Yet again, a small local school has been closed down. Increasingly civil servants are looking at a education with their market-economist hats firmly on, doing the sums and counting the pounds. Lanreath Church of England School, it has been decided, is not "educationally viable", a phrase that echoes the classic Michael Douglas film Falling Down. This school is not failing academically, and is at the heart of a newly rejuvenated village community, a community that has managed to keep its shop and pub and a true Cornish atmosphere. Local people that are obviously devastated by the loss. So why is it closing? Because the "independent adjudicator", Dr Peter Matthews, thinks that value for money of the school will remain an issue. Families that currently walk their children to school will now be forced to drive them to schools some miles away, putting more traffic on the region's roads and adding to pollution. But it is not just the children and the families that will suffer. The whole region, and indeed the whole country are feeling the brunt of austere education policies. Small schools with family environments in close-knit communities have a habit of producing nice kids. That is not a scientifically proven fact and it is not something an economist can tell from the screen of the calculator. There is more to education than just getting as many kids through the classroom door as possible, like so many passengers being shunted through an airport terminal. Politicians and parents alike need to look beyond the bottom line, beyond the statistics and performance targets, beyond digitized classroom, and at the things which hold real value, which can not  so easily be measured. Larger, more impersonal suburban schools tend to produce more, chavs, more alienated, disaffected children, and pointless, worthless, soul-less adults. Let's stop the economists ruining are country! Consolidation destroys communities. More info from the BBC and also the National Association for Small Schools.   del.icio.us tags: schools, rural, village, close, education, policy, blairs, britain