314 K-12 LEADERSHIP PRACTICES
BACKGROUND
School consolidation has been an ongoing issue in rural America. Cubberly (1914)
provided the earliest account of consolidation explaining that consolidation was an effort to
“restore to the country child something like equal rights with the city child, in the matter of
educational beginnings” (p. 48). The perception was, and is, that rural schools lag behind
their city counterparts and students cannot get a good education in a rural school.
Various reasons account for the push to consolidate schools. The Industrial Revolution
supported a model of uniformity and efficiency that advocated a “one size fits all” school.
Political events such as Sputnik , the Cold War, “A Nation At Risk,” created concerns about
the abilities of high school graduates and the ability of schools to prepare students for
competition on an international level, with rural schools viewed as especially lacking in the
ability to prepare students (DeYoung & Howley, 1992). The decrease in farms and
agricultural related jobs and urban migration resulted in fewer students in rural schools. In
the years from 1933 to 1970, more than 30 million people migrated from farms and the farm
economic downturn in the 1980s continued the population decline. Decreasing funding for
rural schools and an eroding tax base are frequently cited as reasons for consolidation. In
summary, the usual reasons given for consolidation are to offset declining funds and
enrollments, provide expanded curriculums, and increase student achievement.
Resistance to Consolidation
The term consolidation is sometimes euphemistically referred to unification,
reorganization, or merger. However, among rural citizens the merging of attendance areas is
referred to as the process of consolidation which results in one community considered the
winner and one community the loser.
The school serves as the hub of many communities and the demise of the school is viewed
as the end of the line for the community. The community suffers both socially and
economically (Ivento, 1990) by the loss of the glue that binds the community together, as well
as the tax base and valuation of the district. (Purcell & Shackelford, 2005).
Citizens are passionate about their hometown schools. Closing a school is perceived as
detrimental to the community and these perceptions are long lived. Struss (1999) looked at
the impact of the loss of a high school on the culture of one rural community in Minnesota.
Ten years after the consolidation, community members felt that even though there might have
been curricular improvements, it was at the expense of community identity and pride.
Perceptions may not match facts. Heinz (2005) conducted 180 phone interviews with
citizens in nine Nebraska communities experiencing consolidation. Citizens perceived that
due to the consolidations population had decreased and there were negative changes in retail
sales, number of retail business, and property valuations. In fact, there were no significant
changes in these areas and only per capita income had changed significantly. Even though
facts did not match perceptions, citizens held strong and negative beliefs about the effect of
consolidation on their communities.
A case study in Bardnardsville, North Carolina (Buckner, 2005), illustrated the profound
emotions surrounding the closing of a school. In this community the school was consolidated,
but because of community effort, the school was then restored and deconsolidated. Even
when considering the unique circumstances of new leadership and an increase in population,
it was the community effort that restored the school.