School administrative restructuring appears to be the governor’s second-term education keystone. Legislation is in the making to create 26 megadistricts. The goal? To curtail Maine’s purported profligate spending on administration. The facts, however, are not on the administration’s side.

Gov. Baldacci claimed in his inaugural that Maine has “excess administration” in schools. The central evidence to support this claim, echoed from three fall 2006 reports, is that Maine’s numbers of school administrators and expenditures on administration are above the national average. The administration’s initiative, known as Local Schools, Regional Support, seeks to cut school district administration, promising to save $250 million over three years. So, what are the facts?

First, Maine does have more administrators per student than the national average, not unlike many other rural states. Our population is widespread. We have many small towns. We have many small schools and school districts.

But do we spend more on administration? The results are mixed. From 1999 to 2003, according to the National Center for Educational Statistics, Maine averaged $65 per pupil more for administration than was the national average – about 10 percent higher. But in 2003-04, Maine’s per-pupil expenditures on administration were actually $16 less than the national average.

And do we spend more per student than the national average? Commissioner Gendron cites a single year (2004-05) when Maine was almost $2,000 above. But U.S. Department of Education data show that Maine’s average current expenditure totals between 1999 and 2004 were $1,087 above the national average. Yes, we do spend more and we have the distinction of placing second in the nation in the percent of our expenditures that go directly to “instruction and instruction-related activities.”

Clearly, focusing on administrative costs does not tell the whole story. Schools and districts employ staff beyond principals and superintendents to support teachers and students – including curriculum coordinators, special education administrators and specialists, guidance counselors, department and team leaders, technology coordinators, business managers, and clerical support. They are reported in annual expenditures in several categories, along with administration, under the heading “Student Support Services.”

The administration and the authors of last fall’s reports apparently paid little attention to these other staff and service costs. Maine consistently spends less in these other staffing areas than does the nation – $290 per student less on average between 1999 and 2003! Put another way, staff support for students and teachers in Maine schools is provided primarily by administrators, with substantially less specialized and auxiliary assistance than is present in many other states’ school districts.

The picture emerging from these facts is one of considerable administrative efficiency: We pay $65 more for administration but $290 less for other staffing and our product is better, as measured by National Assessment of Educational Progress test scores, than most every other state’s. In 2003-04, Maine’s percent of expenditures devoted to administration was actually the fourth lowest in the United States!

Many would argue that we should be comparing our expenditures not only with the nation but with our neighbors in New England and New York who share our higher costs of living and doing business. After all, we can’t make ourselves into New Mexico or Arkansas, even if we wanted to. A comparison with these seven other states in 2003-04 (the latest year available at NCES) reveals that Maine’s expenditures for administration lag consistently behind all but New Hampshire. Not only were Maine administrative expenditures 14 percent below those of our neighbors, but our total school expenditures trailed our neighbors by 11 percent.

Nowhere in the administration’s proposal or in the three fall reports is there a thorough and well-documented assessment of efficiencies and inefficiencies in school administrative practices. The LSRS proposal sounds promising in its emphasis on building up instructional supports, but it does not demonstrate specifically where the efficiencies and inefficiencies are in the current system. Hence, it cannot explain how the new system is going to be better – that is, how it will be both higher in quality and lower in cost.

My data (and my experience with many school systems) indicate that we already have a lean system. In fact, it’s a system that assigns so many tasks and responsibilities to administrators with so little support that principal and superintendent jobs are unattractive to our most talented educator pool. This is not simply an administrative problem, it’s an urgent leadership problem.

How will razing the current district system and replacing it with 26 mega-districts help? To a lot of principals, it will mean they’ll get even less support and assistance. To many parents, teachers and citizens it will mean yet greater distances between them and those who make policies and prescriptions for them. And to a lot of school boards who have scrutinized expenditures for many years, it will mean the repudiation of local accountability.

Clearly, the governor’s intentions are noble. But the premise on which he proposes these changes is flawed. Our current investment in “student support services” is below the nation’s and our neighbors’. Our goal ought to be to provide talented, hard-working support staff and services – both administrative and educational – in an affordable manner to every teacher and parent in Maine. Repackaging an already lean system of administration and support staffing for our schools is not only unlikely to save a lot, it’s likely to do damage by removing current support systems and undercutting local citizen participation in and oversight over these important functions.

Gordon Donaldson is professor of education at the University of Maine. His report, “Pursuing Administrative Efficiencies for Maine Schools,” can be downloaded from http://portfolio.umaine.edu/~edl.