Regionalization in Massachusetts drove small towns like Dalton and Cummington to ditch our old high schools and consolidate.

Regionalization made it possible for small town kids to attend larger schools with a wider range of teachers and more sophisticated facilities and resources.

But it also struck a blow to the New England small town’s integrity and tradition of home rule. By the early 1970s, with significant cajoling and financial incentives by the state, all of Massachusetts had been regionalized.

On the one hand, we got bigger and better resources and greater fairness for all. On the other, we got teachers forced to teach to tests and towns with increasingly limited say over our educational choices and planning.

Recently, the Gazette penned an editorial arguing that Central Berkshire Regional School District based in Dalton allow Cummington to withdraw from the district and not be held responsible for paying for a new high school our town will barely use.

The fact that Cummington and CBRSD find themselves in such a tangle reflects state policy that has become unsustainable for municipalities. The rural education system is in financial crisis. Transportation is a nightmare. Changing demographics coupled with rising costs lead districts to close one local elementary school after another. When schools need replacing, the debt required is astronomical.

When CBRSD closed Cummington’s elementary school four years ago, I saw a district driven by cruel and calculated financial imperatives. Now, I see it as a much larger problem — the failure of regionalization for rural western Massachusetts.

Can the state be allowed to continue imposing education funding requirements on our towns — both operational and capital — that inevitably lead to consolidation and municipal indebtedness at levels our already strained local economies cannot bear? The state pushed us toward regionalization over 50 years ago. Now, the state needs to help us move toward whatever public education model needs to come next.

I support the leadership of Sen. Adam Hinds, and the many others who are working to help the state redress these significant issues for our towns and our children’s future.

Joshua Wachtel

Cummington