History and Major Accomplishments
Rural Community Alliance started as a grass-roots movement organized to resist massive consolidating and closing of rural schools in Arkansas. These small schools are among the most academically and fiscally efficient in the state in addition to being the cultural centers and economic engines of their communities. However, because they are poor and rural with many of them having high concentrations of minority students, many policy makers, members of the education bureaucracy, and business leaders persist in seeing them as a liability. Thus it requires continual vigilance to resist efforts on many fronts to close small, rural schools. Additionally, since our schools are located in communities in economic and cultural decline, we must also work to revitalize our communities and make them vibrant economic and cultural centers that will be desirable places for people to live, work, and go to school.
During its three years of existence, ACRE has been able to make a state-wide impact on the consolidation issue. We successfully reduced to 350 a proposal for a K-12 minimum enrollment number of 1500, saving over 200 rural districts. Subsequently, we have defeated repeated attempts to raise the minimum enrollment number and also have defeated a county-wide schools proposal. With our allies, we have also been able to improve conditions for schools located in high-poverty rural areas. From 2003-2005 we were able to get pre-school expanded in high-poverty areas, a strong distance learning measure, considerably more money for alternative learning environments in high-poverty communities and some incentives for teachers to teach in those communities, and the formation of Education Renewal Zones to help poor rural schools in academic distress improve performance. In 2006-2007 we got more time for schools on fiscal distress to improve their finances, further expansion of pre-school, more money in the funding formula, and additional money for programs to improve academic performance in high-poverty schools.
We have managed these accomplishments with the following actions:
- Three state-wide rallies at the Capitol steps attended by a total of about 5,000 community members; and numerous local and regional rallies throughout the state;
- Packets explaining education issues, showing individual citizens how to voice their opinions, and educating the public about the latest research proving small schools to be effective in nurturing and educating children and research showing the importance of schools to sustaining viable communities;
- A petition drive and letter-writing campaign, newsletters, regular e-mail updates. and brochures which show the benefits and successes of small and rural schools.
- A state-wide coalition, which we spearheaded, that brought together many diverse groups whose interest was preserving local control and community schools: Save Our Schools, Arkansans for Excellence in Education, Arkansas Communities Uniting for Results in Education, the Arkansas African-American Administrators Association; the American Family Association of Arkansas, and the Arkansas Rural Education Association;
- Working with local groups such as Quorum Courts (county governing boards), city councils, small-town Chambers of Commerce, Farm Bureau chapters, and Cattlemen’s Association chapters to pass resolutions against school closures;
- Academic studies which show the impact of closure of majority African-American schools on African-American school leadership, school board membership, and communities.
- Regional and state-wide meetings where rural people from the Delta to the Ozark Mountains and everywhere in between can come together to share common concerns and together address issues that affect them all. Through their association at these meetings, people of diverse ethnic, racial, and cultural backgrounds have found common ground and worked together for common goals.