Funny, we will have 10 pages on budget issues of other schools, but man we run from our own issues.

Brightbill is no longer a trustee.

As I've posted before,I Chair FDU's Industrial Advisory Committee For Civil and Construction Engineering.

It amazes me how many mid-level administrators they have.

Its also next to impossible to get any explanation of what they do.

It also amazes me how few classes "full" professors teach.

Seems they rely on adjuncts and asst. professors.

Well said Ohio Cat Fan. In 1914 there were over 2,500 public school districts in Ohio. This was due to the fact that one room school houses were often counted as an entire district. The General Assembly put an end to that and school district numbers dropped dramatically, especially after World War II when consolidation was encouraged. I believe it was somewhere around the mid-1950s that any additional exempted public school districts was put to an end. Usually these were small towns that still had their own district.

Consolidation was suppose to bring about an enhanced learning experience where elementary, middle and high school buildings were the norm. Many Catholic and other religious schools held on the to the K-8 model. Supporting the concept of a K-8 building was definitely a no-no when I took Education classes at our beloved Alma mater. I was read the riot act on a few occasions for having antiquated ideas. The funny thing is now you will notice that in rural districts K-12 buildings are the wave of the future, because research shows it provides a strong community feeling.

When lawmakers on the state and federal level went from trying to help local districts in their efforts to better educate children, to telling local districts what to do and how to teach--well that's where things started to go downhill. Local residents who once took pride in their local teachers and buildings soon felt a disconnect because they felt they had lost much of their control. Beautiful old buildings built with a labor of love by local people were replaced with hideous structures, many of which were staffed by people they did not know. A disconnect emerged which resulted in apathy and levies not being supported. It is a complicated subject, but this is an area that doesn't often get covered.

Small schools are a total waste of money and resources. OHIO needs more consolidation, fewer Superintendents, fewer principals and treasurers. Not to mention the building boom to try and satisfy the Rolph decision was a huge waste of money in building new buildings for districts that are simply too small to justify the cost. As for the K-12 campus, only really practical in these smaller communities due to land restraints and other resources.

I don't know how one could have a country of nearly 400 million people and not have some national oversight on education.

Recently, the Texas Education Agency blocked the Houston Independent School District- I believe the nation's third-biggest school district- from hiring a superintendent. Why? Because the state wants to take the district over. So much for small government, eh?

This first quote is so far out of line, it's made with likely little understanding. The reality is that larger school districts tend to have more administrative overhead than less. In Illinois, we have 852 school districts. Naturally, the impulsive thought would be to consolidate districts. Our former governor, Pat Quinn (who isn't in prison, big news for us), pushed consolidation. Yet a task force showed that this was not a cost saver. In many cases, the smaller districts were run far more efficiently.

I'm in a district of 800 students. I'm a principal and an assistant superintendent, I'm in charge of curriculum, I run much of the human resources, etc. In a smaller district, you wear more hats than in the bigger districts. There is a district neighboring ours where the superintendent is also the principal, and also drives busses for field trips.

In larger districts, the administrative overhead becomes intense. Assistant Superintendents fill many roles. There are coaches for subject matters throughout that don't directly work with students. For the state of Illinois, there is one administrator for every 181 students. In our 800 students in our district, we are at 3 administrators. That's one for every 266.

This is not to mention that smaller schools, with more direct contact between decision makers and students (not multiple levels of bureaucracy), scores tend to be higher. Again, my district is one of the smaller of neighboring districts. Our scores are far and away the best in the area. That is because we are able to make decisions that directly impact our students. Our district mission statement is simple: Students first, always.

Smaller districts work. To say otherwise due to the thought that each district has a superintendent is to look at one piece of the equation. Combine four districts that have just a superintendent and principals, you're still having a direct superintendent, likely multiple assistant superintendents, and now to keep the districts working on the same page, you're going to hire coaches to travel between schools, curriculum directors for each content area, and more central office staff members as well.

Your experiences in Illinois are quite different than in Ohio. Many of the highest scoring districts in Ohio are also on the larger end (Dublin, Olentangy, etc.). Smaller schools can't offer the range of curricular and co-curricular activities that larger ones can. This isn't a black and white issue. There are lots of districts between the size of Columbus and Millersport. What most have finally come to acknowledge is that family income and the level of education of the parents are two of if not the two most important determinants of student success.

Based on working in hundreds of schools in Ohio and 25+ other states, I stick by my claim that Ohio has way too many school districts.

Alan, no offense taken. My bio is obviously a few years old, as I live a couple of towns over. I did live in Rockton, but never worked there. I work (and now live) in South Beloit, Il. Still not an inner-city by any means, but here is the breakdown of demographics (again, using 2010 census data):

The population density was 1,362.9 people per square mile (526.2/km2). There were 2,345 housing units at an average density of 592.2 per square mile (228.6/km2). The racial makeup of the city was 87.16% White, 5% African American, 0.63% Native American, 1.01% Asian, 0.07% Pacific Islander, 3.48% from other races, and 1.83% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 7.49% of the population.

There were 2,165 households out of which 33.8% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 49.1% were married couples living together, 11.4% had a female householder with no husband present, and 34.5% were non-families. 28.8% of all households were made up of individuals and 10.3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.46 and the average family size was 3.01.

In the city, the population was spread out with 26.5% under the age of 18, 8.7% from 18 to 24, 33.4% from 25 to 44, 18.5% from 45 to 64, and 12.9% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 33 years. For every 100 females, there were 98.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 96.2 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $35,597, and the median income for a family was $41,154. Males had a median income of $33,110 versus $22,596 for females. The per capita income for the city was $18,363. About 8.2% of families and 10.0% of the population were below the poverty line, including 15.4% of those under age 18 and 7.6% of those age 65 or over.

While I do deal with a more privileged clientele than some, that does not change that the smallness of our district (or of any smaller district) allows for more intimate and direct services.

You mentioned the county of Scioto having more school districts than Athens. I'm not familiar with either (other than my years as a Bobcat), but Scioto is more than 100 square miles larger than Athens, so I would imagine that the more spread out factor of the county plays a part in that as well. The question, assuming they're similar in many other ways, is which county has districts performing better academically and economically?


And, since this is about the economics more so than the demographics, here's a breakdown in the small district I'm in economically compared to the demographics of the state:

Illinois Per Student Instructional Spending: $8,023.61
Prairie Hill SD #133 Per Student Instructional Spending: $5886.77

Illinois Per Student Operational Spending: $13336.64
Prairie Hill SD #133 Per Student Operational Spending: $9445.07

So, we are spending about 27% less per student on instructional spending than the state average and nearly 30% less per student in operational spending than the state average. It is more economical to be a smaller district.

I think that these are very telling stats. Throwing more money at a problem is not always the best solution to that problem. As I said in my first blurb in this thread, I believe that the old Chauncey-Dover Exempted Village School District gave their students a better education than the later combined district. Their tax base and spending per pupil I'm sure was at the low end statewide. Bureaucrats looking at these figures in Columbus probably made decisions not based on any actually knowledge of the district, but on statistical models of what a school district should have in the way of resources. I'm not saying that the Ohio Department of Education doesn't fulfill some useful purposes. But, as finnOhio says if you are closer to the problem you probably have a better idea how to fix. Well, he didn't actually say that, but I think it's a logical paraphrase of his overall line of thinking. He can correct me if I'm wrong.

I always seem to jump into these small school discussions since I was one of 29 to graduate in 1967. Today the school graduates between 30 and 40. What people miss when they preach consolidation is that these small communities totally revolve around the school. My small western Ohio town has some of the highest graduation rates and no they don't have all of many AP courses. Lots of students go to vocational school and not college, but this school makes the community complete. The cost per pupil is much less than the rest of Ohio and they have minimal administration. Yes, everyone is white and almost everyone is Catholic so it is a very homogeneous area. All of Western Ohio north of Dayton is this way. In the 60's they fought consolation with all they had and all schools in Shelby County are high quality. You do not need large schools to be effective and to get a high quality education. This is a big city myth and also liberal desire to control education.

What high school?