Rural school closings reduce individual attention

For years, rural schools have been besieged by shrinking education budgets and the push for school consolidation under the mantra that "bigger schools offer more options." With the economy's downturn, education budgets are even more threatened and small, rural schools are in more jeopardy. They are an important source of more individualized education and community identity, writes Ashley Powers in the Los Angeles Times.

As many as 30 states are considering closing rural schools, according to Marty Strange, the policy director for the nonprofit Rural School and Community Trust. Many parents say closing the schools will hurt their children. "The school far exceeds what you get unless you pay $1,000 a month for private school," said Rose Getler, the Parent Teacher Organization president at Lundy Elementary School in Mount Charleston, Nev. She told Powers "that her 9-year-old, Sofia, had breezed through the fourth-grade curriculum this fall and was now doing fifth-grade work -- something that couldn't happen in a larger school." They also lose out with long bus rides and lost community cohesion. (Read more)