ABSTRACT
Songs and stories about having to leave the mountains and/or wanting to come home are legion in Appalachia. The school consolidation forces and issues that frame the story of Little Kanawha are but the latest iteration of a story which has been unfolding for decades, a perception clearly understood by K. S. Consolidation efforts were historically initiated as moves toward improving cost effectiveness and equality of educational opportunity. Contemporary school consolidation issues typically revolve around the themes of instructional breadth and fiscal resources of declining rural places in districts increasingly controlled by state education departments and legislatures. The quick overview of contemporary national debates over rural school consolidation is part of almost any scholarly discussion involving American rural education trends. The closure and consolidation of one- and two-room rural schools was dramatic nationally between about 1910 and 1960, coming a bit later to Braxton County because of transportation problems associated with central Appalachia's terrain.
