We are not alone

Enrollment declines. Experts argue that economies of scale will save taxpayer dollars; visions are painted of larger schools providing better educations. The state promises big bucks for building a bright new school.

And the aftermath is closed schools, broken promises, dashed dreams, diminished communities.

It’s not just happening in Sullivan County; it’s an increasingly common feature of modern American rural life. And local residents who are not willing for it to happen here have been funneling information to us here at The River Reporter, both about the national trend towards rural school consolidation and the mounting evidence that it’s a step in the wrong direction.

The recent history of schooling in West Virginia is a case in point. In 1989, the state government decided that the way to fix the rural state’s educational woes was to undertake consolidation on a statewide basis. A State Building Authority (SBA) was established to build big new schools all over the state into which they could herd the declining school-aged population. School districts that agreed to consolidate got the funds to build the new schools; those that resisted got no funding to maintain and renovate the older buildings. After a decade in which 322 schools were closed and the student population continued to decline, here were the results: total costs were up sixteen percent, adjusted for inflation, transportation costs had swelled seven percent of the total educational budget—the highest such percentage in the country—and the number of administrators (remember those “economies of scale”?) had gone up by twelve percent.

Meanwhile, the quality of education in the state, as measured by West Virginia performance on National Assessment of Education Progress tests relative to the national average has remained mired at the same level. Dropout rates have risen. With longer bus rides, students are too exhausted for work or play. As one student put it in a study put together by Challenge West Virginia, a small-school advocacy group, “Two hours on the bus a day is doing nothing for my education. I go to school tired and I come home tired.”

Of course, West Virginia is not New York State, and it would be overly simplistic to attribute all their problems to consolidation. But it is interesting to note that in West Virginia, and in other states where the trend towards rural school consolidation has been hitting hard, grass-roots organizations are arising to present parents and communities with some kind of alternative.

In West Virginia, there is the abovementioned Challenge West Virginia. They have undertaken studies, disseminated educational materials, filed suits, engaged the media, and otherwise used the united might of a group of concerned citizens to reverse the mindless trend towards “bigger is better.” In Vermont, there is a group called “Vermont Children’s Forum,” which addresses a variety of concerns related to children. With regard to education, their mission is “to support public policy that encourages community-based schools and assists those communities that are too small to sustain their own school.”

Now there’s an idea: a statewide initiative to support local rural schools, their ability to hold communities together, and the service they provide children in allowing them to be educated near their families and in the midst of their communities.

Next year will be an election year, including a race for governor and other state representatives—the ideal time to push forward such a state-wide initiative and get promises from electioneering candidates. There are probably small rural communities all over the state with school-closing problems like ours. If we reach out to them and unite our voice with theirs in this election year, we might be able to get Albany to take action to reverse the trend towards consolidation and save not only our own local schools, but those threatened elsewhere in the state.

Dr. Punnybone

On the Money