Rural Matters

Sometimes it seems to me that we live in a time with a prevailing ethic of I’ve-got-mine-you-take-care-of-your-own. Maybe it’s always been this way.

I was reflecting on this several weeks ago while I listened to yet another radio report of a wounded volunteer soldier back from Iraq whose family is losing almost everything as a result of his (in this case) service in the military. Do we have any sense of what we owe each other, I wondered, any sense of how we benefit from each other?

Later that day I began making calls to people in rural Arkansas for a story for Rural Policy Matters about ACRE, Advocates for Community and Rural Education. I talked to about eight people, mostly parents and community residents, including people who do not have kids in school but who nonetheless care.

I opened with a pretty general set of questions: tell me about ACRE and why you are a part of it.

The responses were a powerful antidote to what I heard on the radio.

Continue reading "Sharing Responsibility for Our Kids and Our Communities" »

Posted by Robin Lambert at 09:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Vermont Department of Education recently released results of a public opinion survey testing the popularity of Commissioner Richard Cate’s proposal to consolidate school districts.

The survey methodology met the primary test for a political opinion poll – it produced results favorable to the position of those who commissioned it.

The results were enthusiastically announced by the Department because they were decidedly different from the results of 30 public meetings around the state, also sponsored by the Department. People at these meetings, the department admits, favor keeping the current system over the Commissioners proposal to centralize.

Continue reading "Vermont Education Commissioner Pushes Consolidation " »

Posted by Marty Strange at 12:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

A new study by the Rural Trust finds that students who attend consolidated rural high schools face longer bus rides and are less likely to participate in extra-curricular activities because of the challenge of transportation.

The study, Slow Motion: Traveling by School Bus in Consolidated Districts in West Virginia, examined surveys of high school students in four West Virginia counties. In two counties, high schools are consolidated, and in two counties, high schools are smaller and located in or near the communities where more students live.

The investigators found that bus rides in districts with consolidated high schools are 43% longer than in districts that have not consolidated their schools. In the consolidated counties, high school students who ride the bus lose an average of 49 minutes each day, compared to students ho have other forms of transportation in those same districts.

Continue reading "Slow Motion" »

Posted by Robin Lambert at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Two small rural high schools in Union County, South Carolina are likely in their last year of existence, as soon as a recent school board decision to consolidate becomes final. Even though over 700 Jonesville High and Lockhart School supporters jammed into public meetings to plead for their schools – especially notable because Lockhart has 120 students and Jonesville has 240 – the board voted 7-2 to consolidate the schools into Union High School, which has 1000 students. The two smaller schools lived under threat of consolidation for years, and successfully fought off efforts to close them until just these last few weeks. How did this happen?

Continue reading "Consolidation in One South Carolina District: More Dollars = Less Sense?" »

Posted by Amanda Adler at 11:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Maine’s Governor John Baldacci has presented a plan to do away with the state’s 290 school districts (they share 152 superintendents) and replace them with 26 districts, each with its own superintendent. Each district would also have a regionally elected board.

There is not much detail about how the elimination of governance units will improve education. Maine’s schools do very well by national standards. But, Baldacci claims his proposal will even out spending between districts and save taxpayers $250m over the next three years--mostly by reducing administrative costs. Those projected savings do not, however, include offsetting costs of consolidation--things like transition expenses, new facilities for headquarters for the mega-districts, and contract buy-outs. There’s more information in newspaper reports here and here. You can read the plan here and find a lot of additional information here.

Baldacci’s proposal is not particularly surprising to most people in Maine. Several years ago the state changed the funding formula in ways that are particularly detrimental to small districts. Baldacci’s proposal is not the only consolidation proposal on the table, but it is the most extensive. Susan Gendron, the State’s Education Commission says she supports Baldacci’s plan.

What is surprising is the apparent willingness of some national think tank types to endorse the idea. Check out this January 28th article by Beth Quimby in the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram In it, Jack Jennings of the Center for Education Policy is quoted saying, “This is a very substantial reform in education. This is a courageous thing for a politician to do.” And Kathy Christie at the Education Commission of the States is quoted as saying: “It takes nerves and you know you are going to be blasted.”

Since politicians, think tanks, and journalists tend to recommend all kinds of ways to improve teaching and the running of schools, it seems fair to apply some of these recommended approaches to the proposal in Maine. We’ll take one “education improvement” imperative from current fad, one from NCLB, one from critics of NCLB, and one from progressive educators and apply each to Baldacci’s proposal.

Continue reading "Applying Educational Imperatives to a Wholesale State “Reform”" »

Posted by Robin Lambert at 04:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

When small rural communities close (or lose) their school it’s equivalent to a major employer shutting down, AND it redirects local tax money to another town.

Those are major points in an interesting comment posted yesterday on the Consolidation/Small Schools Resource Page here on Rural Matters. You can read the comment here by scrolling down the page.

The fate of the community is one of the most common concerns of rural people when the school is threatened. And with good reason. Schools are often the only public institution in rural communities, the largest employer, and the single organization that touches almost everyone. The community’s tax dollars support it, and if it’s in its own district, the community governs it.

Continue reading "When Fighting for A Rural Community is Fighting For Rural Kids" »

Posted by Robin Lambert at 09:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Seems there are ever more kinds of small schools every day. In recent days we have noted schools that are “necessarily small,” “small by default,” “small by choice,” “small by design,” part of “small learning communities,” and “naturally small.”

It is worth noting that the proliferation of terms to describe schools that are not big parallels a growth in awareness that, in education, small works. Make no mistake, all these terms carry the political baggage of school finance battles in which various interests are trying to win a bigger piece of the pie, or keep others from getting a bigger piece of the pie, or making sure their kind of smallness and not someone else’s kind of smallness gets a bigger piece of the pie.

It’s time we had a glossary to sort out the political nuances of these terms. Here’s my offering. What’s yours?

Continue reading "The Many Meanings of “Small”" »

Posted by Marty Strange at 10:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The state of Arkansas has for the last several years—and especially since the Supreme Court found the state school finance system unconstitutional—pursued aggressive policies to consolidate rural districts, and subsequently close small schools. Those policies are the subject of much contention in Arkansas. In the summer of 2006, the fight of the rural community of Paron to save its high school from closure became a flashpoint in the Arkansas debate over rural education.

But no matter where you live, if you care about honest reporting or rural kids or good education, it’s worth paying attention to what happened to Paron, especially in the press. That’s because what happened to Paron is a not just a travesty of justice, but an object lesson in the ways an irresponsible press does real harm to rural kids and their communities.

Continue reading "Why What Happened to Paron Matters, Even if You're Not From Arkansas" »

Posted by Robin Lambert at 12:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The rural community of Paron, Arkansas has been the center of a media storm in that state for much of the summer. A rapid fire series of court actions re-opened, closed, re-opened, and then closed again Paron High School.

Several commentaries here on Rural Matters relate to how the state media in Arkansas covered the Paron story. Check out Facts Are Stubborn Things, Mr. Greenberg, Why Paron Matters, Even If You're Not From Arkansas, and Paron and the Propagandists.

In order to help our readers make sense of the Paron story and how it was covered, we’ve presented this news piece that summarizes events as they unfolded.

Continue reading "What Really Happened in Paron, Arkansas" »

Posted by Robin Lambert at 02:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Paul Greenberg’s been getting some mail. And he doesn’t like it.

The editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette said in a Sunday editorial (September 24, 2006) that he had been sent about a “zillion” copies of an article appearing on this Blog (“Facts are stubborn things, Mr. Greenberg,” posted September 8, 2006).

The article chided Greenberg for not leveling with Arkansans about the facts surrounding the closing of Paron High School. Paron High was forced to close after it was annexed by neighboring Bryant School District. The excuse Bryant gave for the closure was that Paron allegedly was unable to teach all of the 38 courses Arkansas high schools are required to teach each year.

Our article recited a pile of facts about the good performance of Paron students and about the circumstances surrounding the school’s efforts to teach journalism, one of the 38 required courses. Those facts were repeated by many writers who sent letters to the editor as well as emails to the Democrat-Gazette editorial page.

And Mr. Greenberg feels beleaguered and besieged by all this email. I doubt he got a zillion, but any number might have been a bit much for him.

He’s not used to seeing in print opinions he doesn’t agree with, unless he approves publishing them. As editorial

Continue reading "Paron and the Propagandist " »

Posted by Marty Strange at 10:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

"We are going to be able to take professional development where teachers are rather than simply asking them to come where we are. It also means we are using the latest tools and technology to give teachers the best tools of teaching an educational capacity."

Those are the words of Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in announcing a new on-line program offered by the state Department of Education so teachers can take a required 60 hours of professional development courses annually through distance learning programs.

That’s the same Department of Education that requires that all high schools actually teach 38 required courses every year, with a certified teacher on site, whether students sign up for the course or not.

Nope, courses taught by distance learning cannot meet this requirement. Even if the course comes from the high school’s home district. Or from the state’s virtual high school. Kids can take distance learning courses, but that won’t relieve their high school of having to teach the 38 required courses.

Continue reading "Goose and Gosling" »

Posted by Marty Strange at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Despite the fact that many states are pursuing the irrational policy of closing small schools in rural areas—even as many urban areas are scaling down the size of their schools—the research is clear that when socioeconomic factors are controlled, students in smaller schools fare better academically, are more likely to graduate, and participate in more numbers and kinds of extracurricular activities. The advantages are especially strong for at-risk students.

Now a new report from the Rural Trust, The Hobbit Effect: Why Small Works in Public Schools, explores the research that helps explain why smaller is better when it comes to schools.

The report identifies ten research-based attributes of small schools that are proven to have a positive impact on kids and their learning. These elements are either normally found in most small schools or are more common in smaller schools than in larger schools.

You can read this and other reports at the Rural Trust.

Posted by Robin Lambert at 11:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This post is regularly updated to include new information related to consolidation and small schools. Check back often for additional materials and resources.

Small schools and small school districts frequently find themselves subject to consolidation attempts. Yet, research indicates that students perform better in smaller schools and districts, that smaller schools and districts are just as cost-effective as larger schools and districts in rural areas, and that schools and districts are essential parts of rural infrastructure and make important contributions to the economy and well-being of rural communities. There are also a number of alternatives to consolidation that make good sense educationally and fiscally.

If your schools or district is threatened with consolidation, there are a number of information resources available to help your community. Here is a partial listing to get you started:

NEW: Slow Motion: Traveling by School Bus in Consolidated Districts in West Virginia. This report from the Rural Trust finds that students who attend school in counties with consolidated high schools spend 43% more time on the bus than students who attend smaller, community-based high schools. Bus riders in consolidated counties lose 49 minutes a day compared to students in their own schools who have other forms of transportation. Students in consolidated schools were much less likely to participate in extracurricular activities. Such participation is closely linked to stronger academic engagement, higher grade point averages, and greater likelihood of graduating.

Consolidation Fight-Back Toolkit. This set of materials produced by the Rural Trust includes research references, information about alternatives to consolidation, and links to other resources.

Continue reading "Best Consolidation Resources" »

Posted by Robin Lambert at 08:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)