Limited research has been conducted on Catholic school viability (James, Tichy, Collins, & Schwob, 2008; Lundy, 1999) and Catholic school systems (Goldschmidt, O'Keefe, & Walsh, 2004). But no research studies have investigated the viability of the consolidated Catholic school system (DeFiore, Convey, & Schuttloffel, 2009). This study investigates…

As Duncomb and Yinger (2001) have stated, "School consolidation represents the most dramatic change in education governance and management in the United States in the twentieth century. Over 100,000 school districts have been eliminated through consolidation since 1938, a drop of almost 90 percent (NCES 1999, Table 90). This longstanding…

School consolidation in rural districts has been ongoing since the 1800s. Although many district personnel tout economic inefficiency as a reason for consolidation to occur, micropolitics among school board members, parents, and the business community often drive the consolidation process. This article presents a qualitative case study of Webster…

Over the last decade, HEIs (higher education institutions) around the world have undergone transformation for a number of reasons, including mergers and acquisitions. The reasons for this vary from remaining competitive in an ever-increasingly competitive academic environment to being forced to do so. With deeply ingrained traditions, long tenures…

In the mid-1960s, a bitter dispute broke out between parents in the Atlee-Jenner School District in Southern Alberta Canada, and the Medicine Hat School Board over the bussing of children for the first time to a new school a long distance away. The move was precipitated by the consolidation of several smaller school districts and the subsequent…

It is no accident that the staff at Fieldale-Collinsville Middle School adopted a central tenet of "Breaking Ranks in the Middle"--to banish anonymity by creating a personalized learning environment for all of its students. The school was created six years ago when the four middle schools in Henry County, VA, were consolidated into two…

The practice of public school consolidation has a long history in the United States. School consolidation involves several stakeholders and is tied to a community's identity. Educational leaders are faced with tough dilemmas among responding to student needs, meeting fiduciary responsibilities to constituencies, and addressing adult concerns about…

High-poverty schools in rural areas and small towns are under attack from state policy makers who want to consolidate these schools in order to save money. In addition to calls for consolidation, rural schools also are threatened by unfair and inadequate funding formulas.

A group of teachers at Clifford Smart Middle School in Michigan's Walled Lake Consolidated School District have broken free from traditional grading in order to embrace a more meaningful grading practice. Using standards-based grading practices, they believe their grading now accurately communicates to students and parents the student's mastery…

For decades, people questioned the sense of having two school districts, each with its own superintendent, central office and high school, operating in the same small town of The Dalles on the banks of the Columbia River in north-central Oregon. But election campaigns to consolidate repeatedly failed because each community had strong emotional…

This case study focuses on a four-district collaborative that shared services for more than 15 years in an effort to retain rural schools and thereby to preserve community identity. With population losses in the four districts and suburbanization in the largest, the collaborative made extensive use of distance education in addition to itinerant…

This policy brief reviews the arguments for and against school district consolidation and the research regarding consolidation effects, with data specific to school districts in Illinois. A tiered approach to studying consolidation potential is presented as a viable option for policymakers to consider. The following topics are presented: (1)…

Between 1970 and 1990 enrolment in Newfoundland and Labrador schools dropped by 22 percent. The first wave of major educational reform (1990 to 2000) saw massive reductions in public school expenditures and the reduction of more than 1650 teachers. Facing continued enrolment loss and a large current account deficit, in 2004, government again…

Developmental education courses have become a standard in community colleges in the United States. An overwhelming majority of these public two-year schools offer developmental courses to a wide array of students. At the same time, developmental programs are under a constant barrage of attacks from a variety of stakeholder organizations that view…

An important element in considering school finance policies is that households are not passive but instead respond to policies. Household behavior is especially important in considering how households affect the spatial structure of metropolitan areas where different jurisdictions incorporate bundles of advantages and disadvantages. This paper…