School district plan contrasts with study

Gov. Ed Rendell has proposed that the state’s 500 districts be consolidated to no more than 100 districts in an effort to save money, but such a move might fly in the face of a study commissioned by the state Senate and completed in 2007.

That study, done by Standard & Poor’s, determined that the most cost-effective districts tend to have enrollments between 2,500 and 2,999 students. By that measure, more districts might have to be broken up rather than consolidated.

When Standard & Poor’s released their study, they had found only 88 districts that could be paired to bring enrollment to the range believed most cost effective. Only one local district was in that group: Northwest Area. The study suggested Northwest could pair with either Benton Area School District or Sullivan County School District. All three are rural districts with small enrollments sprawled across wide stretches of land.

In proposing consolidation, Rendell notes that only 10 states nationwide have more school districts than Pennsylvania. The “fact sheet” released by his office says “many of the highest achieving states are organized into far fewer school districts in order to achieve greater efficiencies and improve the delivery of quality educational services.”

While it’s true that many states have county-wide districts, that doesn’t mean all those districts are large, enrollment-wise.

According to Jay Goldman from the American Association of School Administrators, The Educational Research Service in Alexandria, Va., recently calculated average enrollment for districts in several ways for his organization.

National Center of Education Statistics showed that, in 2005-06, about 12,600 districts reviewed had an average enrollment of 3,702 students. A different review of about 13,000 districts by Market Data Retrieval – a company that specializes in direct sales and marketing – found an average of 3,691.

Those numbers suggest that, regardless of the number of districts in many states, the size is close to what Standard & Poor’s decided was the most cost effective.

According to state statistics for the 2007-08 school year, 14 of 23 regional districts in three counties have fewer than 3,000 students: Old Forge, Lackawanna Trail, Northwest Area, Carbondale Area, Riverside, Lakeland, Dunmore, Mid Valley, Hanover, Lake-Lehman, Greater Nanticoke Area, Wyoming Area, Valley View and Dallas.

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