In 1980, about 225,000 students attended Maine public schools with approximately the same administrative structure communities have today. By 2010, according to the Department of Education, the number of students in Maine will be 182,000.

The loss of 43,000 students is the combined equivalent of the school populations in SADs 1 through 24, plus those in Bangor, Brewer, Ellsworth, East Millinocket, South Portland, Lewiston, Jackman, Calais, Waterville and Gardiner. All gone, but the administrations for these ghost students remain.

Merely opposing Gov. John Baldacci’s plan to consolidate school districts in the face of declining enrollment is not nearly enough. A defense of the status quo must explain why Maine still requires the system-level administration it had when nearly 25 percent more students were in school. Certainly the distribution of these lost students means that reform must be more than just cutting the administration to match a ratio from a quarter century ago, but just as certainly there is a chance here for significant savings. And didn’t 27 years of the computer revolution help administration at all?

Opponents also should tell taxpayers why spending more money for fewer students, a habit that has lifted Maine in the national ranks of the most expensive K-12 systems, is worth continuing at the risk of further divisive and harmful tax referendums. And they must do it while sidestepping this embarrassing twist: Under Maine’s current pricey school system (though not because of teacher salaries), its scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress have been falling since 1998. Back then, the NAEP math rankings for Maine’s fourth- and eighth-graders were third and first, respectively; in 2005, they were 20th and 36th. Maine students experienced a similar drop in reading.

As they take their consolidation plan around the state, Gov. John Baldacci and Education Commissioner Susan Gendron are, predictably, being pounded by school officials and concerned parents. What worries people most is the potential loss of local control – no one can say what the right level of local control is, but it’s always at least as much as what exists now.

Local control is a real issue but a solvable one, and in its solution will dissolve the final reason for hesitating to substantially reduce the number of school-district administrations. Consider that the governor not only has demographics on his side but the following:

Democratic Senate President Beth Edmonds and House Speaker Glenn Cummings both agree the consolidation is necessary. (“People are caught up with the immediate savings,” says Cummings, “but it is the long-term savings that is more important, from greater cooperation and better student-teacher ratios to sharing resources more efficiently.”)

Former state representative and longtime schoolteacher Stephen Bowen of Rockport has produced through the conservative Maine Heritage Policy Center a proposal that parallels the governor’s plan in that it consolidates district-level services. It gives his Republican Party a way to support this money-saving process without necessarily backing the governor and coincidentally gives the governor allies for this and perhaps other regional battles.

The Legislature’s Education Committee has four or five other versions of school-district consolidation from both parties, and more lawmakers may have wanted to submit their own plans after seeing GrowSmart Maine’s survey of public attitudes released Thursday. It showed strong agreement (51 percent versus 15 percent who disagreed) that Maine had too many school superintendents and needed to reduce the number to lower property taxes.

The political left and right and the broad public center are ready to address the tax and school-resource limitations imposed by the fact that Maine’s district-level administration costs 22 percent more than the national average. The new number of districts should not be the 26 proposed by the governor, but it should be considerably fewer than the current 290 (and growing) districts overseen by 152 superintendents.

As for local control, the model urged by Bowen, called education service districts, might adequately address this, and so might several other suggestions, including expanded school boards and secondary local boards with more authority. In any event, the Baldacci plan actually adds principals to schools, giving parents more rather than fewer opportunities to be in contact with their local schools.

In a state that kills big ideas out of an urge for the comfort and control of the familiar, consolidating school districts is scary – do we really want our children to be in a big district with those kids from two towns over? We don’t, at least not until we figure out that their parents want the same opportunities we do and that our old district is not nearly as affordable as it once was. And is getting less affordable each year.

Todd Benoit is the editorial page editor of the Bangor Daily News. His e-mail address is tbenoit@bangordailynews.net.