The article considers the outcomes of a large scale experiment on rural school restructuring that took place in 18 of Russia.s regions. The obtained results provide convincing evidence that education centers and sociocultural complexes created in the course of the experiment have considerable advantages over traditional types of institutions. Further development of the sociocultural centers. network is hampered by the lack of a legislative base for their functioning, as well as by difficulties of co-ordination between various government bodies and different budgets.