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    Who are the NERD fund donors Mr Snyder?

    Raise the curtain.

    Time for County-wide School Districts?


    By Wendy Day, Section News
    Posted on Wed Jun 03, 2009 at 01:40:06 PM EST
    Tags: school board, economy, union, mea (all tags)

    (Promoted by Nick... very interesting discussion. Curious what everyone thinks.)

    From For a Better Day

    Most of you are local-government kind of people.  You realize that the closer government is to us, the more say we can have in how it operates.  That is why contemplating the question of county-wide school districts has been an interesting proposition.

    After looking at our county and all the changes that are going on, it seems like the perfect time for Livingston to become the first county-wide district.  While this goes against local government philosophy, we don't really have that much say in our districts anyway. Most of the curriculum is decided at the State level via the MEAP.  The MEA, a state-wide union, strong arms districts into submission by electing school board members who will vote for their interests or by threatening action if the districts don't cooperate.  With all the increased Federal and State involvement, there are laws that cover most everything else.  

    Yes, school boards are charged with passing the budget.  However, the State determines how much money we get and the union determines how much we spend, given 88% of our budget is wrapped up in personnel.   We get to decide what to cut.  Yes, we are charged with making policy, but much of that is governed by law and the Department of Education.  Some of it isn't but we are given "model" policies that we are (wink, wink) free to use if we want to.  

    So what are the advantages of having a county-wide school district?

    Read on...

    Union contracts. We can work to find the best contracts and use those. Hartland has a pretty good teachers' contract.  Maybe all the teachers could use that one.  Many contracts throughout the state are filled with draconian language that takes away management rights.  This may be just the opportunity to find some balance.

    Bussing. District-wide bussing would be much more efficient.  

    Administration costs. By having all the administrative work of the district done in one location, we could spend your tax dollars much more efficiently and expand programming.

    Competition.  Instead of competing in schools of choice, we can foster competition through magnet programs, specialty schools, and more options for kids.  This could give parents some choice in where their kids go and there would be no need for hard feelings between communities.

    These are just some initial thoughts on the idea. With K-12 education taking up almost 30% of the State budget, we can't fix Michigan without changing this system.  With all of our districts struggling to different degrees, now may be the perfect time to do something radical.  

    Let's work together, putting kids first! What do you think?

    < GM Sells Bling-Bling Brand to Sichuan Tengzhong | Michael Moore on GM Demise: Filled with "Joy" >


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    Display: Sort:
    Interesting idea (none / 0) (#1)
    by tribuneofthepeople on Wed Jun 03, 2009 at 03:39:30 PM EST
    This isn't new. We used to have county superintendents of instruction in this state - go through your history books. While it works in small to medium counties, what do you do with the big areas? Would you want a single Wayne County School Board controlling ethnic Detroit, as well as white, rich suburbs? This would be a mess. You would probably need a hybrid system for real reform.

    Instead of consolidate... elminiate! (none / 0) (#2)
    by KCuz on Wed Jun 03, 2009 at 03:54:41 PM EST
    How about instead of consolidating school districts into one district..... eliminate them.

    Completely eliminate the concept of school districts and think about the implications.

    As an alternative, a district could stay in place, but eliminate the district borders.  So now one could have a "system" of schools, but that system is no longer bound by artifical borders.

    Can't buy it (none / 0) (#5)
    by live dangerously on Wed Jun 03, 2009 at 05:00:48 PM EST
    The efficiencies saved by consolidations are offset by the increased impossibility to change.  Break it up some.  Take the busses and have private companies do it on a county wide deal if you like as long as you can fire them if they aren't doing the job.  

    The things we can't change and complain so much about are caused by the size.

    Regards, Live Dangerously Be A Conservative

    Surprisingly, research shows it does not save $ (none / 0) (#6)
    by Jack McHughs Blog on Wed Jun 03, 2009 at 05:56:39 PM EST
    Politicians love consolidation talk because they can sound like they're being fiscally conservative while not angering any special interest (namely school employees and the MEA in this area).

    Wendy Day is fearless when it comes to the MEA, and although a school board member isn't a "politician." She and others here may find this of interest.

    School District Consolidation, Size and Spending: an Evaluation by Andrew Coulson

    Executive Summary

    This study empirically tests the notion that consolidating smaller public school districts will save taxpayers money. Multiple regression analyses are employed to analyze the relationship between district size and per-pupil expenditures in the state of Michigan, focusing on the five most recent school years for which data are available.

    Based on the model developed for this paper, the most cost-effective size for school districts in Michigan is roughly 2,900 students. Both smaller and larger districts are likely to spend more per pupil, other things being equal. In light of this finding, it is correct to surmise that some Michigan public school districts are probably too small, and others too large, to operate with optimal cost efficiency.

    But district size has a more nuanced and less important impact on spending that is often assumed, and the current political emphasis on consolidation of small districts is misplaced. The author estimates that the potential savings from consolidating excessively small districts is about 12 times smaller than the potential savings from breaking up excessively large ones. The maximum total annual savings due to district breakups would be approximately $363 million, while consolidations could save state and local governments at most $31 million annually (note that these are only rough, ballpark figures).

    To realize these maxima, it would be necessary to break up every excessively large district into a multiplicity of optimally sized 2,900-student districts and to consolidate all tiny districts into optimally sized districts as well. Some such mergers and breakups would be impractical or impossible. Truly optimal mergers, for instance, could be achieved only in those cases where two 1,450-student districts were adjacent; three 933-student districts were adjacent; and so on. It would actually be counterproductive to merge two 2,000-student districts, because a 4,000-student district would typically spend more per student, other things being equal, than a 2,000-student district.

    As a result, the actual savings from pursuing either mergers or breakups is apt to be much smaller than the theoretical maxima given above. It is fair to say, therefore, that neither mergers nor consolidations are likely to bring about dramatic reductions in the roughly $17 billion per year spent on Michigan's public schools.

    If legislators and the governor wish to address the spiraling cost of public schooling, this study points to a far more important factor than district size: the incentive structure of the system itself. The model developed here indicates that public school districts generally endeavor to spend -- and succeed in spending -- as much as they can.

    Specifically, this study compared two alternative theories of school district behavior: that districts spend only as much as they need to in order to fulfill the public trust (the "demand-driven" thesis), or that they spend as much as they can (the "public choice" thesis). Both the ultimately positive relationship between district size and per-pupil spending[*] and the positive relationship between total household income per pupil squared and per-pupil spending compellingly support public choice theory.[†]

    In short, public schooling's incentive structure appears to encourage district officials to maximize their budgets. To improve the efficiency of Michigan's education system, this problematic incentive structure would have to be replaced with one in which school officials are instead rewarded for simultaneously controlling costs and maintaining or improving quality. This, in turn, suggests the need for incentives similar to those prevailing in the private sector, in which service providers thrive only if they meet their clients' needs at competitive prices.

    The most promising route to higher efficiency in education thus appears to be the injection of market forces such as competition and parental choice. A policy of choice for parents and increased freedom and competition for educators is also consistent with America's tradition of local and parental control over schooling, something that cannot be said for state-mandated district mergers or breakups.

    Not In Favor Of County Wide Districts (none / 0) (#8)
    by steve on Wed Jun 03, 2009 at 08:42:15 PM EST
    The smaller the School district the more influence parents have over the schools.

    Imagine the bureaucracy a county wide district would create.

    Thought provoking... (none / 0) (#9)
    by Grammy Cracker on Wed Jun 03, 2009 at 09:16:18 PM EST
    I don't know if it would work, but something needs to be done.  Kudos to Wendy for spurring thought and debate!

    Random thoughts..... (none / 0) (#10)
    by snoopygirlmi on Wed Jun 03, 2009 at 09:48:42 PM EST
    1. As it is, some kids don't live close enough to the school to walk, so bussing is a necessity.  So, how are you going to transport kids in a timely manner to a school that isn't in their neighborhood (per se).  Metro Detroit is a lot different than Paw Paw or Lawton (for instance).  And what about counties in the UP?  

    2. People already take the initative and drive their kids to their "school of choice", if they aren't happy with their local schools.  What would happen to that option if schools were run county-wide, not local?  

    3. Also, what about areas that already service a large geographic area?  

    4. Part of the problem with the schools is that a lot of students are homeschooled now, so they just aren't getting the dollars for the kids that projectors thought would be there.  

    I guess where I'm going with that idea is are all the schools that we have actually necessary.  I know they are consolidating and closing schools in Detroit.  If they aren't, can we find other uses for them?

    As I said, just random thoughts.
     

    An Interesting Idea, But... (none / 0) (#14)
    by kenmatesevac on Thu Jun 04, 2009 at 11:31:59 AM EST
    ...as an educator myself, I think that the cost benefits of consolidation would be immediately eliminated by the "necessary" increases in administration.  Even a district the size of Kalamazoo, where I work, is bulky, cumbersome, and frequently inefficient at the administrative level.

    I also spent some time down South, where I did my student teaching and taught for six years.  County-wide school districts are common there (if I remember right, the entire state of SC has only 25 school disricts).  Their per-pupil spending isn't substantially different than other similar states.  

    Educationally, I don't think it will make much positive difference at all.  The parents and teachers of the students have the biggest impact, which, if anything, argues for smaller district sizes.

    interesting thought, but (none / 0) (#15)
    by goppartyreptile on Thu Jun 04, 2009 at 01:03:28 PM EST
    I can't go along with it, for the same reason I don't agree with getting rid of township government:

    You will be giving your schools and your input to the control of the largest city in the county.

    I'm sure that someone living in rural Washtenaw would probably not want to be dictated to by Ann Arbor... or Genesee County by Flint, or Wayne by Detroit, and so on.

    Consolidation is a good idea, but not by county.

    The only solution (none / 0) (#16)
    by Theblogprof on Thu Jun 04, 2009 at 11:57:53 PM EST
    We've got to set the kids free with vouchers or refundable tax credits and go back to school versus school competition. It is correct that the smaller the district, the more say parents have. To that end, districts being each and every individual school would maximize what the parents want.

    The voucher program in D.C. that Obama just killed was so effective that the Obama administration had to sit on the data for 6 months, going back to before the inauguration. It was just damning. The D.C. kids that went to private schools got a better education, and they got it at 25% of the cost of the failing public school district. That's not a typo - each voucher had a corresponding 75% cost savings in addition to the better education.

    Only local school-to-school competition will help at this point. Bad schools simply need to fold, while the good schools prosper.

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