LOSING 251 SCHOOL DISTRICTS

Last spring, economists Philip Trostel and Kate Reilly showed how far off the national average Maine was with its school-district costs. At about the same time, state Sen. Karl Turner proposed consolidating school services with a “hub-and-spoke” system the Department of Education is currently investigating.

This week, David Silvernail of the University of Southern Maine provided a more specific plan for reducing the number of districts, one the Legislature should consider this winter.

Mr. Trostel from the University of Maine and Ms. Reilly, now the state economist, laid out an important argument for re-examining school size in Maine. They didn’t say that larger schools were better than smaller schools or that widespread closures were the answer. They pointed out that until schools got very large, there were economies of scale to be realized through various types of consolidation without a loss of student performance. And they provided a national perspective.

Some of the most telling statistics were the following: Maine has the 11th most-expensive public schools per student but teacher salaries are 13th from the bottom; Maine schools have an average of 290 students, when the national average is 506; school districts here average only 734 students while nationally the average is 3,177.

With a small and falling student population, Maine has 286 school districts and all the administrative costs to go with them. Sen. Turner thought that consolidating district-level administration while keeping local schools open would create substantial savings. Mr. Silvernail suggests expanding district regions by having them follow the boundaries of state Senate district, of which there are 35. The school versions of those districts may have to be more stable than the Senate districts, which are adjusted every decade, but of the $70 million spent annually on administration now, Maine could save $30 million annually through this plan.

“These cost savings could be used to save many of our small community schools,” Mr. Silvernail writes in a commentary in the Maine Sunday Telegram. “Local communities and the state contribute almost equally in financing our schools, so the $15 million in local community savings could be used to significantly reduce property taxes. For its part, the state could use its savings to support and improve struggling small schools. These schools could be given grants for implementing reforms like those found in higher-performing small schools.”

This combination of savings and investment in learning about high-performance practices is good for both taxpayers and students, and would increase public confidence in public education. Done well, it could put more money where it will be most effective while reducing the overall cost of education.