Charter Schools and the Reconfiguring of the Rural School-Community Connection

Among educational reforms in the United States over the last two decades, the charter school movement has emblemised policies promoting school choice. While proponents point to the potential for educational innovation and the expansion of educational opportunities for students, charter school expansion has also created significant debate and controversy. In this chapter, we examine the local meaning-making around the formation of four rural charter schools that originated as a result of closure or consolidation. Using data from local key informant interviews in each of the school communities, we investigate the circumstances leading to the formation of these rural charter schools and explore how their creation reconfigured the discursive framing of community and school-community relations. We sought to understand the ways in which stakeholders in rural communities (teachers, community members, administrators, and parents) understand and experience the establishment and operation of the charter school within their community as intended replacements of traditional schools that were closed. The stories told—of four rural school closures, consolidations, and re-openings—underline the complexity of the relationship between a rural school and its community.