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The state won't get tough on schools to save money

Friday, June 2, 2006 6:49 AM CDT

The peach farmers in my home area of Union County used to tell me they didn't always look favorably upon a mild winter. That was because if the weather was too warm too many buds on the peach trees would blossom in the spring. If that happened the trees were too crowded with peach blossoms, leaving little room for any one peach to grow into a decent-sized fruit.

I use this anecdote to make an often-ignored point about school funding in Illinois, which has boiled up again as a subject of debate in light of Gov. Rod Blagojevich's proposed $10 billion lottery lease to pay more into education. The point is this: There are too many school districts in Illinois. Many public schools are languishing on the vine financially simply because there are too many of them the state and the taxpayers have to fund.

The current debate over the governor's lottery plan entirely sidesteps this issue. Yes, the plan invests four $1 billion lump sums into things like increasing a school's basic funding foundation level, replacing old textbooks and creating additional in-school academic help for students, but all it really does is feed a network that is almost too large to be satisfied. Because of all the discussion of the lottery lease, one might have missed the fact Blagojevich did propose a piece of legislation earlier this year that could be a gateway for true school funding reform.

Senate Bill 2795, sponsored by State Sen. George Shadid and State Rep. Michael Smith, streamlines the school consolidation process and gives local voters more choice as to how they will reorganize their districts. Of course, state officials only hope people take advantage of the provisions, because consolidation remains strictly optional at this point. But should it remain optional?

Consider this: Union County, with a population around 17,000, has seven separate school districts. Within those districts there are seven elementary schools and four high schools. Three of those elementary schools are feeder districts into one high school. All of the elementary students combined probably don't exceed 1,500 individuals; the same goes for the high school students. One would think the relatively small number of students would only require one countywide unit district or two districts at the most, separated between elementary and secondary. Now, I'm ignoring any number of social and community identity reasons why the schools don't consolidate, but if one looks at this strictly financially (and the point here is education funding reform) it starts to make sense.

Locally property taxes pay for the students to have an education, but they also pay seven sets of administrators to do the work for the same number of students who would be present in the local school system, consolidated or not.

It should be noted I'm not picking on Union County, as there are other Southern Illinois counties with multiple school districts for a relatively small number of students. But Union serves as a good example of how operating a large number of school districts can be more draining on the taxpayers and ultimately less beneficial to the students in a certain district.

Some of the funding challenges start to solve themselves when schools consolidate. It's easy to see all of Union County's real estate taxes pouring into a single district (and a single set of administrators) would be cheaper than trying to fund the operations of seven districts. This would eliminate the problem of schools in smaller communities getting less money than schools in larger commercial and residential municipalities. A consolidated school district means fewer total dollars spent trying to maintain multiple buildings, increased school purchasing power for better deals on supplies, and increased local income from school breakfast and lunch sales. Consolidated schools would also mean fewer districts for regional superintendents to track and would give the opportunity for the regional offices of education to work on initiatives that would be sure to affect all students in a given area. On the academic side, consolidated school districts would have an easier time implementing a curriculum that gives students a cohesive learning experience in K-12 and could be easier on the students in transitioning from high school to college.

The governor often touts the amount of money he's thrown toward education as a staple of his administration, but SB 2795 could prove to be the most significant education proposal of Blagojevich's career once it is signed later this year. The only drawback to it is it really lacks teeth to make schools consider consolidation. Asking them politely won't gain the type of results state officials want to see.

Make no mistake; consolidation of school districts is no easy process. In fact, if Union County school districts all joined as one it would likely require consideration of constructing an entirely new school building or two big enough to hold all of the students. But Illinois has allowed schools to have a mild winter for too long. Now, like the peaches, there are too many districts striving to flourish.

CALEB HALE is the higher education reporter for The Southern Illinoisan. His column appears periodically. He can be reached at (618) 351-5090 or at caleb.hale@thesouthern.com.