watchdog

Tuesday, December 01, 2009


 

With all the talk about consolidation panels and school problems, the one clear fact that I have found is BIGGER IS NOT BETTER. The further you move away from the voters, the taxpayers, the parents and students and the more layers of bureaucracy that are involved, the worse are the results. The optimum and the most efficient size of a school district is about 40,000 students.

I have attached several results of studies of school consolidation. My conclusion is that consolidation of government is probably similar. Bigger is not better.

Mike Carpenter responded to the above email to say that no one is considering consolidating the City and County school systems. I would be willing to bet that there is a substantial element that would love to see this happen during any City/County consolidation effort. My point is that consolidation in and of itself may be a bad idea as bigger is not necessarily better. e.g. (our Federal Government). I would even propose that the Memphis City School system would be better if it was broken up into two smaller systems concentrating on neighborhood identities with more parental involvement and smaller and more efficient school administrations. Crazy, maybe, but why not study this option?


Click here to see the history of school consolidation


Click here to see the reality of school consolidation

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