Good government vs. self-government: Educational control in rural America

From a professional educator’s point of view, the Clinch school has no reason to exist. Tucked away in a beautiful mountain valley in Hawkins County, Tennessee, this 161-pupil, 12-grade school has only its setting to commend it. Elementary students in Clinch score well below the national average in reading; the high school students have trouble passing the Tennessee basic skills proficiency tests required for graduation. The facilities are dreadful; the WPA-vintage brick building is in severe disrepair, with broken windows and dirty, flaking classroom walls. The curriculum is drastically limited; only one science course is offered, and Algebra I is the most advanced math course available. Teachers do not flock to Clinch. In fact, it has the reputation of being the professional dumping ground of Hawkins County.

Twenty-eight miles away, down the twisting mountain road that most Clinch residents travel daily to work, is Rogersville, the county seat. Rogersville is the home of Cherokee High School, a spanking new building on a 70-acre campus, beautifully appointed from the greenhouse windows in the foyer to the 400-seat theater and the well-equipped science labs. Clinch children are welcome to enroll at Cherokee without additional charge, since both schools are part of the same county school system. Cherokee has plenty of room and offers plenty of options to the children of Clinch. But, of the 50 high school students in Clinch Valley, only the five who consider themselves college-bound go “over the mountain” to Rogersville.

Not only do the parents of Clinch Valley prefer their own school, but they have been willing to declare political war to protect it. The continuing existence of the Clinch school is the result of a hard fought battle waged by the residents against the county school board. The threatened closing of the Clinch school brought together valley natives and newcomers (groups that normally regard each other at best with mild skepticism) in an impressive show of solidarity on behalf of this  underequipped, understaffed little mountain school.