HELP STUDENTS & TAXPAYERS

With the Legislature having been handed, from the governor, a top-down, dramatic school-district reform, and, from the Education Committee, essentially mush, lawmakers on the Appropriations Committee have a chance to start yet again on this overdue reform. That demands a mix of state mandates, local collaboration and a constant eye on improving education and saving money.

If the governor has been flexible since he described his original plan of 26 school districts, higher student-teacher ratios and major savings after a couple of years, the Education Committee tied itself in knots to avoid offending any group with a concern about consolidation. Instead of fewer school districts, it offered processes for planning for attempts at collaboration.

Appropriations is less likely to be so incremental. They began Tuesday with a meeting with Education Commissioner Susan Gendron in which they requested data on whether the state’s share of school spending is sustainable under the spending caps that will go into effect beginning in 2009. Committee members likely already knew the answer – the allowable 3.1 percent growth won’t keep the state at its required 55 percent of the total unless regular efficiencies go into effect.

Those savings come, according to work done at the University of Southern Maine and the University of Maine, when district administration oversees 2,500 to 4,000 students. It is worth noting that more than one-third of Maine students attend schools in systems this large now, without howls of protest about missing local control. According to USM’s Center for Policy, Applied Research & Evaluation, the projected savings with minimum school districts greater than 2,500 is $114 million over one year and $342 million over three years.

Maine has two reasons for wanting these savings. It is falling behind in student performance nationally, but does not have the resources to further invest in schools. Moving more of this money into the classroom would provide students with better educations. Second, part of the savings must go to tax relief, which must come from many sources but especially from Maine’s two biggest sources of spending – human services and education. And if education must find savings, where better than in district administration offices?

This doesn’t mean the state must follow the governor’s plan. Two years ago, state Sen. Karl Turner proposed what he called a hub-and- spoke system – local towns keep their schools and their teachers, but they share a central administration regionally. Payroll, assessments, food service would come from one place for a region. The number of superintendents would decline dramatically. Local boards would cede some control but not all of it. It’s not a system that would work everywhere, but it would help in some places with a large central district and surrounding smaller ones

Certainly, the state cannot simply order school districts to act more efficiently. Augusta’s role is to act forcefully to establish the circumstances in which school officials can succeed. That means fewer, larger districts and strong incentives for more extensive collaboration. Lawmakers haven’t gotten there yet, but for the support of the classroom and to lower spending, Appropriations should lead the way now.