When Mike Huckabee was the Arkansas governor in 2004, he wanted government to be more efficient. He signed a law to shut down tiny school districts with fewer than 350 students.
Over the next decade, 85 school districts merged with others, triggering the closure of 105 schools, most of them high schools.
Families and teachers protested. Some students had bus rides so long that they couldn’t participate in sports and other after-school activities. A 2022 study found that the mergers had accelerated depopulation in rural communities and depressed property values; that same year another study found almost no academic gains…