The push for school consolidation gets a push back

BY LEE BURNETT

[Portland Phoenix, May 2-8, 2003]

There is very convincing evidence that small schools work, and Maine is a national model for high graduation rates and low incidents of violence, so why does the state insist that bigger is better?

In spite of this research, however, consolidation proponents have advanced the debatable view that small schools are afflicted with a double curse:  higher operating costs and lower quality. A seductive contrast is made between an old elementary school, usually lacking a gym, cafeteria, and library worthy of the name, and a modern school with its big carpeted spaces, well-stocked libraries, and functional layouts. At the high-school level, course offerings usually provide the contrast: The big schools have more foreign languages, advanced placement, and specialty courses. " . . . having small schools and small school districts is costing us both in terms of taxes and in terms of quality, " writes Philip Trostel, an associate professor of economics at the University of Maine.

" High-cost schooling might be an acceptable choice — if we were getting high-quality schools in return. Similarly, just-okay schools might be an acceptable choice — if only the cost were okay. The data, however, indicated that the choice to have relatively small schools and school districts, on average, is costing us to have just-okay public education and at a relatively high cost. "

Trostel’s argument rests on measures he concedes are " crude " and which are also incomplete. He ignores some evidence — such as small schools’ lower dropout rates, higher participation rates in extracurricular activities, and lower incidence of violence. He needs a statistical microscope to make the assertion that larger schools have better test scores. (He concedes that " surprisingly " there is no difference in graduation rates among large and small schools in Maine.) His strongest evidence is that larger schools tend to employ a greater percentage of teachers with advanced degrees, a measurement of education quality on a par with judging the merits of a painting by the education level of the artist.

The assertion that large schools have a richer curriculum grows weaker every day with the spread of " distance learning. " For example, Superintendent Gallaudet said he enrolled a student in a college-level statistics class offered through the Internet by the University of California at Berkeley.

The knock on small schools has always been they are more expensive to operate than larger schools.

Richmond superintendent Gallaudet, an economist by training, has done his own statistical analysis of why large schools in Maine are less expensive to operate and found they aren’t necessarily. Large districts like Portland and South Portland run expensive school departments while large districts like SAD 6 (Buxton) and SAD 57 (Waterboro) run much thriftier schools. At the same time, small districts like Islesboro run expensive schools and small districts like Richmond run no-frills schools. More significant than size in explaining differences in cost-effectiveness are the income levels in the community and the relative tax rate, he said. This is common sense: Wealthier communities are willing to spend more than poor communities and communities with fat tax bases tend to be less cost-conscious than communities with thin tax bases.

Given what is known about small schools, it is perhaps expected that consolidation advocates seem to prefer attacking school superintendents and their fiefdoms than advocating school closures. This is certainly the approach taken by Senator John Martin (D-Eagle Lake), who has introduced legislation proposing to consolidate the 24 school districts in Aroostook County into a single mega-district. Many consolidation proponents have tried to dissuade people from equating administrative consolidation with school consolidation. " This isn’t about consolidating schools, " Governor John Baldacci said in his inaugural speech January 8 in announcing the creation of a task force to study cost savings of regionalization.

" It would be a service to your readers to try to make some distinction between school-district size and small schools, " Albanese said in a recent telephone interview.

But there is reason to be skeptical of those who profess to be interested in nothing more than school-governance structure. First, the savings in consolidating administration may amount to less than advertised. Trostel has made some interesting admissions about his recent study that found eye-popping savings of $40 million in school administrative consolidation. (Trostel found small school districts in Maine have, on average, higher costs than large districts, and savings could be achieved by increasing the size of school districts by roughly 50 percent, to about the national average of 3300 pupils.)

But in an interview, Trostel said the savings come from consolidating not just administration but schools as well. " For those cost savings to occur, there has to be some consolidation of schools, though the merging of schools would be on a much smaller scale than the merging of school districts, " Trostel said. In other words, if you want to save money: close schools.

Consider what happens when organizations grow. They become more complex. A superintendent in a small district typically acts as curriculum director, business manager, personnel chief, and maybe even school principal. A superintendent in a large district is probably better paid and employs a coterie of deputies and assistants. " When you consolidate administration, you consolidate power. Powerful people build empires, " says Marty Strange, who has tracked school consolidations in several states from his perch in Randolph, Vermont, as policy director for the Rural Schools and Community Trust, a small-schools advocacy group.

Administrative consolidation is often a prelude to other consolidation, he says. " The real motivation is to get rid of local school boards, " says Strange. He says consolidation doesn’t save money so much as shift it around — from classrooms and teachers to higher transportation costs and greater administrative complexity.

In a particularly candid moment, Albanese admitted a close link between school-governance consolidation and school consolidation. " To say you can consolidate [schools] and not the governance structure. I just don’t see how, " he said.

The record so far belies suggestions that consolidators are only interested in administrative consolidation.

Last August, the state board adopted a " regionalization/consolidation " resolution that garnered little publicity, but will have a big impact on how the state distributes $150-to-200 million in school construction money every two years. The policy gives notice that the board won’t allow the replacement of old schools without first evaluating alternatives such as the availability of space in other districts and the feasibility of a joint building project with another district.

Since then, the state board has told the western Maine towns of Canton (with 53 students in a K-4 elementary school) and neighboring Peru (with 180 students in a K-8 elementary school) that they won’t get construction money unless they consolidate their construction plans into a single building, according to John Turner, the superintendent/principal in Peru. If negotiations are successful, that’ll mean " bye-bye " to two small, home-town schools and " hello " to a bigger two-town school. So far, the communities can’t agree on a cost-sharing formula.

State construction money probably won’t be the only muscle used to advance consolidation. Under direction from the Maine Legislature, the state board has been overhauling the state’s education funding formula toward an " essential programs and services " model, which is supposed to bring it into alignment with the " learning results " graduation standards in effect for students graduating in 2007. One feature of the new model will make it more expensive to operate small schools, according to David Silvernail, director of Education Policy, Applied Research, and Evaluation at the University of Southern Maine, who is assisting in the development of the funding model.

The committee hasn’t set a threshold size, but the most vulnerable would be the 114 elementary schools with 100 or fewer students and the high schools with 300 or fewer students. " The sentiment on the committee . . . is, if you choose to have a small school, then [the local community] would have to come up with extra resources [themselves], " Silvernail says. The only communities exempt from paying more will be those island communities and particularly isolated towns whose schools are " necessary small schools, " says Silvernail.

That phrase brought a sharp retort from Strange. " ‘Necessary small schools’ are like ‘the deserving poor.’ What they’re saying is they’ll tolerate it in some places where it’s politically necessary, but they can always change the definition of sparse or rural. Over time, things change. But the motivation to consolidate never goes away. "

It is ironic that all the consolidation talk may have the unintended consequence of strengthening the charter-school movement, which is almost by definition a small-school movement. Charter schools are narrowly focused, independent schools sustained by the belief that what ails public education could be cured if parents were allowed choice of schools. " We actually see charter schools as a help to communities coping with consolidation — we provide an alternate model, " says Judith Jones, of Hope, chairwoman of the Maine Association for Charter Schools.

Incidentally, three charter schools are applying for Gates Foundation money, she says. " No planner can tell a community how small their school can be. If they can make it with 25 kids, why not let them? " That message has apparently already reached folks in East Millinocket, upset about the possibility of eventually sending their children 10 miles down the road to Stearns High School in Millinocket, according to Gordon Donaldson, a University of Maine education professor working on small-schools initiatives.

" A number of parents said they would rather send their children to a private charter school (in East Millinocket) than to Stearns, " says Donaldson. Donaldson characterizes the talks between East Millinocket and Millinocket as more like a " hostile take-over " than cooperative discussions.

School consolidation hasn’t received much scrutiny from the Southern Maine media outside the sad drumbeat of individual school closures. Here’s a bet that there will be scrutiny if any school targeted for closure also winds up as one of the winners of the Gates Foundation money.

Lee Burnett can be reached at leeburnett@softhome.net

Issue Date: May 2 - 8, 2003