Sustainable Small Schools: A Handbook for Rural Communities.

This book aims to help parents, community members, and educators find resources, design school options, and take action together to improve small rural schools in ways that meet community and student needs. Chapter 1 discusses the virtues of smallness, outlines basic assumptions about the role and nature of good education, examines the school-community relationship and the need to reestablish parent and community involvement, and underscores the ability of citizens to be educational change agents. Chapter 2 discusses the aims and history of mass schooling in industrial society; social and political forces driving school consolidation; ways to address the "hard" issues of consolidation (course offerings, costs, achievement); and aspects of state policy making. This chapter also lists 29 key studies and literature reviews about school size. Chapter 3 provides examples of strategies to make the rural community the focus of curricula, including community study, the Foxfire approach, and school involvement in local economic development. Chapter 4 describes innovative tactics for organizing rural schools, including the 4-day week, mixed-age (or multigrade) classrooms, and use of electronic technology. Chapter 5 provides strategic and tactical tips for making change happen. Chapter 6 is an annotated bibliography and resource list in eight sections: partnerships between schools and families or communities, coalition building, needs assessment, research on consolidation and school size, innovations featured in the book, rural resources from regional educational laboratories, and tools for finding information. Includes an index. (SV)