Commentary: Rural School Closures - Punishment for Crimes Never Committed

Commentary: Rural School Closures - Punishment for Crimes Never Committed

Our public schools are closing, and these closures hurt rural children and rural communities. As a rural education researcher, I study school closures—the permanent kind—and, right now, I am flooded with requests for help. Every year, hundreds of thousands of children are displaced when their schools are permanently shuttered. After a brief slowing during the pandemic, closure numbers are again on the rise. Right now, school boards across the co…