I have a piece in this morning’s Arkansas Democrat Gazette arguing that consolidating school districts in Arkansas to 75 countywide school districts is not a promising reform strategy. A number of state officials as well as the Dem Gaz have floated the idea of cutting the number of districts to less than one-third of the current number as a way of saving superintendent and football coach salaries while improving the capacity of high schools to offer state-required courses. I argue that the salary savings will be few, there are better ways to help high schools offer courses (such as with distance ed), and student achievement tends to suffer in larger schools and school districts.
Now, this doesn’t mean that reconfiguring larger urban high schools into “small” schools within a school, as the Gates Foundation once pushed, is likely to produce much of an improvement either. The benefits of smaller schools and school districts may be related to the tighter connection they have to their communities and the more competitive market provided by having more districts. Simply breaking up big high schools may not better connect schools to communities or create more competitive pressure.
Being able to choose among schools within a district is like being able to choose among the menu items at McDonalds. It’s nice that you could choose the Filet-O-Fish if you prefer to eat fish, but there is no change in competitive pressure from adding that menu item — all of the money still ends up in the same place. The same is true for choice within school districts — all of the money still stays with the school district, so their motivation is not significantly altered by your choice among their schools. We should only expect significant competitive pressure when money leaves one organization and enters another as a result of consumer choice. School districts are the main organizational unit of education funding.
Posted by Jay P. Greene 
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