In Defense of Iowa’s Small Schools

I am proud to admit that I graduated from a small Iowa school district with twenty-seven students in my class.  As a student I filled my day up with subjects that I needed to have to get me into college.  There were the extra classes that I would have wanted to take, but my schedule did not allow it.  Those who were not on the college track had enough classes to keep their interests also, but they were often encouraged to consider the cirriculum that the college bound were taking.

Students in my small school did not slip through the cracks and were encouraged to push themselves.  They weren’t put into categories because of performance or post secondary plans; they were a name and not a number.  (And good luck with sneaking outside to smoke because teachers knew exactly who was supposed to be where.)  Also, parents and teachers knew each other and conversation between the two was easy.

I had a unique opportunity to be involved with four sports, band, music, drama, the yearbook and school paper.   I didn’t get to do all of these things because I was so talented.  I was mediocre at best, but the lack of huge numbers of competition allowed me a chance to be a part of a lot of things I never could have in a large school.  It kept me busy and it kept me out of trouble.

The school wasn’t just the school, but it was the community.  The students and teachers I saw every day were the same people I saw in the grocery store, went to church with, and sat by at basketball games.  It seemed like there was never a good opportunity to misbehave.  It was more than just academics, it was a sense of belonging.  The main street was the hub of social events after school functions, especially a trip to Des Moines for a state tournament appearance where our small school usually had more supporters show up than any of the big schools.

I’ll admit that I have an emotional argument for the rural schools, but there is also logical and statistical proof to what I have realized all along.  What I described about small schools relates to stronger student performance and lower drop-out rate than the larger ones. 

Ryan Frederick, an activist in support of rural schools, has a blog in which he writes in opposition to Senator Matt McCoy, Representative Wayne Ford, and HF 761 for school consolidations.  He highlights how the largest and most expensive school districts are also the ones with the higest drop-out rate.  In another blog entry Ryan points out how smaller schools outperform in the areas that larger schools underperform.  He also attacks the argument that consolidating schools would save the state money.  He gives West Virginia’s statistics as an example; a state that has been aggressively closing schools for consolidation since 1990.  It has actually cost them more money in building costs and salaries, the promised advanced courses never materialized or were cancelled, and there were more students on buses and they were on them for longer than state guidelines.

It looks like Iowa Democrats just want to end up spending more on schools while achieving less.  School consolidation does not make any sense to me performance wise or financially.  Could it be that one of the real reasons closing the small schools seems so appealing to the liberal agenda is that it is some of these schools who still have teachers who promote the ideals of the founding fathers and maybe say an occasional prayer in front of a third grade class before they go to lunch?