Before the Great Depression the situation was already changing. School districts were consolidated, educational districts enlarged, and more and more power was granted to professional educators. After the depression, when the public joined the intellectuals in an unbridled faith in the virtues of government, and especially of central government, the decline of the one-room school and the local school board became a rout. Power shifted rapidly from the local community to broader entities—the city, the county, the state, and more recently, the federal government.
