The Current Conditions, Problems And Trends Of Consolidation Of Rural Schools In America

Rural schools consolidation of the United States began in the mid-19th century, this reform has continued more than one hundred years. It is a significant measure of rural education reform in the U.S., which directly affects the level of American education, the overall quality of the U.S. population and American social development. So the merging of rural schools has always been the focus of American education policy makers and the education researchers. The consolidation of rural schools is designed to integrate educational resources fully, improve the quality of education, and achieve scale economies of educational development. Because of the political system of the decentralization of authority, state-related school policies and the implementation of the consolidation are also diverse, therefore the complexity of the study of consolidation of American rural schools increased. At present China is carrying through the important task of adjusting the layout of rural schools and making use of educational resources in a more scientific and rational way to improve educational quality in rural schools. The author hopes that we can get enlightened about the current problems we met about the layout adjustment of rural schools at this stage through the in-depth and comprehensive study of the consolidation issue of the rural schools in United States.This paper is divided into five sections:The first part, the history of the consolidation of the United States rural schools includes exploratory phase , phase of vigorous development and stage of rational development and the necessity of consolidation..The second part, the status quo of the United States combined development of rural schools introduces the standards of the consolidation , policies and regulations of consolidation, fund guarantee for the consolidation and the guarantee of teacher resources of consolidation.The third part, the arguable problems that existed during the consolidation of the United States rural schools, including transportation of students, education expenses of schools, academic achievement of students, community identity and community culture, campus security and the dropout rate.The forth part, the alternative solutions of the current consolidation process of the United States rural schools. In order to ensure the education fair and retain small schools appropriately, the use of shared services and long-distance education and other means also ensure students in remote areas a better education.Rural schools in the United States combined with the following development trends: follow the objective law of the development of rural education; provide adequate material security for the development of rural schools; to ensure the fairness of the development of education in rural areas.