Plains states where 'C' word heard most

Dec. 14, 2004

Sarah Kessinger

Harris News Service

TOPEKA - The days could be numbered for many of Nebraska's 501 school districts.

A consolidation bill headed for the state's Legislature in January could decide the fate of many of the smallest rural schools.

While opponents have kept consolidation efforts at bay so far, this measure proposes to reorganize 260 rural districts with elementary schools. The bill would eliminate their school boards by combining them with rural high school districts.

While the proposal includes financial incentives, the idea is unwelcome to many Nebraskans dedicated to their small-town lifestyles. The bill's ultimate goal, they say, is to shutter the last of several communities' schools.

But others - often urban or suburban lawmakers - see consolidation as a budget savings, a way to redirect funding to other needy areas of the state.

"I'm convinced it'd improve education," said the bill's author, Sen. Ron Raikes, who farms in rural Nebraska but lives in Lincoln. "It's very difficult to offer a full breadth of curriculum and have highly trained and well-paid teachers if your school system is very, very small."

With a shrinking rural population, Nebraska already has witnessed the closure of 400 school districts since 1981 under voluntary mergers.

 

Familiar tune

The Cornhusker State's pending debate is familiar across the Great Plains and the rural South these days.

Consolidation talks flare at statehouses. Small-town residents and school leaders organize and protest. Only when population dwindles to tiny student enrollments do school boards usually agree to throw in the towel.

In places where states have forced consolidations, a counter-movement has risen across rural America - one backed by a growing amount of research showing bigger districts aren't necessarily better.

 

To merge or not to merge

When the nation's economy hit the skids and state budgets tightened in the late 1990s, several states turned up the volume on school consolidation talks.

A steady decline of farm communities and rural populations helped re-energize the discussion.

"The Great Plains is absolutely classic in this," said Marty Strange, policy director of the Vermont-based Rural School and Community Trust, which opposes forced consolidations.

"Especially in Nebraska and the Dakotas, you see the views from rural areas contrast sharply with urban areas. It's kind of a kick 'em- while-they're-down attitude. And what it ignores is that places don't always stay in permanent decline."

Strange doesn't quarrel with districts that opt to voluntarily merge. But when it comes to states ordering districts to consolidate, he urges policymakers to look at places such as rural New England.

The area, once in decline, is attracting new professionals seeking country life. Today's technology allows them to work far from the cities.

"I think there's lots of examples of economies and regions that go through transitions," he said.

Still, many school districts - even those in urban areas - face mounting financial pressure as costs grow while state funding stagnates or declines.

In Nebraska, budget cuts and decreasing population have forced rural districts to re-examine how much longer they can survive.

The most remote areas are the most politically vulnerable, Strange said.

Plus, legislatures in a handful of states now face court mandates to equalize funding among schools. Arkansas, for example, is undergoing a radical consolidation of schools after the state Supreme Court declared state school aid inadequate and inequitable.

"Unless you're willing to recognize the whole system needs more money," Strange said, "you have to recognize the temptation to take money from some districts and give it to others."

 

Is bigger better?

Merging school districts doesn't always save money, say those who track consolidation trends.

Larger districts can become more efficient, depending on how they operate.

But some are quite the opposite, said Linda Martin, director of Challenge West Virginia, a grassroots support group for rural schools.

When remote districts combine, Martin said, bus transportation costs rise.

West Virginia has closed 325 schools since 1990. Its per-student spending is now among the highest in the nation. But more of that budget now goes to transporting students on bus rides of one to four hours each day.

Similar views exist in other states.

"I can't see where it's saved money," said Milford Smith, a retired school superintendent and leader of the Nebraska Coalition for Educational Adequacy, which opposes mandatory consolidation.

Raikes agrees that Nebraska districts would face costs upfront to consolidate. But over time he expects a more efficient system and resulting savings.

"It's difficult to spell out precisely how much and how soon," he said.

Another question often raised when districts merge is the effect it has on school quality.

As rural communities shrink, the people who leave first are those with the greatest range of choices, Strange said. They often have the education and are young enough to start over.

"The population left behind are often those who most need an education system that's supposed to provide for them," he said. "Yet they are the ones we target for long bus rides."

Strange says a "mountain of research" shows small schools as more cost-effective. Even if they cost more to operate, he said, they often get better results with higher graduation rates than their large, urban counterparts.

In Oklahoma, rural residents voluntarily merged districts a few years ago with help from a state incentive program. But that has not been renewed recently.

"It's not clear to people that consolidation is the answer," said Andy Young, Oklahoma's deputy superintendent of education. "In fact, across the country the trend in some parts is to make large schools smaller. There's a lot of conflicting information about what constitutes an effective school size."

Still, not long ago the Sooner State's western residents chose to close several schools, cutting the number of districts from 600 to 540.

Two-thirds of those remaining have less than 500 students.

School consolidation also is on the rise in Kentucky, where lawmakers now are merging districts into a county high school system.

 

A glance at the future

Rural districts in population decline also face the challenge of an ever-aging taxpayer population.

School administrators worry about a growing disconnect between those who have children in school and those local property-owners who don't.

When state cuts force districts to rely more and more on their local tax-payers, an elderly resident with no connection to the school system might not feel compelled to support a local bond issue to maintain or replace crumbling buildings or update technology.

"That's a real problem for schools in some communities," said Oklahoma's Young. "If senior citizens don't vote for their bond issues and programs, they're endangered."

Despite the touted benefit of student-teacher ratio in small schools, few predict a widespread turnaround in consolidation trends.

"It's hard to generalize," Strange said, "but in areas with declining population you also have declining political influence. So you can expect a lot of bitter pills to be pushed down people's throats in terms of these decisions.

"The irony is you're talking about closing some of the higher-performing schools in the country."