Many industrial arts, technology education, and now technology and engineering education leaders have made their mark on the technology and engineering teaching profession. Their legacy is something that members of the profession enjoy and have a responsibility to continue and build upon. This is the sixteenth in a series of articles entitled…

The size of schools and districts in which they are located has become a salient policy issue in recent years. While consolidation of school districts and expanding high school size were in vogue from the 1960s until recently, funding agencies are now sponsoring projects to reduce school size under the assumption that smaller schools will lead to…

The author discusses secondary vocational education and the small school districts of the future, which he believes can provide adequate vocational education opportunities by cooperating with other districts through their Cooperative Educational Service Agency. (Author/CH)

Gives 1986 National Rural and Small Schools Consortium Conference definitions for rural school district, small school district, and remote/isolated school, providing common terms for communicating with legislators, federal/state policymakers, and researchers. Emphasizes "ruralness" as a continuum affected by the interaction of…

Presents some of the arguments and reviews the research on small school districts. Based on experiences in Indiana, contends that consolidated school superiority is exaggerated. With proper planning and innovation, small schools can effectively share human, material, and financial resources. Eighteen references are provided. (MLF)

Issues in economies of scale and optimal school size are discussed in this paper, which seeks to explain the curvilinear nature of the educational cost curve as a function of "transaction costs" and to establish "optimal size" as a relative concept. Based on the argument that educational consolidation has facilitated diseconomies of scale, the…

In this interview, John Forte, Fairfax County (Virginia) Public Schools' assistant superintendent for general services, explains how he uses his training and professional experience to oversee a smoothly running operation in one of the nation's largest school districts. His real challenge is providing extra support to students in low-income areas.…

In 2006, President Bush proposed the America's Opportunity Scholarships for Kids initiative in his budget request for the Department of Education. The plan would make $100 million available in competitive grant awards to provide scholarships to low income students in persistently failing public schools. Only low-income students attending public…

An interview with Steven Bingler, President of Concordia, Inc., a research and planning firm, and Concordia Architects, an architectural design firm, reveals his views on planning a learning community in educational facilities. He addresses what tools to use to facilitate the group process for planning, discusses how school districts save money…

Arguments in favor of school consolidation often focus on increased efficiency and economies of scale. However, as school size increases, parental involvement decreases. Family effects account for 34-105 times as much variation in achievement as school inputs. Consolidation may be economically viable, but distancing parents from schools may have a…

School reformers have been calling for reductions in the size of large urban districts. A statutory approach to devolution is available in many states: citizens petition the appropriate government authority for district reorganization, or detachment, from the school district in which they are located. Illinois law and court decisions are used to…

This paper discusses "constructions" of school size in West Virginia and Ohio and related issues concerned with school and school district consolidation, and the role of education, politics, and globalization. "School size" is not the same as enrollment; grade span and level are important in understandings of size.…

While education is an important legal function of state government, a major portion of school facility funding is still at the local level, and the quality of school buildings varies across most states. This paper addresses how rural school facilities are financed. It provides an overview of school facilities funding in the United States as…

Schools and districts with large number of economically disadvantaged students are likely to have higher average test scores if both are smaller. Larger school sizes, up to a reasonable limit, improve average test scores in affluent communities. Achievement among larger schools in larger districts shows the strongest relationship with…

Throughout Texas, enrollments in suburban school districts have been rising, and in some instances, the increases have been substantial. Causes of this demographic trend are multifaceted, but in most instances they are an intricate mix of state population growth and urban flight. Rapidly growing suburban districts, like all Texas districts,…