"One consequence of consolidation is that power was transferred from parents – from the community, from the people who ran the district schools (often they even built them with their own labour), who supervised the hiring and firing, etc. – power was transferred from them to credential outsiders, to the state education department and to some extent the federal Department of Education."

Even if one keeps the existing structures in place, consolidation of schools leads to less parental involvement and a dilution of their power, as where there used to two or more boards, PTA's etc, there will now only be one.

I don't know who Bill Kauffman is, or what he does, but he finished the interview with another comment that I can relate to: "So many of our political decisions are made by people who don’t know us, who know nothing of local conditions".