Drawbacks of Allegheny County School District Consolidaton
By Cheryl Boise & Marilyn Reed

Concerning the consolidation of school districts, there were a number of issues that Mr. Wassel left unaddressed in his recent article, “For a New Allegheny County 26 school districts, 26 municipalities”.As he mentioned, the Pennsylvania Legislative Budget and Finance Committee contracted Standard & Poor’s to do a study on the “cost-effectiveness of consolidating school districts”. He accurately reported that Standard & Poor’s found the most cost-effectiveness is found in school districts with between 2,500 and 2,999 students. How much of a cost saving would it be to increase the size of districts beyond 3000 as he proposes in many cases? Also, it would seem important to look at perhaps splitting up the Pittsburgh Public Schools (currently spending $20,000 on each of their 28,000 pupils). It would seem necessary to split this district into smaller school districts in order to really reach “the goal of creating more cost-effective, economically competitive and efficient government bodies”.

Standard & Poor’s also reported that there were key factors that had to be analyzed prior to any consideration of school district consolidation. It is necessary to look at local school taxes, transportation costs, and teacher contracts. Let’s use the proposed merger, of Gateway-East Allegheny-Trafford as an example. Using the 2008 figures as seen in Pittsburgh Business Times’ Guide to Western Pennsylvania Schools, Gateway had an average teacher’s salary of $64,827 with a tax millage of 19.41. East Allegheny had an average teacher salary of $54,292 with tax millage of 26.54. Does anyone believe the teachers’ union would be willing to lower their salaries in Gateway to match those of the teachers in East Allegheny? The answer is “no”. So, the salaries would go up for those teachers currently working in East Allegheny. Then, in order to accommodate the increased salaries, most likely the tax rate in Gateway would have to increase. The contractual and tax issues would have to be addressed in all proposed school district mergers. Beyond that, there could be increased transportation costs. For example, right now in the Northgate School District, all students walk to school, but what would happen if they merged with Avonworth? By increasing the need for more buses, what would that do to overall costs? Further, there is the added cost of closing schools (possibly trying to sell buildings in a down economy) and the rebranding (signage, stationary, web pages and even band uniforms), of new districts that must be accessed.

Additionally, S&P pointed out that even if cost savings could be guaranteed, consolidations are often very controversial due to issues such as socio-economic and demographic differences, loss of local identity and local control. No Child Left Behind could be an obstacle to consolidation even under the Obama administration. Due to the fact that districts are held accountable for making Adequate Yearly Progress, it would be a disincentive for higher-performing districts who might balk at merging with lower-performing ones.

Though it was not mentioned in the S&P report, it is important to keep in mind that large school districts with higher than average per pupil spending have been shown to do less well academically. A study done by Howley & Bickel in 2000, found that smaller districts had consistently higher test scores. The Nevada Policy Research Institute reports that, “Decreasing the size of school districts has a substantial, statistically significant positive effect on graduation rates….As school district size increases, the percentage spent on teachers, books and teaching materials actually appears to go down.”

One concern overriding all of this in our minds is that of losing local control. Many believe that this may be the main reason some people like Governor Rendell are pushing ahead for consolidation. As the districts get larger, local school boards and indirectly, the average parent/taxpayer, lose their ability to have their schools be what they want rather than what the administrators, politicians and ultimately the federal government wants in their schools. “As [David] Reynolds observes, in the pre-consolidation era, the local school ‘was typically the key neighborhood institution binding neighbors and linking them to the larger social and cultural worlds around them.’ Thus, consolidation of the local school district…threatened a community’s social cohesion and economic vitality.” (Reynolds, David, There Goes the Neighborhood, University of Iowa Press, 1999) If one can assume then that consolidation is not good for a community, can it really be good for children in the long haul? We suggest that having fewer students in each school district would create a more nurturing environment where all students can receive the attention they need—and none will “fall through the cracks” as often happens in larger districts.

This article is an expanded version of our letter to the editor which printed in the Post-Gazette on July 13, 2009.