* The setup…
Democratic state Sen. Terry Link of Waukegan says he would support legislative efforts to streamline all levels of government, including consolidation of school districts, as a method of achieving savings for taxpayers before backing Gov. Pat Quinn’s proposal to hike income taxes.
Link, a member of the Senate Democratic leadership team, said today he doesn’t believe some of the cost-savings proposals Quinn outlined to legislators last week in the governor’s budget address will satisfy a public being asked to pay more out of their pocket.
“We’ve got to look at ways that we can help people save money, directly and indirectly, and if we could do things like consolidation of schools, do other things that are going to save people money, we’ve got to do that so when they put their hand in their pocket, there’s money there,” Link said on WGN-AM (720).
Link cited a need to achieve “efficiencies in government,” including the always controversial issue of consolidating the number of school districts and perhaps eliminating other units of government, to achieve savings for taxpayers.
* The Question: Do you support consolidating your own school district with neighboring districts? If you live in Chicago, do you support this concept? Explain fully, please.
- Vote Quimby! - Monday, Mar 23, 09 @ 11:41 am:
Yes. I live in St. Clair County and there are about two dozen K-8 districts here—each with their own superintendent making the $$, support staff and all that jazz. For each supernintendo laid off, you could hire at least 2 teachers. Being a parent of two elementary school kids, I understand why people are reluctant to give up ‘control’ to a larger district. But there is a neighboring K-8 district that would be a perfect match, but feeds into a different high school so it will certainly never happen.
- Chicago Cynic - Monday, Mar 23, 09 @ 11:41 am:
Very interesting idea, but this falls squarely under the heading of “when pigs fly.” Illinois has more units of government than any other state and it’s unlikely to change anytime soon. Hell, we can’t even merge the Treasurer and Comptroller’s office. How are we going to reduce local control of education?
- wordslinger - Monday, Mar 23, 09 @ 11:49 am:
No.
One of the reasons I live in Oak Park is for it’s locally controlled neighborhood schools. I have a kid who walks half a block to elementary school; one that walks four blocks to junior high; and one that walks eight blocks to high school.
I also like the fact that I have two districts, K-8 and high school. Their missions are very different.
I pay through the nose, but it’s my choice. I’m sure when my last kid is out, I’ll be outraged :)
- Heartless Libertarian - Monday, Mar 23, 09 @ 11:52 am:
As a former “down-stater,” I am a big supporter of consolidating school districts under the premise of “BUILDING A NEW SCHOOL.” Creating a long-lasting school district with the best technology and best building is a great help to maintaining the viability of the involved communities. Now, my idea isn’t exactly a money-saver upfront. But in the longterm… maybe…. Mr Link, good luck forcing it upon people…. Peoples’ unwillingness to work together will kill this idea….
- Sacks Romana - Monday, Mar 23, 09 @ 11:52 am:
I don’t have kids, but I don’t even understand how this would really work in Chicago, which is already one enormous school district, and the “areas” that subdivide it are also pretty large. I don’t view Chicago as operating any more efficiently than suburban or downstate school districts.
Aside from that, there would be an upfront cost of consolidating suburban school districts, and it wouldn’t be overnight either. It could realize some savings for government in the long run, but is a joke as an alternative to tax increases for fixing this and next year’s budget problems.
- VanillaMan - Monday, Mar 23, 09 @ 11:57 am:
Of cource. There is no reason to continue funding educational segregation as it now stands. If we are demanding that state and national governments pick up an increasing costs of school funding, then we should also be demanding that school district boundary lines be eliminated with the funding.
- Team America - Monday, Mar 23, 09 @ 11:57 am:
One thing you have to look at is how much state funding a school district receives–depending on the answer, school consolidation may make sense to free up state money for other schools. But, on the North Shore at least, the vast majority of the funding is from local property taxes, not state money. I know that if my school district combined with an adjacent one (which happens to be Lake Forest), my taxes would go up and we would have less control over our school system. The taxes of those already in Lake Forest might go down a tad, but I really don’t think they need it.
Combining such school districts may save a small amount of money, but I bet if given the choice, many school districts in my neck of the woods would say keep the state money and let us have our autonomy.
Of course, if the real issue is that the state’s school funding system is unfair, we can have that conversation, but it’s a completely different issue than simply talking about consolidation. I really don’t think this will end up being a big money saver overall.
- Shore - Monday, Mar 23, 09 @ 12:00 pm:
NO!I attended one of the premier public high schools in the state on the North Shore and find it absolutely ridiculous that anyone would consider screwing with one of the few areas of government that works. This seems like a typical Democratic party stunt-they can’t run state government so they decide in the name of “social justice” to beat up the people that work hard and have successful communities.
I’m hoping that doug whitley-who seems to be the rare gop bird of late to fly with me-will stand up against this kind of thing when he and if he runs.
- Mommy - Monday, Mar 23, 09 @ 12:01 pm:
I think Sven would like to see School District 54 and Hoffman Estates together so Sven can put cameras in all those schools so he can brag about all of his accomplishments.
- Shore - Monday, Mar 23, 09 @ 12:02 pm:
Didn’t see Team America’s comment. I find this “unfair school funding” business to be a total copout. You notice the people that make those complaints about money are generally the people that never have anything to say about what they are doing with the resources they already have.
- Wumpus - Monday, Mar 23, 09 @ 12:04 pm:
Yes, as long as 211/54 does not combine with U-46.
- Lefty Lefty - Monday, Mar 23, 09 @ 12:06 pm:
No. I don’t want anything to do with the messes that my neighboring districts are currently bogged down with. As I mentioned in a post last week, I am more put off by the extremely high salaries of administration and HS teachers. Reducing/capping those for a while would save tens of millions of dollars statewide.
- George - Monday, Mar 23, 09 @ 12:07 pm:
Yes. Consolidate.
Chicago doesn’t need to (and nobody will consolidate with Chicago), because it is already significantly large enough.
The State should set a minimum level of funding they provide per block of, say, 600 students. Like - 1 superintendent, 30 teachers, x counselors, x support staff, etc.
If you don’t have a block of 600 students, you need to consolidate with another district in order to get any funding for those blocks.
Whether the state pays for it, or local property taxes pay for it, there are too many administrators duplicating functions across large swaths of areas across the state.
If you assess property taxes at a county-wide level, you should have no problem managing one school district at a county-wide level without stepping into the pitfalls of district boundary disputes.
- Anon - Monday, Mar 23, 09 @ 12:08 pm:
This actually came up where we live and the school board voted it down saying our taxes would go up too much. The school district that did consolidate with the proposed school has lower taxes than ours and many more classes and activities. We even go to their school for some activities so we can offer them?????? So my answer is yes. I live in a VERY small school district. Even if we consolidate with another school or two around us we would be a very small school district. BTW the kids had a mock vote and they voted for it.
- Team America - Monday, Mar 23, 09 @ 12:15 pm:
Shore- don’t misunderstand my comment to mean that I agree the present school funding IS unfair. If you work hard, and pay high taxes that go to local schools so that you can have top quality schools that you control locally, which increases your local property values, I’m 100% behind that. Do children in less affluent areas deserve better than they get and should the state do more for them- yes - but let’s not accomplish that by taking away from areas that benefit from local taxes. We already have enough wealth redistribution attempts going on at the national level. My closing point was that Link’s trial balloon of school consolidation will not really save much money and the issue of school funding reform (which gets people a lot more excited, generally) is totally separate.
- prowler - Monday, Mar 23, 09 @ 12:19 pm:
Yes. I live in Sangamon County and there are 10 public districts here—each with their own superintendent making the Big $$, support staff and all that jazz.
http://www.iasb.com/directory/county.cfm?MCCONM=Sangamon
This is an unnecessary duplication of services and a waste of dollars that does not directly benefit the school children.
- carbon deforestation - Monday, Mar 23, 09 @ 12:27 pm:
Great way to frame the question Rich. It is similar to people’s view of Congress. I am for consolidation of other people’s school districts, but not mine (humor BTW). Honestly, I would not support this concept just because I don’t my school district combined with another.
- Riverbank - Monday, Mar 23, 09 @ 12:29 pm:
Shore- yes we need a better way to invest in all of our children, whether they wade along a sandy shore or a muddy shore in Illinois. success in academics in some of the more experimental public schools has shown that smaller environments payoff big returns in academics and in fund raising from foundations and corporations(not taxpayers)….not sure consolidation is the real answer to school profitability either….there are many other issues….just look at the school code of illinois and all the unfunded mandates….lets attack the root source of school profitability, not make it worse.
- Captain America - Monday, Mar 23, 09 @ 12:38 pm:
Streamlining and consolidation of school districts, elimination of township governmental and other special purpose entities makes a lot of sense to me.
- zatoichi - Monday, Mar 23, 09 @ 12:42 pm:
This will happen after several counties and smaller towns start to merge. Our local school system is doing OK, but the census is slowly and consistently dropping. Watched several small rural towns nearby argue over this issue for a number of years now. Local identity, history, old grudges, building conditions, travel distances (which are very significant, particularly for after school events), changing demographics, and who really has the bucks all became part of the package. No resolutions. I doubt anything real will happen until the operating cost greatly exceeds the tax base. The operation of a large urban district (say 100,000+ people) becomes very different in a small rural 10,000 pop area.
- Hoping For Rational Thought - Monday, Mar 23, 09 @ 12:42 pm:
Consolidation needs to happen especially in rural areas. My district is too small. A very solid consolidation plan failed this last November. 1 of the 3 districts voted no (not mine). There are many small districts that are not efficient because of the economies of scale.
The real challenge is how do you make it happen? It is hard for people to give up their schools until they are driven into the ground. Will the State mandate it somehow? The current incentive money apparently isn’t enough to persuade voters. Should the State offer more and with a guarantee? Many districts have been afraid the State would welsh on their commitment during rough budget times. Hard to believe I know!
I think the 600 students may be too high because at some point some rural districts become too geographically spread out but some process should be in place to get schools to the “best” size. I just don’t see the GA wanting to tax the heat that would come from forcing this issue.
The issue sould be on the agenda for debate.
- Central_IL_farm_boy - Monday, Mar 23, 09 @ 1:06 pm:
I served on the board of a small, rural K-12 district during the 80’s push for consolidation. Every county had to draw up a plan. Lots of smoke. No fire.
There are definitely some efficiencies out there but I’m not sure that you will ever gain them by simply slapping together a few of the current previously consolidated districts. Before you jump at some arbitrary minimum enrollment think about the local population density. Before you assume that larger is always more efficient someone needs to look at administrative dollars spent per student. Much like corporate mergers - merging two small schools that are each paying $100K for a superintendent may only result in one school that is paying $150K for a superintendent and $75K for an assitant.
- ValleyGal - Monday, Mar 23, 09 @ 1:31 pm:
No, mandated consolidation is not going to yield huge savings. For one thing, savings to the state would not be all that significant. In my local elementary district, $3 million of the $10 million budget actually comes from general state aid. The state aid is paid according to the numbers and types of students. Combining that with another district would fold in their general state aid numbers.
Another reason for no is the different focus on students. I’m glad our high school and grade school districts are separate. The high school is focused on building an athletic complex while the grade school took the initiative to work on curriculum and classroom improvements.
Another issue is the distance between students and schools. Five or 10 miles in the country can be a very long distance particularly in the winter when the weather’s bad. Last year they called school off in anticipation of a snowstorm since the biggest concern was getting to some of the country kids. The kids tried to shovel rain.
While it makes sense on the surface that combining districts would save on superintendents, it would actually give rise to business managers to run the finances of the larger districts once you have that many more students and additional budget items to juggle.
Yeah, superintendents make a lot of money but they deal with teacher contracts, student discipline, multi-million dollar budgets, parents, and I know one who even pulls lunchroom supervision duties.
It sounds like it would save but 10-15 years ago when there was a huge push to consolidate, many of those districts now regret the additional burdens of larger areas and the resources that have to be trucked back and forth.
- the Patriot - Monday, Mar 23, 09 @ 1:34 pm:
Absolutely no. My little country district is tops in the state when you look at test scores and results after graduation. Everyone keeps talking about effenciency, but why don’t we talk about the product. How come little country schools can be at the bottom 20% in per pupil cost, but the top 20% education? When something produces a better product at lower cost, you don’t eliminate it, you duplicate it.
- KPK - Monday, Mar 23, 09 @ 1:41 pm:
Yes but not to the point where two districts in seperate towns 5-10 miles apart would be forced to consolidate. Lockport, the city I live in, has I believe 5 different districts. I think two of the districts each have only one school.
Also, district maps were designed before the explosion of the suburbs. Too many times, kids go to schools many more miles away than they need too.
Besides expense reduction to the school districts, another plus in forcing consolidation would be possible improvement in education. For example, Fairmont District 89 last I looked was failing across the board for No Child Left Behind. Fairmont happens to be one of the two districts that is its own school too. Since there are no other schools in district to send kids from failing school, it goes to other districts. However, the neighboring district can not be forced to take students from failing school.
- Pot calling kettle - Monday, Mar 23, 09 @ 3:47 pm:
No. From what I have seen, it is a false economy, at least for rural districts. More kids crammed into fewer classrooms, long bus rides, no community attachment.
I agree that administrative structures could be streamlined, but I have not seen a big benefit in terms of money saved or improved test scores. Especially in districts that have been consolidated for a while.
I have seen a lot of consolidated districts start with a low tax rate but then need to call for a referendum to raise the rate when money turns out to be tighter than anticipated.
If small districts could share supts. and hire building principals, that would be better than trying to bus kids from 30 to 40-mile radius into a central location. The little schools can do very well by the kids because they have a short ride to school and it’s easy for the parents to come in and develop a relationship with the teachers and vice-versa.
- Get Real - Monday, Mar 23, 09 @ 3:52 pm:
Most people don’t realize that there are 800 school districts in the state of Illinois, which is third only to California and Texas. There are also a lot of rural school districts with less than 300 or even 100 students. I know of some counties with eight or nine districts. Consolidation IS the answer to the school funding crisis. However, small towns will never give in on school consolidation and most politicians do not have the courage to make it happen.
- make it so - Monday, Mar 23, 09 @ 4:10 pm:
Yes to school district consolidation. In the Belleville area there are 10 school districts. That’s a lot of administrative salaries that could go to programs for students. Also, the taxes in some school districts is very high. I live in the Signal Hill school district and we pay $3,000 in taxes to support 500 students.
- Gameplan - Monday, Mar 23, 09 @ 4:24 pm:
’bout time on school consolidation. I believe I wrote sometime ago just on the Skokie school district. Check ILEARN for Skokie school districts that’s plural!!!!! Combine those district and you’ll remove 2 superintendents, 2 curriculum directors, ….. you get the idea and btw, Skokie you win as tax payers!!!!!
- Pot calling kettle - Monday, Mar 23, 09 @ 4:37 pm:
If there were a plan to consolidate district administration while keeping neighborhood & small town schools open, I’d be all for it.
I’d love to see some research on the impact of school consolidation on student learning outcomes. That’s the real bottom line.
- George - Monday, Mar 23, 09 @ 4:48 pm:
Remember - you have to look at vertical consolidation as well as horizontal consolidation.
Vertical consolidation (elementary school districts combining with high school districts) should be a whole lot easier to do, since the underlying districts share the same wide area boundaries.
This is a huge issue, and necessary step, for the Chicago suburbs. Many communities in the suburbs contain a separate elementary district and high school district. That is unnecessary. Until the suburbans step up and do this, they shouldn’t call for any downstate districts to combine without looking hypocritical.
In rural Illinois, you already have the vertical consolidation (majority-wise), so you have to focus on the horizontal consolidation and combine multiple school districts that cover multiple areas.
- NIEVA - Monday, Mar 23, 09 @ 5:11 pm:
In a word no. I live in a small county where we consolidated about 15 years ago. At that time all of the towns in the county had groceries,gas stations, clothing stores,ect. Now there is one quickmart in each town. All of the other stores are gone. This was great for the towns that owed a lot of money the towns that had saved used their money to pay that debt off. Consol. killed the small towns!!
- Consolidate - Monday, Mar 23, 09 @ 5:17 pm:
If a legislator really wants to save taxpayers money they need to start with townships. We need a legislator to be bold and step forward to consolidate township government. Township government is outdated and official salaries are a great waste and duplication of services. Maybe Senator Link is just that bold legislator we are looking for to streamline a service no longer needed on the property tax bill.
- wordslinger - Monday, Mar 23, 09 @ 5:24 pm:
Nieva brings up a great point. Many of the reasons cited for school consolidation have been that the small districts can’t give the opportunities to the kids as larger districts.
But with today’s technology, is that true. If there are 20 kids in Metropolis, Rock Island , Charleston and Wauconda that can and should take Advanced Physics, can’t the state hook up some sort of video/online classroom for them?
Or if you have a 1,000 kids across the state who want to take Chinese, but it isn’t offered at their buildings?
Really, how tough would it be?
- Pot calling kettle - Monday, Mar 23, 09 @ 5:30 pm:
Having the school close to home and in the community where the student lives is, IMHO, very important; especially for K-5. Putting little kids on a bus for a hour to get to school is not the best way to start the day.
- Mr. Harrisburg - Monday, Mar 23, 09 @ 8:14 pm:
No way….I saw consolidation kill more than one town near my home in Southeastern Illinois. The consolidated school was located in a central location….in a country setting. The in-town schools were closed and the towns involved have never been the same again. A fact that is poorly understood by urban folks is that schools are of much greater importance in small towns and the distance between towns makes transportation costs overwhelm any savings that might result from certain aspects of consolidation.
- Bobs yer - Monday, Mar 23, 09 @ 9:39 pm:
start with the silly districts, mosquito abatement, small sewage districts, park districts coterminous with small villages, etc.
Then tackle the schools.