Research consistently reveals that school consolidation hurts communities. Here are the results from remarkably thorough research in Arkansas, as well as conclusions from an extensive literature review of rural school research.

A previous post on this site, Do Schools Build Community?, highlighted research results indicating that schools have a positive impact on small communities. That was the first of a series of posts that will share research findings that show that merging schools damages communities. There is an endless supply of research results showing the negative outcomes that follow school mergers.

First we have a remarkably robust study with rigorous methodology focused on extensive school consolidation in Arkansas in 2003. The authors located over 70 communities affected by consolidation, and paired them with another 70 demographically and economically similar communities that did not experience a school merger.

Here is their description of their research: “In this paper, we estimate the impact of school district consolidation on rural communities using a novel policy change in Arkansas. Rural schools are not only educating students; they are a source of economic activity, local identity, culture, and civic engagement. We argue that when districts are forced to consolidate, it signals the removal of residential amenities leading to loss of population and housing values.”(1)

The results of this research on more than 70 communities: “We find that consolidation decreases town population, community schools, and property values. We also find some evidence that communities with larger racial minority populations may be disproportionately affected by this reform. Taken together, these results indicate that local communities value local institutions in rural settings.” And then the final conclusion: “Taken together, these results indicate that residents of rural communities value local governance of public education, and when faced with the potential loss of local responsiveness, ‘vote with their feet.’”(1).

An earlier extensive literature review replicates and expands on these findings. Here are a couple of clips. “Faith Dunne points out that small classrooms with extensive community support and high teacher expectations and rapport have always been called for in the national literature on school reform. However, although her studies have found such attributes to be typical in rural schools, school administrators bent on consolidation during the past several decades have conveniently overlooked these “pluses” in their efforts to centralize school curricula and staffing patterns.” (1) (p134) And there really isn’t a downside to retaining small local schools, Instead of “a call for further consolidation, Barker argues that emerging educational technology can adequately meet curricular needs of smaller schools, thus combining the advantages of smallness with important breadth in curriculum possibilities.” (p135)

The issue is simple and well researched. Smaller, local schools are best for communities.