It is crunch time for school consolidation.  The Governor has put forward a bold plan and traveled the state discussing it, mostly taking his lumps from those who fear they might be consolidated out of a job or out of their local school.  Being a change agent is often no fun.

  Legislators have come up with six alternative proposals, and the Education Committee spent a long day last month hearing from citizens from across the state, again mostly in opposition to most consolidation.

If you had been at all these hearings you could easily conclude that the overwhelming sentiment in the state is opposed to any significant consolidation.  You would be wrong. A recent poll by GrowSmart, the Maine group that funded the Brookings Report on the Maine economy, indicated that a majority of citizens support school consolidation. Legislators should, of course, be sensitive to the concerns of those affected by consolidation. But legislators must balance these concerns against what is best for the State.

 A consolidation plan we must have, and one with some prospect of providing both cost savings and the capacity for better learning. How will the average Mainer know if the legislature comes up with a good plan? Let me suggest a few things to look for.

First, a good plan would have 60 districts more or less ( down from the current two hundred plus). School districts should be sized to be large enough to be efficient in providing services and small enough (geographically and in terms of number of students) to be ably-managed by a Superintendent, Business Manager, modestly sized staff, and a reasonable number of principals.  An analysis of size done by Philip Trostel of the Margaret Chase Smith Center  suggests the optimum size district for Maine would have 3,000 – 4,000 students. Three thousand is probably a good minimum, although some districts might be larger than four thousand if there are compelling reasons for keeping a group of schools or a geographic region together.  This means the target number of districts is approximately sixty.

Second, the plan would be mandatory.  Plans that consolidate will demand many difficult decisions.  Consolidating services will eliminate jobs, and it is human nature to avoid this if possible.  Therefore rationally-sized districts must be mandated with clear targets for what is an acceptable overall level of costs.

Third, there would be regional school boards of no more than 12-15 members.  Larger numbers are simply too unwieldy to be effective.  Voting should be simply one person, one vote and not proportioned to the size of the town or region represented.  It is important that members come to represent the best interests of all the students in their district, not simply those of the town from which they are elected.

Fourth, there would be local advisory boards for each school.  These boards would give local citizens a voice in their school.  However, these boards would be, as their name suggests, advisory in nature.  They may influence, but the Principal, Superintendent, and Regional School Boards would have the statutory authority to make the final decisions.  

Fifth, the plan would acknowledge that it will take four or five years to create an effective set of state districts.  While the overall regional structure can be put in place over the next eighteen months to two years, it will take at least another two years for these districts to rationalize contracts, consolidate services, and develop a consistent approach to Learning Results attainment.  This is a big job, and it needs to be recognized as such.

Viewed on these criteria, the Governor’s plan looks pretty good, except in his sizing of districts.  By adopting the district boundaries based on the 26 already established CTE regions the Governor simplified the difficult task of boundary definition, but at too high a price in size disparity.  The first task, then, in any subsequent plan that the Legislature proposes must be defining district boundaries.  Most alternate proposals suggest this should be done by a separate group or commission.

School consolidation can be done.  If these few criteria are followed it can be done well.  The result will be a long-term gain for both Maine taxpayers and Maine students.