School Consolidation Research Articles

Rural School Consolidation

The consolidation of rural schools in the United States has been a controversial topic for policy-makers, school administrators, and rural communities since the 1800s. At issue in the consolidation movement have been concerns of efficiency, economics, student achievement, school size, and community identity. Throughout the history of schooling in America, school consolidation has been a way to solve rural issues in the eyes of policy makers and many education officials. Today, faced with declining enrollments and financial cutbacks, many rural schools and communities continue to deal with challenges associated with possible school reorganizations and consolidations. This paper, developed by the NREA Consolidation Task Force, provides a review of the literature on rural school consolidation, defines consolidation, addresses current research and issues related to consolidation with respect to school size, economies of scale, and student achievement, and concludes with proposed recommendations for the NREA Executive Board.

School siting and mode choices for school travel: Rural–urban contrasts in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

Mode choices for school travel are important to children’s health. School size and siting impose constraints on mode choices, and these factors vary considerably along the rural–urban continuum. Using the Halifax Regional School Board, Nova Scotia, as a case study, this research examines the effects of elementary school size and siting on mode choices and school busing.Data for 96 elementary schools in the school district are examined for statistical relationships between school and catchment area size, rural–urban location, and reliance on school busing. To estimate potential walkability, a mean Walk Score® was calculated for a 2.4-km pedestrian zone around each school, which represents the school board’s courtesy busing threshold. Mode choices from “hands-up” tallies at four schools were employed to calibrate the use of automobile and walking modes.In inner-city areas, pedestrian zones typically covered almost 90% of the school catchment area, and their walkability was moderately high. However, in suburban, commuter belt, and rural zones, much less area fell within the pedestrian zone, and walkability declined considerably. The proportion of students who walked or cycled for school travel were 40% (inner-city), 37% (suburbs), and only 5% in the commuter belt and rural zones. On the other hand, more than 80% of children who lived in the commuter belt and rural zones rode the bus, compared with 30% in the suburbs and only 6% in the inner-city areas. In both the suburban and inner-city schools, a large proportion of students were chauffeured by car.Findings suggest that post-1960 school planning for rural areas around Halifax has paid insufficient attention to the potential for children to walk or bike to school. Consequently, school consolidation and busing practices should be reconsidered in light of their negative impacts on the health and well-being of suburban and rural school children.

The short-term effects of school consolidation on student achievement: Evidence of disruption?

We exploit variation stemming from school consolidations in Denmark from 2010 to 2011 to analyze the impact on student achievement as measured by test scores. For each student we observe enrollment and test scores prior to school consolidation and up to four years after. We find that the achievement of students in closing schools is adversely affected in the short run. Furthermore, students initially enrolled in small schools experience the most detrimental effects. The effects appear to weaken over time, suggesting that part of the effect is due to disruption.

An Interpretative Analysis on the Consolidation of Small Schools in a Rural Area

An Interpretative Analysis on the Consolidation of Small Schools in a Rural Area

Use of Service Learning to Increase Master's-Level Nursing Students' Understanding of Social Determinants of Health and Health Disparities.

It is important for graduate-level nursing students to be competent in the issues involved in the social determinants of health and health disparities and have the tools to address them as graduates. As part of a nursing workforce diversity program, master's-level nursing students were required to participate in a service learning project exposing them to an issue not directly linked to health-long bus rides for students as a result of school consolidations-to achieve educational goals and objectives while providing a service to an advocacy agency. Eighteen students completed the project, providing the advocacy agency with firsthand accounts about the impact of long bus rides and in-depth reviews of literature on the topic and laws and regulations of other states. These results further support providing nursing students opportunities to fully engage with multicultural communities to gain a broader understanding of health disparities and social determinants of health.

Relation Between School Consolidation and Resignation in Otaki District, Chichibu City: Process of Closing All Elementary Schools in a District

Relation Between School Consolidation and Resignation in Otaki District, Chichibu City: Process of Closing All Elementary Schools in a District

Creating Segregation in the Era of Integration: School Consolidation and Local Control in New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1965–1976

New Brunswick High School, which had been racially integrated for decades, became majority-minority (and soon, all minority) in the 1970s, after years of legal wrangling led hundreds of its students to depart for a new, nearly all-white high school in the adjacent suburb of North Brunswick. White suburbanites invoked “local control” to justify building their own high school and battled against both New Brunswick and the New Jersey Department of Education, which ostensibly supported integration and the creation of larger, consolidated school districts. Black and Latino city residents initially advocated integration but soon renounced integration and demanded “community control” over New Brunswick High. Ultimately, the New Jersey Department of Education permitted the schools in the city and the suburb to become separate, allowing segregation to prevail in the so-called “era of integration.”

The Formation of a Teacher in the Context of Consolidation of Rural Schools (Regional Experience)

The Formation of a Teacher in the Context of Consolidation of Rural Schools (Regional Experience)

The Cost of School Consolidation Policy: Implications from Decomposing School Commuting Distances in Yanqing, Beijing

School consolidation may be an effective policy option in regions where demand for schooling is thin—after taking into account its effects on the school commuting distance, the education quality and economies of scale. The effects of consolidation on the educational quality and the economies of scale have been well researched; but studies on the commuting distance are limited in scope because they usually rely on comparing distances pre- and post-consolidation—which may exaggerate the consolidation’s effect. In this study, optimization approaches are used to decompose school commuting distances at Yanqing, Beijing, based on survey data. The costs of long-distance school commuting as a result of consolidation are estimated after decomposing the effects of school districting, school location and financial stimulation. The findings indicate that these factors contribute significantly to pupils’ long travel distance, and the negative effect of consolidation on school size standardization is exaggerated. These results imply that long-distance school commuting should not be the rationale for a suspension of the central government’s consolidation policy.

The Effect of School Consolidation on Student Achievement

Many countries have seen a substantial increase in the average school size over the past decades, and a corresponding reduction in the number of schools. It has been widely argued that both students and local communities have suffered from these consolidations. Despite their vast extent and controversy, the literature is scarce with evidence of how consolidation affects performance of exposed students. This study explores how consolidation of 76 rural lower secondary schools in Norway affects students' educational performance, using Rich register data. I find no indication that school consolidation reduces educational achievement. nonetheless, the analysis suggests a negative association between school closure and grade point average, but this effect appears to be driven by lenient grading in small schools.

総括 課題研究報告II 学校の学区再編・統合と学校経営の課題(課題研究報告II 学校の学区再編・統合と学校経営の課題)

総括 課題研究報告II 学校の学区再編・統合と学校経営の課題(課題研究報告II 学校の学区再編・統合と学校経営の課題)

소규모 학교 통폐합에 따른 교육과정 만족도 비교: 울산 A초등학교를 대상으로

소규모 학교 통폐합에 따른 교육과정 만족도 비교: 울산 A초등학교를 대상으로

昭和町村合併期における中央政府の公立小中学校統廃合政策の分析(IV 投稿論文)

昭和町村合併期における中央政府の公立小中学校統廃合政策の分析(IV 投稿論文)

Tiebout in the Country: The Inevitable Politics of Rural School Consolidation

This article explains why school consolidation issues are especially difficult in rural America. Consolidation is most appropriate when adjacent districts have similar preferences for taxation and spending on schools. In that case, economies of scale can be reaped without interfering much with resident preferences on taxes and school quality. In urban areas, residents signal these preferences by moving into (or out of) school districts that match their preferences, a process known as Tiebout sorting. As a result, school consolidation decisions can be based on good information about resident preferences. The basic claim of this article is that Tiebout sorting works much less well in rural areas for a variety of reasons. This means that consolidation decisions are based on thinner information; consequently, school consolidation is more contentious and in rural America. The article then argues that, given this situation, a Legislature interested in exploring rural school consolidation would do well to consider using legal and political processes that would enhance the ability of residents to express and record their preferences. Newer forms of political engagement that call on modern technology are available to do this and they may be effective in this context given the size and level of interest of the groups involved.

The reproduction of rural spaces through education: Abstraction of the rural and the creation of new differential spaces

This paper examines the situating of rural communities in the United States within the neoliberal global context. It will focus on Henri Lefebvre's concept of abstract space, as well as additional theories on the ways space is produced and understood. The paper will use these theories to create an understanding of the ways rural communities are shaped and the role education plays in reproducing neoliberal ideology specifically through rural school consolidation. Abstracted rural space and schools are leading rural youth to internalize neoliberal ideology wherein they see themselves as economic actors rather than active engaged members of their community, and the best way to be successful is to gain the mobility to move to an urban center. Under this line of thought, rural exists only to serve capital as a site of resource extraction and low wage labor. The paper will conclude with a discussion on the way rural education can provide rural youth with the knowledge in which to produce rural spaces that represent what a modern rural community should be, focusing on improving the quality of life for residents, rather than what neoliberal capitalism needs it to be through the creation of common schools. This type of education can lead to the development of a right to the rural, a play off of Lefebvre's right to the city, wherein rural youth can critically examine their place and the place of rural communities in the world.

Contested geographies: competing constructions of community and efficiency in small school debates

AbstractThe history of rural education in North America can be understood as a history of school closure, amalgamation, and consolidation of schools. Typically, historical and geographical arguments have converged in debates about whether or not to close small community schools, which are positioned as the victims of the march of time and reconfiguration of space. In this paper, we analyse the archetypical positioning of rural parents in the ‘school wars’ as emotional and irrational participants who want to turn back time and who fail or refuse to understand and accept what is alleged to be the inevitable transformation of rural space. We then analyse the political strategy and tactics engaged in by school governance officials and community agents in these struggles over the meaning and future of rural space. We argue that the confrontational politics that ensues do not support strong rural development conversations and that the unilateral search for what we call ‘trump cards’ to settle arguments with data and rational or emotional ‘appeals’ has led to ongoing tension in rural communities.

鳥取県における公立中学校の創設と昭和の町村合併による統廃合

1. Introduction After World War II, new junior high schools were established in many municipalities by the reform of the school education system. Later, at the time of implementing the municipal merger of Showa, many of these new junior high schools were consolidated. 2. Purpose This paper addresses the reorganization process of public junior high schools in the Tottori Prefecture. This paper considers that the local government finished the consolidation of junior high schools in the first half of the 1970s and organized a new junior high establishment status that were implemented in 1947. This paper aims to clarify the relationship between the municipal merger and the consolidation of junior high schools in Showa in each municipality since 1953. 3. Conclusion After World War II, the Tottori Prefecture had many municipalities compared to the expected number for its resident population, and many small new junior high schools were founded in 1947. In 1950, the Prefecture Board of Education established the "junior high school maintenance strengthening of the principle matters, " which included the policy of establishing joint junior high schools that are shared by several small municipalities. The "junior high school maintenance strengthening promotion committee" determined and encouraged the amalgamation for 22 junior high schools. However, after enforcing the Municipal Merger Promotion Law of 1953, small-scale municipalities were themselves amalgamated as a result of a recommendation based on a merger plan encouraging prefecture governments. There was little relationship between the recommended municipal areas and the catchment area of joint junior high schools, and recommendations regarding municipal mergers were prioritized. Therefore, the "Five-Year School Reorganization Plan" of 1954 proposed the junior high school reorganization policies that were considered the future municipal mergers. Of the 36 municipalities that negotiated the merger agreement at the time of merging of Showa, 21 municipalities promoted the amalgamation of junior high schools in the first half of the 1970s, became each town 1 junior high school. The result of the municipal merger of Showa had a major impact on the timing and scope of the reorganization of junior high schools. In particular, nine municipalities that wrote amalgamation of the future in merger agreement amalgamated junior high school of all municipalities during 1956-1964, became each town 1 junior high school. In this way, the towns and villages section became the basically format of each municipality 1 junior high school that was restructured school by the municipal merger. At that time, the Tottori Prefectural Board of Education urged the amalgamation of different schools into one school that can be shared by more than one municipality. A consolidation of junior high schools was completed in the early stages of the 1970s. Since then, the operation of junior high schools has been stable for over 40 years.

Intention of using school buses taking advantage of school elimination and consolidation

2015年1月に約60年ぶりに小中学校の統廃合に関する手引きの改定案が作成された．その中で，スクールバスの運行が前提となる内容が記載されており，今後はスクールバスの重要性が高まることが考えられる．特に中山間地域において，少子高齢化の影響もあり小中学校の統廃合が進行することが予想される．しかし，元来からバス利用の少ない地域では，地域のモビリティとしてスクールバスが定着しない可能性が考えられる．そこで本調査報告では，用途を限定しないスクールバス運行によって，居住者が抱えているモビリティに対する不安を軽減する可能性等を定量的に分析した．調査・分析の結果，1)子供の通学は世帯の児童有無に関わらず，地域共通の課題として認識されていること，2)少ない需要でもまとめて運行することにより，居住者のモビリティに対する不安が軽減する可能性が示唆されたこと，などが明らかとなった．

The Short-Term Effects of School Consolidation on Student Achievement: Evidence of Disruption?

We exploit variation stemming from school consolidations in Denmark from 2010-2011 to analyze the impact on student achievement as measured by test scores. For each student we observe enrollment and test scores one year prior to school consolidation and up to four years after. We find that school consolidation has adverse effects on achievement in the short run and that these effects are most pronounced for students exposed to school closings. Furthermore, students initially enrolled in small schools experience the most detrimental effects. The effects appear to weaken over time, suggesting that part of the effect is due to disruption.

Public School Consolidation: A Partial Observability Spatial Bivariate Probit Approach

Summary A pair of municipalities may consolidate services if they are contiguous. Traditional estimation methods assume that each voting process is independent. Instead we propose a new estimation procedure that allows the probability of consolidation to be influenced by neighbouring decisions. We extend a model of local interaction by allowing consolidation effort of neighbours to be either strategic substitutes or strategic complements. We disentangle direct effects arising from a change in one's own characteristics from indirect or spillover effects associated with a change in the other municipalities’ characteristics. Results reveal that the endogenous peer effect coming from neighbours is a primary determinant of willingness to consolidate.