ABSTRACT
The most successfully implemented educational policy of the past fifty years has been the consolidation of rural schools and school districts. One-room, multi-graded elementary schools have been eliminated in favor of larger, many-roomed, age-graded schools. Small rural high schools have been closed down, and new, centrally located schools built to which most students are bused. Small school districts have merged with neighboring ones and larger schools have been built within the new district. The chapter reviews the evidence and discusses consolidation's popularity even in the absence of solid and reliable supporting evidence. The evidence focuses primarily on school size and its relationship to cost and quality. It is not at all clear that the reorganization has brought the economy, efficiency, and equality so desired. Symbols of modernization such as new schools, sophisticated equipment, and more credentialed teachers were believed to be important in and of them.
