Friday, February 16, 2007

Neither is very persuasive.

While citizens should always be skeptical of the assumptions built into any politician's budget -- whether that politician is a Republican president or a Democratic governor -- the Baldacci administration's consolidation plan simply calls for Maine to do what other states have already done: to spend less per student on administrative overhead.

True, Maine administrators and educators will need to do things differently, and such changes are inevitably more difficult and disruptive than we first expect. But is there really any reason to doubt that Maine will be able to do what other states have already accomplished?

The value of "local control," not the question of efficiency, is the real fuel firing the passionate opposition to the governor's plan. As rhetoric, the mantra of "local control" is undeniably powerful, but what is the reality?

In reality, most people, most of the time, don't care very much about their school boards, or even their local governments, which is why we have willingly turned over so much responsibility for our local governments to professional administrators. Voter turnout figures tell the same story of substantial indifference to local government. Turnout is considerably and consistently lower in local elections than in congressional or presidential elections; this is true both nationally and locally.

In the 2005 local elections in Waterville, for example -- which featured a contested mayoral election and multiple candidates for city council and school board -- the voter turnout was not quite 40 percent, as compared to a statewide rate in 2006 of 72.6 percent. In Winslow, the figures are similar: the 2005 referendum on whether to renovate the high school attracted roughly 2,700 votes, while in 2006, the gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races yielded about 3,400 votes -- an increase of more than 25 percent over the local election.

Even those of us who do bother to vote in local elections would not find our votes too terribly diluted by the creation of regional school boards. Most voters, after all, would have exactly the same access to the representatives on a regional school board that we now have to our local representatives: If we should have an issue to discuss with them, we would call them or send a letter or an e-mail, just as we might contact our representatives now.

The passion in the fight for local control derives not from any cool-headed assessment about the determinants of educational excellence, but from the visceral feeling many people have that their sense of local identity is importantly sustained by their having their own local, community schools.

Although the governor's plan does not call for the closure of any schools, it has provoked such passionate opposition because it does two things that opponents fear will make the closure of some smaller schools more likely.

First, it limits the amount of money the state will spend to subsidize localities wishing to have smaller class sizes than the statewide average. Second, the regional school boards it creates would presumably be less reluctant to close uneconomically small schools than the local school boards they replace. Both measures are reasonable, however, and are essential to the plan's success.

Thus far, the debate over the district consolidation plan has been driven by the passions and fears of the vocal minority who identify so closely with their small, local schools. They think it reasonable to expect that the state government will make an open-ended commitment to sustain them indefinitely, no matter what the cost.

The vast majority of us, however, understand that we cannot have a reasonable state and local tax burden if we continue to subsidize inefficiently small schools and bloated administrative bureaucracies indefinitely. We understand that, in an era of declining enrollments, some schools will have to close. It won't be pleasant for anyone, but mature and reasonable people accept unpleasant realities when they have to.

Because district consolidation offers only modest benefits to each of us as individuals (though the collective benefits are quite considerable), we who do not fear consolidation will inevitably be less vocal those who feel that their sense of local identity is threatened by the change. But there are more of us.

Joseph R. Reisert is associate professor of American constitutional law and chairman of the Department of Government at Colby College in Waterville.