Thursday, March 03, 2011

Illinois school plan targets 500 districts; report calls state-directed consolidations ineffective

A plan from the Illinois governor that would eliminate around 500 of the state's 868 school districts through consolidation has the support of the state's top education official. Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn's office says "the state could save $100 million by reducing administrative redundancies," Andrew Thomason of Illinois Statehouse News reports. In a recent interview with the Illinois Farm Bureau Radio Network state Superintendent of Education Chris Koch voiced support for consolidations, noting "In this climate, over the past few years I've seen more and more inquires about consolidation. And certainly it's an important conversation to have. Our board, this summer and August had, during their retreat, a considerable look at consolidation."

Consolidation has been a decision made on the local level in Illinois, but Quinn's plan calls for legislating consolidations. Koch said "having the state direct school districts to do this might avoid a situation where residents agree with the concept, but don't want it in their community," Thomason writes. Koch added "I've had many local superintendents approaching in my four years in this job and say ‘you know we really need to do this but we can't do it here, you've got to push it from the top." One of Democratic State Rep. Linda Chapa's concerns that she says points to a need for consolidation is that 274 superintendents reportedly make more money than the governor. (Read more)

While the goal of Quinn's plan is to save the state government money, a new report from the National Education Policy Center found that while state-level consolidation proposals "may serve a public relations purpose in times of crisis, they are unlikely to be a reliable way to obtain substantive fiscal or educational improvement." School-district consolidation over the past century has obtained most of the added efficiency possibly from the process, the report concludes, noting many districts are now too large and may need to be de-consolidated. The report concludes "any consolidation or deconsolidation should be carefully considered on a case-by-case basis," the anti-consolidation Rural School and Community Trust reports. (Read more)

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