The decision to close schools, reorganize, or consolidate districts is perhaps the most troubling and painful challenge a community can face (Flowers, 2010). The purpose of this study was to explore and provide a better understanding of the school district whole-grade sharing, reorganization, and/or consolidation phenomenon as seen through the…

District consolidation is a highly emotional process. One key to success is sticking to the facts. In Iowa, school districts facing financial difficulties or enrollment concerns do not have to move directly to consolidation. In many cases, districts begin by developing sharing agreements. These sharing agreements may start with simple sharing of…

This document is a collection of five reports on school restructuring in Iowa from 1989 to 1993. The first report summarizes the restructuring activities in Iowa school districts during 1989, addresses problems that developed during the year, and chronicles future restructuring events. It also gives a historical perspective on school restructuring…

Reviews David Reynolds'"There Goes the Neighborhood," which examined school consolidation and community based schooling and highlighted Delaware County, Iowa, around 1910-30. Reynolds characterizes school consolidation as expressing the enduring modern tension between what is good for a community and what is good for society. (Contains…

Though many maintain that current standards-based school reform is unprecedented, an educational reform effort begun nearly a century ago set standards for improving rural midwestern schools. Begun during the tumultuous Progressive Era, the standard-school initiative emerged from a larger concern for the quality of American rural life. A…

An overview of the history of rural school consolidation in north central Iowa reveals that by 1994, 9 of the 10 high schools in towns of less than 500 in 1940 had closed, and 3 of the 5 high schools in towns with populations of 500-999 had closed. However, all three towns with populations over 1,000 in 1940 had high schools in 1993-94. This…

This paper provides a history of early public schools in two Iowa townships. Townships are six by six mile areas of land that were established as the result of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. The civil townships of Bennington and Cedar Falls were part of 17 townships located in Black Hawk County, Iowa. The Northwest Ordinance specified that the…

From 1912 to 1921, Iowa was the center of national attention as state and local education leaders attempted to implement a new model of rural education. This model was part of the Country Life Movement, whose proponents sought to create a more modern future for farm families, an alternative form of rural community that combined the advantages of…

Rural school consolidation in Iowa in the early 20th century was not simply an attempt at educational reform, but was also an attempt to transform the rural social geography of the region. Since consolidation of corporate power had resulted in economic progress in the cities, it was thought that re-centering rural life around country towns could…

Political organization is an alternative to the so-called inevitability of losing one's rural school or one's small community; People United for Rural Education (P.U.R.E.), organized to promote the survival of rural schools and the concept of rural as a credible way of life, has been an effective political organization. The reversal of urban…

Questions about effects of consolidation on Iowa's small schools can be answered through historical review and current assessment of nine small districts. By 1966, Iowa's 1912 School Consolidation Law and subsequent legislation had reduced 4,500 taxing units to 455, with each district offering K-12 programs to a total enrollment of at least 300…

This volume attempts to document ways in which several communities have dealt with the problems of declining school enrollments. Each case study outlines some type of public participation in the task of adjusting to population changes and fiscal pressures. The first chapter supplies an introductory overview of issues related to declining…

Eleven Iowa towns in 11 counties and 11 Area Education Agencies (AEAs), having both elementary and high schools in 1960, were chosen via a rural-urban continuum to ascertain evidence of creativity in providing community services after losing the high school between 1960 and 1980. The study compared: community services in 1955-56 and 1980-81 (a…

The second national conference on consolidation of rural schools and transportation of pupils was called by the United States Commissioner of Education and held at Cleveland, Ohio, February 26, 1923. Twenty-three States were represented. Those in attendance included State commissioners of education, rural-school workers from State departments of…