Lawmakers sliced and diced the governor's plan, but it's all we have to work with.

The unfortunate fallout from Gov. Baldacci's school consolidation initiative continues. Last week came the news that the much-respected superintendent in Kennebunk, Tom Farrell, would be leaving his post to take a job in, of all places, Taiwan. When asked why Taiwan, he responded: "It's as far away from this governor as I can get."

Earlier in the week I heard from Peter Bingham, chair of the Cumberland-North Yarmouth School Board, that the proposed consolidation of this district with the Falmouth School District was running into significant opposition in Falmouth. This consolidation has been touted by the Department of Education as the "poster-child" of the way the process should work.

What has gone wrong?

I have maintained from the beginning of the process way back in fall 2006 that consolidation was an idea whose time had come. The last effort at rationalizing the organization of Maine schools had come with the Sinclair Act in the 1950s.

Over the 60 years since then, Maine's school units had grown to more than 200, making us one of the states with the smallest number of schools and students per district and also one of the most expensive.

Earlier in 2006, a Blue Ribbon Commission on the future of Maine's education system empowered by the state Board of Education recommended consolidating Maine's school districts from 200 to something in the 40 to 60 range.

Later in 2006, the Brookings Report made a similar recommendation, noting that such an initiative was a major piece of the restructuring of state government that they deemed essential to revive our economy.

OPENING THE DOOR

The governor embraced the idea and came forward in early 2007 with a dramatic approach to consolidate all Maine schools into only 26 districts. To his credit, he indicated he was open to other approaches to determining district boundaries, so long as significant savings could be achieved.

He promptly overplayed his hand by claiming credit for more than $30 million in savings in this biennium, a highly suspect figure that never materialized in practice but which the governor used to reduce the state portion of school funding in any case.

This was his first mistake, and it was to be followed by others. In spite of the fact that the state board's Blue Ribbon Commission and Brookings both recommended an approach to school regionalization that has been used in federal base closings (the so-called BRAC process), the governor decided to submit his proposal to the Legislature as part of the normal legislative process.

A BRAC-style process would have involved creating a special commission to evaluate the alternatives in consolidation. The commission's recommendations would be submitted to the state Legislature for a simple up-or-down vote – no modifications allowed.

The risk in the governor's approach was that the consolidation bill would face death by a thousand cuts in the Legislature, and that is precisely how the events of past 18 months have unfolded.

MAKING TWO CONCESSIONS

The governor opened by conceding two points: No schools would be closed as a result of consolidation, and any district or locality affected would hold a referendum to determine whether they wanted to join the proposed new district, now called a Regional School Unit.

The former concession effectively made it much more difficult to show savings from consolidation in the short to medium term. The latter concession added a wild card element to any proposed RSU and meant that school boards could spend months coming up with a proposed approach, only to have voters turn it down. This is just the risk that MSAD 51 and Falmouth face now.

Meanwhile, over two legislative sessions the governor's proposal has been battered into a final shape that embodies more concessions to the advocates of local control. Even this legislation tottered on the brink of failure, requiring frantic last-minute maneuvering to salvage any consolidation bill at all.

What do we do now? There is only one course – to soldier on with the implementation as embodied in the final legislation.

It is an imperfect bill, but it allows districts to get on with the process of finding partners and trying to move forward. Some of these efforts will ultimately be successful, thanks to heroic efforts from their school boards and superintendents.

These efforts will be appreciated, though perhaps not in their lifetimes.