Today, some 22,400 rural schools represent 16.7 percent of this country's public school students, more than a third of public schools, and the majority of its districts. Parents in five small Colorado communities grew so concerned about all this that they got permission to convert their elementary schools into a network of five public charter schools, most serving fewer than 50 children. And we all want to return to them some measure of value beyond meeting educational objectives. Townspeople spent thousands of hours, for example, restoring the historic school building in Marble, an old quarry town, for the 21 students in kindergarten through grade seven. Place in the curriculum connects kids to who they are and why they need to learn.
Civic life is inseparable from the work of schools, and vice versa.
Two cultures often meet in school, and kids need to succeed in both. School and civic policies can help or harm student learning. Stories about people make powerful and authentic documentation of school change.