A member of the Bread Loaf Rural Teacher Network, a national organization of rural teachers interested in school reform, discusses the challenges that rural teachers face in creating criteria for evaluating student performance. Suggests that bringing teachers', students', and parents' voices into a community discussion about how to measure…

Describes how community members from Newburgh, New York, successfully battled against a school board proposal that called for expanding the town's high school to an enrollment of over 3,000 students. Rejects the notion that "bigger is better" and criticizes state funding formulas that create large schools by offering higher reimbursement…