Fewer school districts, not more
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his may not be the most opportune moment to sing the praises of large school districts, what with the Davis County schools in the middle of a court battle over closed boundary meetings and allegedly being defrauded of $4.3 million in a textbook scam. But a bill due to be considered in the 2007 Legislature that would make it easier to split large districts into smaller ones should not be approved by lawmakers.
A proposal by Sen. Carlene Walker, R-Sandy, aims to add coherence to a previously approved law that makes it possible for communities to band together to secede from current districts in order to create their own, smaller school districts. While we are unaware of any Top of Utah groups and/or cities pursuing such an agenda, various constituencies in Salt Lake and Utah counties are interested in carving themselves off from larger districts.
The most ethically troubling situation is an eastern segment of the Jordan School District that doesn't want to be financially obligated to pay for future growth on the district's west side, where hundreds of millions of dollars will be needed to build dozens of schools over the next two decades.
A bill allowing the district divisions was approved in a previous session of the Legislature, but the measure was so hastily written and poorly considered, it didn't actually include adequate detailed instructions for the division of physical facilities, equipment, tax distribution and collection, etc. Walker's bill, it is said, will correct that situation and allow disgruntled parents and municipalities to sever ties to their current districts.
We've long opposed the creation of more school districts in Utah. In fact, we have argued many times in this space that there should be fewer. The key to successful school districts is not size, but, we believe, quality management.
Furthermore, the cost of education differs in each jurisdiction. Every distinct district spends different amounts of money to educate an average student. Each district has varying costs for administration, for facilities, for equipment, for personnel -- everything.
And the old argument about parents not being able to have their opinions heard in a large school district is, we believe, hogwash.
Persistence, combined with coherence, makes a parent or interested party to the school system impossible to ignore.
Further fragmenting Utah's education apparatus will just create more bureaucracy. And that will take more money out of Utah's already poorly funded classrooms.
