School consolidations not blanket solution |
On Board Online • Opinion • December 22, 2008
By James Mazgajewski
The call for school consolidations has heated up again across the country as well as here in New York State. Certainly we should be having this conversation, particular during these difficult financial times.
When very small school districts are involved and other conditions are right, governmental consolidations can save money and even improve services. But we should be skeptical over whether this is a statewide solution or not. It is up to school officials to ensure that state and local government leaders do not chase pots of gold but, instead, make decisions based on research.
Unfortunately, some proponents of consolidation paint with a broad brush. One is Lou Gerstner, former chief executive and chairman of IBM, who has long been active on public education issues. In a recent op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal, he suggested the end of local districts across the country. He claimed that it would improve education and save billions.
It has always been interesting that respected, successful and intelligent people such as Gerstner buy into the assumption that combining schools is fiscally and academically sound as a general rule. These same people would never make such an ill-informed decision in their professional lives. In the realm of public policy, however, individuals and groups often make bold assertions with hardly a thought of the validity of the claim, its practicality or its consequences.
On the other end of the spectrum we have individuals and groups who resist consolidation even when there is evidence that it would yield educational improvement and savings. For example, some may oppose a money-saving consolidation because they want to keep their current mascot or a shorter bus ride for their children.
We can feel proud of the approach taken by two statewide commissions, the New York State Commission on Property Tax Relief and the New York State Commission of Local Government Efficiency and Competitiveness. Members of these commissions took the time to listen to testimony from stakeholders including school officials and school board members (Editor’s note: See stories, pages 3 and 6). They also reviewed current research before making their respective recommendations concerning school district consolidation.
Both commissions cited two studies specifically looking at school district consolidation in New York State. Both of these studies said savings are significant school districts with enrollments of well under 1,000 students.
According to the the Broome-Tioga BOCES Study conducted by the nonpartisan Center for Government Research, “Research clearly shows that cost efficiencies are highest when mergers occur between districts in the 750 student range or less, and the savings drop off rapidly once districts reach the range of 1,000 to 1,500 students.”
The other study, by the Center for Policy Research of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, had this to say:
Overall, consolidation is likely to lower the costs of two 300-pupil districts by over 20 percent, to lower the costs of two 900-pupil districts by 7 to 9 percent, and to have little, if any impact on the costs of two 1,500-pupil districts. State aid to cover the adjustment costs to consolidation appears to be warranted, but only in relatively small districts.
The authors of the Maxwell School study added: “We find no support for the use of state tax dollars to encourage consolidation among districts with 1,500 or more pupils. Overall, our results point toward a state program to encourage consolidation among small, rural school districts, but to eliminate other financial incentives for consolidation.”
Schools should do whatever is possible to keep costs contained. Combining school districts can work, sometimes. What must happen now, however, is that decisions should be based on reason and a through understanding of the facts rather than the “knee jerk” public policy reactions that can occur in a time of crisis.
Forced mergers are a bad idea. Local communities should make merger decisions. The Tax Relief commission, while recommending mergers of districts under 1,000 students, tempered its recommendation by suggesting exceptions be made for a variety of reasons, such as lack of geographic feasibility.
There are many ways for districts to lower costs without going through the turmoil of a full-fledged merger. As NYSSBA’s Task Force on Maximizing Resources noted in its recent report, there are many opportunities for functional consolidation through shared services.
James Mazgajewski is superintendent of the Cheek-towaga-Sloan school district, which has 1600 K-12 students.