Published on Tuesday, Feb 21, 2012 at 12:12 am | Last updated on Tuesday, Feb 21, 2012 at 12:12 am
It has been three years since many of Maine's school
districts consolidated to try to save money on administrative costs. As
more and more communities consider withdrawing from newly consolidated
school districts, a major question has emerged: Did it work?
Some superintendents think consolidation is a godsend. Others say it
is a terrible example of state government meddling in local affairs. A
legislative committee last week endorsed a bill that would make it
easier for towns to dissolve regional school districts.
Whatever the perspective, the school consolidation debate is far from over.
Former Gov. John Baldacci took on school consolidation as one of his
major issues. The idea worked off an economies of scale theory: Small
school districts cost more to run than large ones, taking needed money
from classrooms to pay for unneeded administrators. One superintendent
overseeing 2,500 students is cheaper than three superintendents for
those same students spread over several districts, the logic went.
Consolidating Maine's then-290 districts into fewer than 80, the former
governor said, could cut $36.5 million from the state's 2008-2009
budget.
The state did not get down to 80 school units as the governor's
proposal was significantly amended before being passed by the
Legislature. According to numbers from the Maine Department of
Education, there are now 164 school districts, covering 94 percent of
the state's public school student population. There are still 246 school
boards, according to Dale Douglass, executive director of the Maine
School Management Association.
"Are we close to 80? No," Douglass said. "But the other thing I think
is interesting is the one place where numbers did go down — the number
of superintendents. Before consolidation we had 152 superintendents.
Today we have 94 full-time and 31 part-time superintendents. That's a
significant number."
The commissioner of the Maine Department of Education isn't so sure consolidation has worked.
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