Report: Merging small school districts could save billions; rural lobby disputes that

Bigger is better when it comes to school districts, says a report by the Center for American Progress, which says consolidating districts with fewer than 1,000 students could lead to huge savings. "Many states have large percentages of small, non-remote districts that may represent hundreds of millions of dollars in lost potential capacity," Ulrich Boser writes for the center. Those districts "might represent as much as $1 billion in lost annual capacity, by which we mean money that may not have had to be spent if the district was larger." Their research found the optimal district size was 2,000 to 4,000 students. (Associated Press photo by Scott Eisen)

Ten states with 3,625 small school districts account for more than $650 million in lost potential cost, or about 68 percent of the total, Boser writes. New Jersey tops the list with an estimated loss of $105 million. New York has a loss of $99.5 million, followed by Illinois at $90.9 million, Texas at $82.7 million, California at $64.4 million, Vermont at $54.2 million, Oklahoma at $48.1 million, Missouri at $44.8 million, Montana at nearly $37.5 million and Wisconsin at just over $37 million. (Read more) To read the full report click here.

The Rural School and Community Trust argues that research "shows that state policies that broadly push mergers of schools and districts will not save money and will likely lower the quality of education — especially for the poor."