Rural Matters

Current Fad Imperative: Data-Driven Decision Making. This imperative says that decisions about schooling should be informed by--well--data. Pretty smart, at least as far as it goes. So let’s look at some of the relevant data.

We’ll start with administrative costs, since that’s the stated rationale for this initiative.
According to Education Vital Signs 2006 produced by the American School Board Journal (click on “State of the States”), Maine spent $479 per pupil on school administration in 2001-02. That’s $34 less than Massachusetts and $32 less than New Hampshire. All other New England states spent as much or more than Maine on administration.

The Quimby article points out that Maine has smaller districts than any states except Vermont, South Dakota, North Dakota, Nebraska, and Montana. But all of these states except Vermont spend less per pupil on administration than Maine does. By contrast Quimby points to three states with large districts: Florida, Maryland, and Delaware—presumably as examples that large school districts exist. But if she is trying to use these states to make the case that bigger means more efficient, she got it wrong. Of these three, only Florida spends less per pupil on administration than does Maine. Maryland averages $568 per pupil and Delaware averages $547, both higher than Maine. Using the states Quimby has chosen for comparison, you might conclude that states with districts smaller than Maine typically spend less per pupil on administration than Maine, while those with larger districts typically spend more.

In addition, it should be pointed out that student achievement levels in Maine are high, generally well above national averages, and on par with other New England states. And, a report by the Education Trust shows that Maine has one of the smallest gaps in achievement levels between poor and non-poor students in the entire country. All this despite the fact that Maine is by far the poorest New England state. It has the region’s lowest per capita income and highest rates of student eligibility for the free and reduced lunch program.

The data suggests that Maine's schools, and the low-income students who attend them, are doing well in their small districts and are doing so while spending less on administration than their more prosperous neighbors.

NCLB Imperative: Research Based Programs. NCLB touts the importance of choosing educational programs based on their proven effectiveness. Yet, the Maine proposal also fails this imperative because research consistently shows little to no cost-savings from consolidation.

Part of the reason consolidation rarely yields significant savings is that larger more regional districts need more mid-level bureaucrats to manage new programs and address problems that arise with larger scale. Those programs tend to add costs and the bureaucrats that run them tend to replace the local superintendents that were eliminated in consolidation.

Another reason district consolidation rarely results in cost savings is that school consolidation almost always follows district consolidation in quick succession. The elimination of buildings in rural areas raises transportation costs, creates the need for assistant principals, and generally results in lower attendance and graduation rates. The Governor says his plan will not eliminate buildings, but there's little in it to stop the mega-districts from closing schools.

NCLB Critics’ Imperative: Importance of Non-Tested Subjects. Critics—as well as many supporters—of NCLB point out that academic subjects that are not tested by NCLB are getting short shrift in many schools. They insist that subjects such as history have much to teach and should be included in all schools' curriculum. Since an educated person should be able to use the tools of all the disciplines, let’s apply some historical scholarship to Baldacci’s proposal.

Contrary to the suggestion that because Baldacci’s proposal is “substantial” there’s also something innovative about it, there is nothing new or innovative about it at all. In fact, district and school consolidation is arguably the most widely implemented education “reform” in the nation’s history. The number of districts in the country has been reduced by over 85% and the number of schools by over 60% since 1930, even though the number of students has doubled during this same period. Despite all this consolidation, there’s been no evidence that it’s led to substantial improvement in student achievement. It does, however, mean that the average school board member now represents about 15 times more students than he or she did seventy-five years ago.

Further, it would behoove decision makers to take a look at education and equity outcomes in the states that have historically had the largest rural school districts. Those states, by no random coincidence, are located primarily in the South. They also have the longest histories of racial and class inequities, weak educational outcomes, and meager public support for education.

In most cases, regardless of region, the larger the school district, the more likely it is to be controlled by elites and by the population center of the district. After districts are consolidated, outlying communities have little political power to challenge the board. Access to school governance officials is decreased for everyone and especially for poor or unfavored families. And, population centers tend to make policies that benefit themselves even to the detriment of other communities and their children.

All these tendencies serve to undermine whatever supposed equity benefits occur through combining tax bases.

In the Quimby article, Jennings suggests that opposition to consolidation is primarily a selfish one: “Local school boards want to raise money for themselves and not share it with other school district.” It may be that in urban areas affluent suburban districts tend to be reluctant to merge their district and share their comparative wealth with poor adjacent cities.

But this little maxim doesn’t hold up in rural areas. Most rural districts that oppose consolidation are poorer than their neighbors that would take them over. Residents of smaller, poorer districts rightly fear that once the unit of the school board is gone, so are the governance mechanisms that protect their school, their community, and their kids.

“Progressive” Educators' Imperative: Critical Thinking. Critical thinking skills are widely hailed as essential intellectual, employment, and personal skills that are needed in the “new economy” as well as in a democratic society that depends on having an educated thoughtful citizenry capable of democratic participation and responsibility. It doesn’t take a genius to see that a proposal that is not based on data or research, is uninformed by historical perspective, relies on a hackneyed and failed educational idea, reduces citizen participation in and governance of a critical public institution, and often contributes to greater inequities for individual students hardly passes a critical review.

Yet a wholesale reduction in the number of districts in Maine is likely to do all these things. Maine will likely see few savings, a widening of the achievement gap, a gradual decline in educational outcomes, and widespread citizen and student disengagement from schooling,.

There are real questions about the best ways to fund schools and to extend opportunities to all kids, including the most vulnerable and those who live at the greatest distance from cities and towns. But what is needed is not more of the same old same old. Instead, students in Maine, and elsewhere, need solutions that make use of data and research, are rooted in a broad and informed perspective, and exercise both critical and creative thinking.