Tell most people that you are interested in the issue of school consolidation, and their first assumption is likely to be that this issue has already been played out. School

consolidation, which has been encouraged through state and national policies throughout the 20th century, is viewed as being a ‘done deal’. Certainly, consolidation in the post-WWII period has reduced the number of schools in the United States from 185,000 in 1945 (Nelson, 1985) to 62,000 in 1990 (Mitchell, 2000). School consolidation has been pursued generally at the state policy level, through a set of policies favoring large schools over small schools both economically and otherwise.

While consolidation has been happening across the United States for years, the issue of small versus large schools is still very current, especially in two very distinct settings.

First, many small rural schools are fighting to keep local control and location of schools (for examples, see the Clearinghouse on Rural Education and Small Schools [http://www.ael.org/eric]). Second, some urban neighborhoods are pushing to establish small community schools in the face of the problems that occur in large urban schools (for instance, see the Small Schools Coalition in the Chicago Public Schools [http://www.smallschools.org].)

In this paper, I will discuss the historical and political economy contexts of school consolidation, outline the current school consolidation issues, and then analyze school consolidation from the perspective of the 3-P Model, discussed in more detail below.

Ver documento completo