[Speed Gibson,
Tuesday March 15, 2005 at 9:33pm]
Are some school districts too big?
Policy Guy found an article contending that consolidating smaller public school districts into larger ones doesn't save money. Quite the reverse, claims author Dr. John T. Wenders who studied this in Pennsylvania.
King at SCSU posted a somewhat related piece from the Wall Street Journal, documenting the huge expansion in the teacher ranks. Diminishing returns suggests that the more teachers you need to hire, the lower the average quality.
I look at Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Anoka-Hennepin and wonder what would happen if we divided them into smaller districts. What if we said no school district could have more than one high school, for example? Granted, nothing short of full competition can save the public schools, but wouldn't this be a step toward that direction? I think so. The larger the district, the further between parent and distict.
King at SCSU posted a somewhat related piece from the Wall Street Journal, documenting the huge expansion in the teacher ranks. Diminishing returns suggests that the more teachers you need to hire, the lower the average quality.
I look at Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Anoka-Hennepin and wonder what would happen if we divided them into smaller districts. What if we said no school district could have more than one high school, for example? Granted, nothing short of full competition can save the public schools, but wouldn't this be a step toward that direction? I think so. The larger the district, the further between parent and distict.