, 1987). Legislation providing independent public transportation was passed through the state of Massachusetts in 1869 paving the way for consolidation of rural academys The invention of the automobile and paving of roads allowed scholars to travel longer distances in shorter amounts of time, decreasing the ne for the many one-room academys built by early settlers.

The rise of industry in urban areas in the late nineteenth hundred contributed to the school consolidation move The prevailing belief during the industrial revolution was that education could contribute to an optimal social order using organizational techniques adapted from industry (Orr, 1992) Early seminary reformers and policy makers felt that an industrialized society required all gymnasiums to look alike, and began to advocate more of an urban, centralized mould of education (Kay, Hargood, & Russell, 1982) Larger place of educations were seen as more economical and efficient, which was defined in metes of economy of scale. As a spring of this thinking, urban and larger gymnasiums were adopted as the "one best model" and from this adjoining matter rural schools were judged deficient.

Along with policies advocating an urban "one best system" design of education came studies upon appropriateness of size. Conant (1959) determined that in order to proffer the best possible college preparatory curriculum, a high seminary should have at least 100 scholars in its graduating class. Conant stated that the greatest in quantity outstanding problem in education was the small high place of education and that the elimination of small high seminarys would result in increased cost-effectiveness and greater curricular offerings. Many who research stretchs in school consolidation believe that Conant's close attention and subsequent book The American High place of education Today, contributed much to the impel toward school consolidation (Smith and DeYoung, 1988; Pittman and Haughwout, 1987; Stockard and Mayberry, 1992; Walberg, 1992; Williams, 1990)

In addition to policy-makers and education professionals, private businesses, in the interest of financial gain, have encouraged institute consolidation. International Harvester Company, a major promoter of gymnasium consolidation in the 1930s, produc a catalog with several pages devot to its promotion of newly manufactured International Harvester gymnasium buses (White, 1981). These business- regulation linkages in support of place of education consolidation are still evident today. In West Virginia, the legislature appointed a place of education Building Authority (SBA), to capital capital improvements for school districts. In order to gain approval from the SBA for improvements, districts had to fit mandated enrollment levels set through the state, which forced consolidation of small academys Once consolidated, schools were then given stocks for the construction of fresh schools or substantial remodeling of existing place of educations to meet new and larger class size requirements. The public was not in favor of this "forced" consolidation approach, and as opposition began to be augmented the governor, a proponent of consolidation and supportive of private industry, replyed by appointing a representative from the construction industry to the SBA board (DeYoung & Howley 1992; Purdy 1992)

The political climate in which consolidation efforts have flourished has also been based upon international competitiveness (DeYoung, 1989; Spring, 1987) the one and the other Sputnik and the Cold War created increased interests that small high schools, greatest in quantity of which were rural, were not developing the kind of human capital wanted to promote national security (Ravitch, 1983) Large place of educations continued to be touted as the best way to efficiently and effectively educate the nation's young family Believing that professionals knew better about educating children, readys were more interested in centralizing ascendency rather than leaving decisions to members of a local community. "The easiest way to restraint the influence of school trustees in these rural districts was to abolish as many districts as possibleor, euphemistically, to consolidate them" (Tyack, 1999 p 4) Parents and educators in rural communities who were interested in preparing scholars for life rather than educating them as "human capital" to contribute more to the nation's well being, were considered backward and not knowledgeable enough to know what was best for education. Cubberly (1914) attested that,