Lost jobs, declining enrollment leading to school closures in western North Carolina mountains

A downturn in the economy in rural Western North Carolina's mountains is putting the future of local schools in jeopardy. Haywood County officials voted earlier this month to close an elementary school at the end of this school year, while Mitchell County has closed two schools in recent years, Julie Ball reports for The Citizen-Times in Asheville. Haywood County schools have lost 745 students in the past 10 years, with more than half of the lost enrollment occurring in the past two years. Associate Superintendent Bill Nolte told Ball, "From our point of view, the people of child bearing age don’t have the job availability that they used to have in our area. They’re moving to places where there are jobs, and our overall population is a graying population." (Asheville Now map)

Mitchell County's closings are largely blamed on "a shifting economy and the loss of jobs in textiles and furniture contributed to the changing demographics that mean fewer children in county schools," Ball writes. Rick Spurling, Mitchell County's superintendent, said he expects there to be more restructuring in the future, with enrollment projected to continue to fall. Spurling said in 1983 district enrollment was about 3,400 to 3,500, but has now fallen to 1,900. He said the district loses about 45 students per year, which amounts to losses of $300,000.

In Buncombe County, site of Asheville, enrollment is down by about 1,000 students compared to 2011-12, according to officials numbers, Ball writes. "But at least some of that reduction is tied to the opening of two charter schools. The district's total enrollment numbers about 24,600." School officials don't expect to close any schools in the near future, calling that move a "last resort." (Read more)

Rural SOS: Des Moines Register documentary focuses on rising number of shuttered rural schools

The plight of one shuttered rural school has been captured in a documentary by The Des Moines Register as part of year-long project to highlight the continued struggles of America's rural schools. The documentary "is a window into the 4,315 other Iowa school districts that have been permanently closed since 1950," Jason Clayworth and Rodney White report for the Register. "It’s also a wakeup call, some say, to the state’s remaining 336 public school districts. Rural Iowa—and most of rural America for that matter—is sending an SOS with each closed school, they say." (Register photo: Rippey Elementary School in Rippey, Iowa was torn down in 2014)

Jon Hueser, superintendent of the district whose high school was the focus of the documentary, told the Register, "I probably have 12 or 14 years of being a (superintendent), and this probably won’t be the last building that I close . . . You talk about the plight of the farmers back in the 1980s when farm prices crashed, but there’s a problem in rural Iowa now.”

In Iowa the rate of rural residents has fallen from 75 percent in 1900 to a little more than 33 percent in 2010, writes Clayworth and White. "Nationally during that span, the percentage of rural residents fell from 60 percent to less than 20 percent." Since 1930 the U.S. has lost 100,000 school districts, dropping the overall total to less than 20,000. (Best Places map: The school that is the subject of the documentary is in Corwith, Iowa.)

"Iowa State University economist Dave Swenson believes there’s no turning back," writes Clayworth and White. He told the Register, “It’s not just the economic erosion—it’s the erosion in social capital. It’s the ability to get things done, count on social leadership, to facilitate any kind of innovation in allocation of community resources. All of that has eroded at a very slow but fixed pace over this time period, and it’s not going to change.”

The documentary premiered on Sunday in Des Moines and will be shown this week on Iowa Public Television. (Read more)

Charter schools less likely than traditional schools to have library media centers

Some advocates say charter schools are the answer to rebuilding rural communities while avoiding school consolidation. But students at charter schools are less likely than those at traditional schools to have access to libraries, according to a survey by the National Center on Education Statistics, Michael Alison Chandler reports for The Washington Post.

The survey, which included respondents from all 50 states, found that during the 2011-12 school year, 27,500 of 29,000 (94.8 percent) of rural schools reported having a library media center, 20,200 of 23,600 (85.6 percent) of city schools had one and 22,500 of 24,300 (92.6 percent) of suburban schools had one. Also, 79,000 of the 85,500 traditional schools (92.3 percent) reported having a library media center, while only 2,200 of the 4,500 charter schools (48.8 percent) reported having one. At the same time, 67 percent of traditional schools with a library media center had a full-time, paid, state certified library media center specialist, compared to 33 percent of charter schools. Of those, 52 percent in traditional schools had a master's degree, compared to 27 percent in charter schools.

Ky. schools chief writes about problems caused by losses of population and jobs in rural areas

Terry Holliday

The urbanization of America and the loss of population in rural areas is causing problems for schools in those areas, some of which are caught up in a downward spiral due to job losses, Kentucky Education Commissioner Terry Holliday says on his blog.

"The loss of student population means the loss of federal, state and local revenue for our schools," Holliday writes. "The loss of revenue means fewer teachers and fewer course offerings for students. The loss of revenue means less funding for teacher pay increases which means the gap between teacher availability in rural settings and urban settings will grow. This is especially evident when rural settings try to hire math, science, and special education teachers. The loss of revenue means less funding to build and maintain school facilities.

"Our normal solution in the past has been to push for more education. However, this creates a conundrum. If we educate more students to higher levels, then those with more education will seek better paying jobs and when no jobs are available, the talent will leave for areas that have jobs."

In Holliday's adopted state, most of the rural population losses are in Eastern Kentucky. He says a possible solution to that is the Saving Our Appalachian Region initiative. "The key question is, how do we build the infrastructure in Kentucky to recruit business and industry to locate in rural areas so that talented and educated individuals can remain in their rural communities and build the future? Hopefully, SOAR will be successful so our local schools and districts can be successful. The alternatives are not very desirable for those communities."

Holliday, a native of North Carolina, doesn't use the word "consolidation," but refers to conflicts between Kentucky's county and independent city school systems, and says it's better for local communities to resolve those issues without state involvement. Recently, the Monticello district was absorbed by Wayne County, after the state found that its financial future was poor.

As urban sprawl invades rural Iowa, the political climate in the state faces potential changes

While some rural Iowa school districts are facing population losses, struggling to remain open and being forced to cut costs and programs, the state's urban districts are flourishing and expanding, and their biggest problem is having too many students and needing more and bigger schools, Michael Barbaro reports for The New York Times. The effects are also changing the political climate in the state.

From 2003 to 2013 the state's metro areas grew by 13.3 percent, while population in all other areas fell by 3.6 percent, said a study by Iowa State University, Barbaro writes. "Iowa, the quintessence of heartland America, is undergoing an economic transformation that is challenging its rural character—and, inevitably, its political order."

"As Iowans prepare to elect a new United States senator for the first time in three decades (Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin is retiring after being in office since 1985), the scale at which people and power have shifted from its rural towns to its urban areas is emerging as a potent but unpredictable undercurrent in the excruciatingly close race, offering opportunity and risk for both sides," Barbaro writes. (Republican Joni Ernst (Bloomberg photo by Daniel Acker) is concentrating more on rural voters, while Democrat Bruce Braley (NYT photo by Luke Sharrett) is going after the urban vote in the Iowa Senate race)

In Pocahontas County, in corn country in the northern part of the state, school enrollment has dropped by 32 percent over the past decade, forcing schools to consolidate and slash sports programs, ending years of tradition and rivalries, Barbaro writes. "Two hours south, Dallas County faces a very different problem: It is running out of schools. With the population swelling, in what used to be farmland ringing Des Moines, enrollment in its largest district has doubled over the same 10 years. As soon as a gleaming new high school is completed, construction on another begins."

"The state’s once ubiquitous farms are supporting fewer workers, the towns built around them are hemorrhaging younger residents and a way of life eroding for decades is approaching a denouement," Barbaro writes. "Farm fields are yielding to the new headquarters of banks, insurance companies and health care providers, whose rapid expansion is luring waves of Iowans to cities and suburbs and contributing to the state’s enviable 4.5 percent unemployment rate."

"Those changes have turned Iowa’s older, Republican precincts even redder and its younger, Democratic districts even bluer, while giving rise to suburbs whose politics can be harder to categorize—a mixture of millennial generation religious conservatives, baby boomer libertarians and Generation X liberals," Barbaro writes. And the candidates for Harkin's seat have chosen different paths in enlisting votes, with Republican Joni Ernst appealing to conservative rural voters and Democrat Bruce Braley embracing a more urban-friendly agenda. 

Harkin "said the election would turn on which candidate acknowledged the new landscape," Barbaro writes. Harkin told him “There is this ideal of Iowa." Those who have left its farmlands “aren’t too far removed from those small towns.” (Read more)

As families flee Central Appalachian coal country, school districts are struggling to fill classrooms

The continued loss of coal jobs in Central Appalachia has caused families to flee for greener pastures, hurting the economy of towns and counties and leaving once thriving schools struggling to fill classrooms, Adam Beam and John Raby report for The Associated Press. (Raby photo: George F. Johnson Elementary School in Pike County, Kentucky, closed last year)

Over the past decade, Kentucky's public school system had added 30,000 students, a growth rate of 4.8 percent, well above the national average of 2.5 percent, Beam and Raby write. While the rest of the state is growing, Eastern Kentucky has lost more than 12,000 students since the 1999-2000 school year, "a 9 percent drop that state officials attribute directly to the area's economic struggles amid the declining the coal industry."

West Virginia is suffering the same fate, Beam and Raby write. The Mountain State has lost 26 percent of its public school student population since 1979, with 42 of the state's 55 counties having seen declines in population.

"Some districts have combined or closed low-enrollment schools, forcing families that stay put to send their kids on longer bus rides on mountain highways to the next-closest classroom," Beam and Raby write. "Chain-link fences now surround empty schools that had served as gathering places in some small communities, hosting potlucks, pancake breakfasts and even doubling as support centers during mining disasters."

One of the problems in Kentucky is that the state pays for public education in part based on an average of how many students attend district schools each day, Beam and Raby write. "Kentucky lawmakers and two independent groups are reviewing the state's 25-year-old formula for funding education, partly to see how to ease the impact it has on dwindling districts. Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear said he would wait for those studies to finish before he considers any changes to the current funding formula."

Meanwhile, in Pike County, Kentucky enrollment has dropped by more than 1,000 students since 2001, and when the average attendance dropped by 270 students from 2013 to 2014, the school system lost $1.1 million from its base state funding, Beam and Raby write. "Last school year, the district closed three schools—two elementary schools and a middle school—and merged them into a new school that now runs from kindergarten through eighth grade. And the district closed Majestic Elementary School this year after its enrollment dipped below 100 students—a community hub that had been open for 45 years." (Read more)

Nonprofit's magazine in Michigan explores rural hardships such as poverty and homelessness

Bridge, a magazine published by The Center for Michigan, has been running a series exploring the hardships facing rural Michigan residents. "The statistics are sobering, with many rural communities struggling with moribund economies, mediocre schools and searing poverty, as well as difficulty accessing basic services like medical specialists, public transportation and broadband Internet access," writes Editor David Zeman. "Compounding these challenges is a decline in political clout in Lansing, as more people move to metropolitan areas." (Map: Poverty-rate ranges by county) 

One story takes a look at a rural charter school that closed its doors. "When fourth grader Ian Matthews heard his school would close the end of the last academic year, he said he asked his principal, 'Why do they want to break people’s hearts?'," Pat Shellenbarger writes. "For Ian and more than 150 other students, Threshold Academy, a charter in rural Ionia County, had been a refuge from the constant reminders in other schools that they were different because their families were poor. More than 90 percent of Threshold students qualified for a free or reduced-price lunch."

Another story looks at Lake County, one of the poorest regions in the state. "Robert Traviss’s house, if you can call it that, is an old camper trailer he shares with two Chihuahuas named Spaz and Boots," Shellenbarger writes. "The trailer is parked in the side yard of the home, now rotting away, where he grew up. A second camper trailer, even older, is in the front yard and is filled with the tools he used before a stroke left him disabled. From the camper’s door, Traviss, 55, can look across fields, where deer graze. If he steps outside with his walker and surveys the neighborhood, he sees poverty – rural poverty, the kind that is little noticed by much of the nation. He used to be a machinist and a tool and die maker, but now, since the stroke, his only income is from Social Security disability."

Other stories focus on a 22-year-old panhandler who has been on his own since he was 14, communities trying to craft restrictions on panhandling, being poor in the state’s most affluent county (Livingston) and homeless students in Montcalm, Ionia, Isabella and Gratiot counties – four largely rural regions in Central Michigan. (Read more) The center, a nonprofit, says its objective is "to make Michigan a better place by by encouraging greater understanding and involvement in policy issues among the state’s citizens and making sure their voices are regularly heard."

Closure of rural schools leads to long bus rides and causes some nostalgia for 'the way it used to be'

"In the past few decades, rural school districts, especially those in the Midwest, Southwest and Deep South, have been folding their smaller schools into bigger ones, which are often many miles away," Nona Willis Aronowitz reports for NBC News. "These schools close because of shrinking state funding, low enrollment or simply a desire for efficiency—even as studies show small schools often have higher test scores, higher graduation rates and better student participation in extracurriculars." (NBC photo by Ackerman Gruber: Students celebrate graduating from elementary school in Cyprus, Minn. in 2013. The school closed that year because of low enrollment.)

"Experts say that closing these schools can be counter-productive not just for the students but for the entire population," Aronowitz writes. "Not only does the town fail to attract young families, who would rather live near a school, it often loses one of its main hubs of activity and community interaction."  Brian Depew, executive director of the Center for Rural Affairs told Aronowitz, “You’re yanking a key community structure out of these towns. They’re places of education, but they also serve this larger civic function."

Some parents worry about travel, Aronowitz writes. "In consolidated rural districts, children often endure excruciatingly long rides to school. In places like the Dakotas and Nebraska, the routes may take hours. The bus rides in Monticello, Maine, can already stretch the length of a class period, and parents are worried it’ll take even longer." Sarah Quirk, parent of a child in Wellington, Maine, told Aronowitz, “That’s too much time for a young kid. If it’s longer than 45 minutes, I’ll have to drive [my children] in, but I know not every parent can do that. That’s a lot of gas money.”

While budget concerns are one reason leading to closures and consolidation, another is the idea that bigger is better, Aronowitz writes. Depew told her, “Our go-to answer as a society is consolidation. Because it’s happened so many times, leaders just think, ‘That’s just what we have to do’ . . . it’s a capitalist drive for efficiency.” He said eventually "a string of consolidations lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy: a school closes, a town’s population declines and the cycle starts all over again." 

Barb Hesse, a researcher at the University of Minnesota-Morris’s Center for Small Towns, is a lifelong resident of Cyrus, Minn., where there were 25 people in her graduating class, Aronowitz writes. The high school has since closed, and the elementary school recently followed suit because of low enrollment. "Hesse said that although the town is still 'alive and kicking,' it does feel like it’s been dealt another blow, leaving its residents nostalgic for 'the way it used to be.'" (Read more)

State takeovers of financially strapped schools, districts can lead to closures and consolidation

When financial trouble plagues American schools, 29 states have the ability to take control of districts, and 23 can take over individual schools, often leading to school closings and consolidation, Adrienne Lu reports for Stateline. "Since New Jersey became the first state to take over a school district (Jersey City) in 1989, about 50 school districts nationwide have been taken over or reorganized by states, whether for financial reasons, academic reasons or both."

The New York state comptroller's office found that 13 percent of school districts were “operating with dangerously low or nonexistent fund balances, chronic operating deficits and extremely limited cash on hand,” Lu writes. In California "eight school districts have negative certifications, meaning that based on current projections, the school districts will not meet their financial obligations for fiscal 2014 or 2015. Another 41 school districts may run out of money by fiscal 2016."

The Michigan Department of Education, which closed two schools last year, "is currently monitoring another 46 school districts in financial trouble; each district must submit a plan to eliminate its budget deficit within two years after the state has approved the plan," Lu writes.

But some states, such as Michigan, "have adopted emergency provisions to help struggling school districts out of a bind, including allowing them in some cases to break or renegotiate union contracts," Lu writes. Idaho has a similar law. (Read more)

Advocates say charter schools can rebuild rural communities; critics question source of funding

Charter schools are few and far between in rural America, accounting for only 16 percent of all charter schools, with only 111 of the 785 rural charter schools located in remote areas, Katie Ash reports for Education Week. "But proponents of charters say those independent public schools can breathe new economic life into rural communities with dwindling populations by adding jobs and attracting families to a town, even as they provide an alternative to local schools that, like big-city schools, may be struggling."

Some rural charters have even been found "to stave off consolidation and keep schools open in small communities, said Andy Smarick, a partner at Bellwether Education Partners, a Boston-based nonprofit consulting firm that works with schools to improve achievement," Ash writes.

"Rural charters face a host of challenges that set them apart from their urban counterparts, charter experts say," Ash writes. "Besides a lack of suitable facilities, they have smaller budgets and fewer support services than urban charters; a smaller pool of students, teachers and administrators to draw from; and, often, particularly tense relationships with their local school districts as they compete for limited resources and relatively few students."

Proponents say charter schools offer families more choices, but critics refute that idea, Ash writes. Kai A. Schafft, an associate professor of education at Pennsylvania State University, told Ash, "The charter school advocates present [rural charters] mostly in terms of 'this is a good thing because it results in more choice,' but the problem with that argument is that the choice comes at a potentially significant cost, and that is the institutional undermining of the option that already exists."

In fact, the Rural School and Community Trust, a Washington-based research and advocacy group, rarely supports charter schools in rural areas, Ash writes. Spokesman Robert Mahaffey told her, "From a resource standpoint, where we come down when it comes to charters is, first and foremost, how are they being funded? Are you in essence draining essential resources from the traditional public school?'"

Currently, eight mostly rural states—Alabama, Kentucky, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont and West Virginia—don't allow charters schools, Smarick told Ash. (Read more)

Bill in Vermont would slash number of school districts to 1/5 or 1/6 of current number, 273

To save money, the Vermont House last week passed a bill that over six years would consolidate the state's 273 school districts into 45 to 55 districts, eliminating several supervisory positions in the process, Josh O'Gorman reports for the Vermont Press Bureau. The bill is now in the Senate, which is considering a voluntary approach.

Vermont, a very rural state, has more school districts than towns or cities, Jess Bidgood reports for The New York Times. Since the mid-1990s the state's public schools have lost more than 20,000 students, "making these districts even smaller, while education costs—and taxes to pay for them—have risen."

Democratic Gov. Peter Shumlin told Bidgood, "If you designed a system from scratch, you would not design what Vermont has right now. We currently have more superintendents and administration than any state of our size. We need to think of a better way.”

Many parents, teachers and local administrators oppose consolidation, saying they are "concerned it will erode that tradition of local control," Bidgood writes. Proponents say "it would create efficiencies and increase student opportunities by sharing resources and collaborating on programming, as well as reduce administrative costs." (Read more)

Under the House bill, schools that voluntarily merge in the first four year "will be offered new financial incentives," Bob Kinzel reports for Vermont Public Radio. "But if some districts haven’t voluntarily merged by 2018, a special committee will step in and create new larger districts over a two-year period. In contrast, the Senate Education Committee has approved a bill that offers larger financial incentives and keeps the process entirely voluntary." (Read more)

Rural schools in Iowa form lobbying group

Concerned that state lawmakers aren't supporting rural schools as much as urban ones, rural school leaders in Iowa have formed a new group to give them a stronger voice in the statehouse, Jill Kasparie reports for KCRG News in Cedar Rapids. The Rural School Advocates of Iowa are "pushing for legislative support that strengthens rural education."

Springville School Board President Lee Ann Grimley told Kasparie, "Our purpose is to speak up for children in rural school districts, to make sure they get a fair, quality and equal education." Springville Community Schools Supt. Brian Ney said, "I'm hoping we can get a true understanding of legislators that just because we are small doesn't mean we are an inferior school—not at all. We want enough money to fund the school is what we want to do." One of the group's main concerns is transportation costs because buses have to travel longer distances than urban schools to pick-up and drop-off students. Other concerns are operational sharing costs and flexibility in funds districts operate, Kasparie reporyts. (Read more)

Funds are often determined by enrollment size, and leftover funds from one account sometimes can't be used in another account, Audrey Ingram reports for the Daily Times Herald in Carroll. Those concerns led representatives from more than 40 districts with school enrollments under 1,250 to meet earlier this month to establish the group. Coon Rapids-Bayard Schools Board President Joel Davis said, "By the end of 2014, 24 fewer school districts will exist in rural Iowa than were present in 2008. In that same time span, the percentage of students in poverty has increased from 33 to 42, but the funding to address the needs of those at-risk students has declined by 5 percent in rural schools."

Davis said the group "would take a 'tuning fork' approach—one tine will focus on helping local school boards network and build personal relationships with their legislative representatives, while the other tine funnels membership dues into hiring a professional lobbyist to reinforce the local message," Ingram writes. (Read more)

Story difficulties, downsizing, disappearance of much high-school football teams in rural Nebraska

In a great example of reporting on rural areas, Dirk Chatelain writes for the Omaha World-Herald about the fading glory of high-school football in Nebraska, which has seen the number of pigskin programs drop from 355 in 1983 to 282 in 2013. As more people leave rural areas, and populations shrink, more rural football teams fold or downsize, or schools are forced to merge. That leads to greater driving distances to find teams to play, which in turn, costs the school more money for transportation. Still, sports like football are important to small towns, for the pride of students, parents, and everyone who cares about their hometown. (World-Herald photo)

Lindsay Holy Family, a school where enrollment dropped from 336 in 1980 to only 98 this year, including just 16 boys, averaged 23.7 miles to each football game in 1988, but averaged more than 100 miles to each game during their final season this year, including a 368-mile, 19-hour journey for one game, Chatelain writes. The team, which has played eight-man and six-man football, only had 12 boys go out for the team this year, but because of injuries sometimes only dresses seven. The school, which is the only one in Lindsay, Neb., had 32 players in 2000 and 29 in 2004. (World-Herald graphic)

"Population is dwindling on the Nebraska prairie," Chatelain writes. "And football teams are disappearing. Not in Omaha or Lincoln or Kearney. But out there, off the Interstate, where the only structures taller than goal posts are water towers, grain elevators and church steeples. Out there, where Friday night games still leave the streets empty, and come Saturday morning, the quarterback is up early, vaccinating cattle."

The state only has 16 teams that play six-man football, most of which are located on the western side of the state, as opposed to Lindsay (right) in eastern Nebraska, Chatelain writes. That led to the 19-hour trip to the panhandle, which forced Holy Family to rent a 47-passenger charter for $2,600 for players, parents, and fans. After the school football account was drained, head coach Bill Mimick covered the rest of the costs out of his own pocket.

And now football stadiums stand empty, and rivalries are dying, Chatelain writes. "For decades, this two-lane ribbon between Norfolk and Columbus produced some of Nebraska's best high school rivalries. Dodge. Howells. Clarkson. Leigh. Humphrey. St. Francis. All are east of Lindsay, within 45 miles. Last spring, after one-on-one meetings with parents and an open meeting of townspeople, Holy Family decided to merge football programs in 2014 with Humphrey High, 11 miles east. The schools began a co-op for other sports this year. That decision would've been enough change for one decade. But the Bulldogs, coming off a 9-2 season, couldn't make it to '14. Coaches and parents studied the numbers — including a sophomore class of two boys and one girl — and made another tough call. They canceled their eight-man schedule and dropped to six man, even though most people in town had never seen a game." (Read more) Here's a video of Chatelain's interview with 93.7 The Ticket in Lincoln:

States and schools still battle over consolidation

The number of independent school districts in the U.S. shrank nearly 90 percent between 1942 and 2012—from 108,579 school districts to 12,880. But almost all the decrease occurred in the first 30 years of that period; in the last 40, there have been many fewer consolidations despite continued state incentives for districts that merge and penalties for those that don't. Maggie Clark reports for Stateline, "For states, consolidating school districts can mean fewer buildings to maintain and lower administrative costs. For communities, consolidation can mean long bus rides for students, losing budgetary control and even a loss of community history." (Heritage Foundation map; for an interactive map of school districts by state, click here)

Two weeks ago, voters in the Seneca Falls school district near the Finger Lakes in upstate New York rejected a move to consolidate with neighboring Waterloo, Clark notes. "New York offers consolidating school districts a 40 percent increase in their state aid, freezing the amount based on their aid for the 2006-2007 school year, plus money for new buildings. Had Seneca Falls and Waterloo merged, they would have seen an additional $43 million in state aid over the next 14 years." Kent Gardner, chief economist at the Center For Governmental Research in Rochester, told Clark, “The actual savings from these plans is usually just a fraction of the property-tax bill, so it’s difficult to vote for doing a radical and risky thing for something that often amounts to $20 or $30 in savings."

"Kansas guarantees that consolidating districts will get the full amount of both individual districts’ state aid for five years after a merger," Clark writes. "Consolidation in rural districts in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains region meant long bus rides and moving middle and high school students onto the same campuses." And Maine, with the highest rural population percentage in the country, has been pushed the hardest to consolidate. In 2007, then Gov. John Baldacci signed legislation ordering Maine’s 290 school districts to consolidate into just 80 districts or face penalties. From 2007-2012, the state lost 58 districts. (Read more)

The Rural School and Community Trust advocates for rural schools. Its website is here.

Report: Merging small school districts could save billions; rural lobby disputes that

Bigger is better when it comes to school districts, says a report by the Center for American Progress, which says consolidating districts with fewer than 1,000 students could lead to huge savings. "Many states have large percentages of small, non-remote districts that may represent hundreds of millions of dollars in lost potential capacity," Ulrich Boser writes for the center. Those districts "might represent as much as $1 billion in lost annual capacity, by which we mean money that may not have had to be spent if the district was larger." Their research found the optimal district size was 2,000 to 4,000 students. (Associated Press photo by Scott Eisen)

Ten states with 3,625 small school districts account for more than $650 million in lost potential cost, or about 68 percent of the total, Boser writes. New Jersey tops the list with an estimated loss of $105 million. New York has a loss of $99.5 million, followed by Illinois at $90.9 million, Texas at $82.7 million, California at $64.4 million, Vermont at $54.2 million, Oklahoma at $48.1 million, Missouri at $44.8 million, Montana at nearly $37.5 million and Wisconsin at just over $37 million. (Read more) To read the full report click here.

The Rural School and Community Trust argues that research "shows that state policies that broadly push mergers of schools and districts will not save money and will likely lower the quality of education — especially for the poor."

Rural Ohio residents often say no to school property tax increases; is that a remnant of consolidation?

Despite performing well on state tests, and receiving high marks from the state, some rural school districts in Ohio can't pass tax levies, Ida Lieszkovszky reports for State Impact, a collaboration of public radio newsrooms.

Some rural Ohio schools haven't passed a levy since the 1970s, and one district, Warren Local Schools, has passed just 20 percent of requests for local money, compared to 51 percent in Franklin County, home of Columbus, and 43 percent in Cuyahoga County, home of Cleveland, she writes. (Lieskovsky photo: Warren school has no walls or doors between classes)

Warren Local is in Washington County, which borders West Virginia and has a per capita income of just over $23,000, compared to $56,000 for teachers in an area where only 15 percent of residents have a bachelor's degree or higher, Lieszkovszky reports. With no doors or walls between classrooms, schools use bookshelves and lockers to separate classes. Still, locals think the school has enough money, and have continually voted down levies. As a result, two school buildings were closed, teacher wages were frozen, 90 positions were eliminated, and high-school busing has been cut.

Some blame consolidation for the rift between residents and the school districts, Lieszkovszky writes. In the 1960s smaller schools were combined to make larger ones, and some residents felt they lost their "a significant part of their social life and local identity." Since then, residents have continued to hold a grudge when property taxes are put on the ballot, she writes. (Read more)

Iowa task force looks at program that puts rural high-school students into community colleges

Rural school superintendents in Iowa worry that their students won't be able to compete for jobs in the global marketplace without early exposure to technology, and that their rural districts won't be able to attract and keeping tech-savvy teachers, Mike Wiser of the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier reports. Rural districts usually get smaller shares of state dollars because of small enrollments, and smaller revenues from local property taxes because there is less property to tax, so they have less money to pay teachers than urban districts, and they have even less money to pay for special classes, Wiser notes. (Courier photo by Tiffany Rushing: Rural Education Task Force members)

For decades, the answer to this revenue riddle in Iowa, and other rural areas across the country, was school consolidation. There have been 117 school district reorganizations in Iowa since 1965, and they aren't always popular. "Parents worry about students being forced into larger classes or exponentially increasing their travel times," Wiser writes. "Students may have a hard time adjusting to a new school in a different town, and people in the towns that lose their schools also lose some of their identity."

Two Republican state House members joined with a Democratic colleague to organize a Rural Education Task Force that includes superintendents, school administrators and teachers from rural districts. The task force is looking at the Cedar Valley West program, which brings students from four rural districts to a local community college to take upper-level classes and earn dual high school and college credit for their efforts. (Read more)

Rural school threatened with closure suspends sports so it can focus on academics, improve scores

The Premont Independent School District, in a rural town of 2,700 in South Texas, is among many rural schools struggling with outdated buildings, budget deficits, dwindling student populations and staffing shortages. Now Premont is facing closure by the Texas Education Agency for failing to "meet the state's criteria" and "certain adequate yearly progress requirements since 2007 under the federal No Child Left Behind program," Christopher Sherman of The Associated Press reports. But in an attempt to save the school and the community, Superintendent Ernest Singleton is taking drastic measures by cutting athletics to focus on academics. (Photo by Michael Zamora, Corpus Christi Caller-Times)

All sports at the school have postponed until at least the next basketball season as Singleton shifts the focus to extra tutoring and test preparation. Singleton told Sherman it was a tough decision in a community that values high school sports so much, but "because we're so far behind with student performance I wanted an environment that was academic only."

Singleton estimates the decision to end sports programs will also save the school about $50,000 in the spring and $100,000 in the fall. The money can be used to update facilities, attract qualified teachers and pay off its $400,000 line of credit, Sherman reports.

The community would lose its largest employer, with 90 jobs, if the school is forced to close. Frank Davila, a Jim Wells County constable and school security officer told Sherman, if "the school shuts down in this town, the town dies. This is all we have." The nearest school district is 35 miles away. (Wikipedia map locates Premont)

Not everyone agrees with the decision to stop athletics. Patricia Bunch, 36, mother of three in Premont schools, "disagrees with the decision because sports helps students stay healthy and keep out of trouble," Sherman reports. Premont student Cedric de la Garza, 15, told Sherman, "Staying eligible for sports is what motivates many students to pass their classes." (Read more)

Former public-school buildings in rural areas providing venues for new charter schools

Some rural communities are opening charter schools in former public school buildings as a way to preserve the sites and retain a school for local kids, reports Diette Courrege of Education Week. The number of rural charter schools has increased from 273 to 785 since 2000, according to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. The total number of charter schools has increased 39 percent since 2000, with rural charters increasing 34 percent and non-rural 41 percent.

Courrege reports the 90 residents of Canaan, Ind. (red dot on Wikipedia map), lost their school when it closed because of low enrollment, losing a third of its students since 2006, reports Ben Skirvin of StateImpact, reflecting a trend felt in many rural places across America. But the school was a community center for the small town, and when residents learned about the Rural Community Academy in Sullivan, Ind., they decided to turn their shuttered community school into a charter. Canaan Community Academy will open in the former public-school building in August.

Overall, rural charter schools make up only 16 percent of all charter schools, remain relatively scarce, and their benefits are debated. (Read more)

Bill to end enrollment-only criterion for school consolidation fails in Ark. House by one vote

An Arkansas bill that would have ended the state's policy of closing schools based solely on enrollment failed by one vote in the state House. The bill got a 50-33 vote but needed 51 votes to advance, Arkansas News reports. In 2003 Arkansas adopted a law that dictates mandatory consolidation of schools that enroll fewer than 350 students in consecutive years.

State Rep. Jon Hubbard, who sponsored the bill, said his bill would have shielded school districts that fall below the enrollment criteria if they are academically, structurally and financially sound. Gov. Mike Beebe had spoken out against the bill because he said it "threatens to reopen long-running litigation over the adequacy and equity of the state's method of funding public schools," Hubbard writes. Democratic State Rep. Buddy Lowell said if the bill passed schools that had been forced to close under the current law would sue the state. (Read more)