Chris Lagoni and Terry Spradlin, writing commentary in the Indiana Capital Chronicle have a column entitled “Fallacies of the School District Consolidation Debate in Indiana.” The whole thing is worth reading, but I wanted to underscore how the General Assembly is talking out of both sides of its mouth when it talks about the benefits of school consolidation. On the one hand, we’re told that traditional public schools really should consider consolidation because of economies of scale and so forth. On the other, hand we have the General Assembly subsidizing private and charter schools with tiny enrollments. The authors point out:
Today, there are approximately 105 charter schools in the state with an average student enrollment of 436 students. Conversely, there are only five school corporations in the state with enrollment below five hundred students. Indiana’s approach is to have the state carry more and more varied and individual expenses for education, not to consolidate them.
They also take a dig at the forgiveness of charter school debt which the General Assembly has not done for traditional public schools. When discussing ways to encourage consolidation, the authors state:
[O]ne of the significant reasons these discussions have fallen apart in the past has been the effect the consolidation will have on local tax rates. Consolidation of districts may impose a higher tax rate on some residents of the new district. In addition, closing a building, expanding another, adding miles of bus routes, and/or planning for a future building could also impact tax rates. About 10 years ago, the Indiana General Assembly forgave $92 million dollars in charter school debt for closed schools. A similar approach could be taken to help communities wanting to consolidate. School districts carry debt, and another community may not want to inherit the duty of paying for debt obligations previously incurred. Elimination of debt obligations would help facilitate additional consolidations.
“. A similar approach could be taken to help communities wanting to consolidate..”.
I doubt any small community would want to consolidate. A number of years ago Elwood and Tipton talked about consolidating and both towns people were up in arms. My thought is the only way would be if the school was in dire financial condition or if the state forced school corporations to consolidate.
There is a legitimate conversation to be had about school corporation office consolidation which can be wholly separate from school building consolidation.
School corporations in the 3750 to 6000 kid size are fairly efficient in terms of central office structure. When they get bigger there are redundancies that could be weeded out. When they get smaller they can’t hire the folks needed or the level of expertise of the larger schools.
There is no reason that Eastern Hancock and Knightstown should both have a superintendent and business manager, and separate payroll, purchasing, and transportation operations. The same goes for Triton Central, Southwestern and Shelby Eastern in Shelby County. Or Decatur County Schools and Greensburg, or the Randolph County schools, or the Adams County, or Clinton County.
Have all of the small school buildings you want (though small HS are doing a disservice to their kids academically), but consolidate your operations.
I say the same for charter schools. They should band together and create centralized operations.