A high-powered governor’s task force is likely to deliver a proposal this summer to consolidate hundreds of school districts–an idea so politically poisonous two decades ago that it touched off battles across the state and changed a gubernatorial campaign.
With deficits rising in many districts, enrollments shrinking in others and pressure growing for a more equitable way of dividing state education dollars, a large-scale merger of school systems may get its first serious hearing in years.
Bob Leininger, a former state superintendent who heads the task force examining school funding, said the state cannot ignore realignment of its 891 school systems as it searches for a better way to pay for education.
At the same time, some educators say, local resistance to the idea of consolidation may be softening as taxpayers try to squeeze more value out of every dollar headed toward schools.
Consolidation could take any number of forms, from creating minimum district sizes to merging elementary and high school districts, with the common goal of reducing costs and creating a logical pattern of school governance statewide. Although wholesale consolidation probably would end up before the legislature and ultimately voters, the State Board of Education could unilaterally encourage mergers with financial incentives.
Most public school systems in the suburbs could be in play, but the Chicago Public Schools is so large it probably would not be affected.
Small rural districts, which vehemently fought consolidation in the past, have softened their stance, realizing they cannot compete with larger districts that offer the rich curriculum that students need to get into top-notch colleges.
And some administrators and lawmakers say taxpayers across the state may be more open to consolidation if it would forestall drastic cuts in programs or steep tax increases.
“In many cases, people would say … consolidation is a better option,” said Glenn “Max” McGee, who left his job as state superintendent of education in December after four years.
School consolidation has long been unpopular in Illinois, a state that prides itself on strong local control of schools. And some local superintendents, whose jobs would be vulnerable, say residents of their districts would never go for it.
Even in a tiny elementary district–such as south suburban Burnham, which has struggled with deficits, has one of the highest tax rates in the state and saw only one-fourth of its students pass state tests last year–consolidation may not be easy for voters to swallow.
“The school is the jewel of the community and they’re very proud,” said Al Vega, superintendent of Burnham, Cook County’s smallest school district, with 199 students. “This [district], believe me, would not vote for consolidation.”
Pushing the boundaries
Consolidation talks are in their infancy, so it remains uncertain what specific plans the governor’s task force will consider. The last time the state debated the issue, in 1985, the legislature passed a law–later gutted–that would have pushed consolidation for elementary school districts with fewer than 1,000 students, high school districts under 500, and combined districts of fewer than 1,500.
If those standards were applied now, 517 districts would fall under the suggested minimum.
An idea getting more play among planners in Springfield now–joining elementary and high school districts into K-12 “unit” districts–would prod 484 districts to rethink their boundaries, including 253 in the Chicago area.
Illinois has the third largest number of school districts in the nation, ranging from 26 pupils in Otter Creek-Hyatt School District in LaSalle County to about 435,000 in Chicago Public Schools.
Tiny as some districts are, the average used to be even smaller. In 1940, according to the State Board of Education, Illinois had 12,000 school districts. That number shrank dramatically during a round of consolidation over the following decade.
Nationwide, the trend has also been to consolidate, with the number of districts shrinking from 27,000 in 1965 to fewer than 15,000 today, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Some states, including Kansas and South Carolina, have new consolidation plans in the works.
Proponents say merging small districts saves taxpayers money by getting rid of administrative jobs and providing economies of scale for goods and services. They say large districts have a larger pool of students and qualified teachers and therefore can offer a richer curriculum, such as advanced placement classes and foreign languages. They also say that combining elementary and high school districts can result in better transitions to higher grades.
Opponents say small districts offer a close-knit environment for students, more local control for parents and more one-on-one attention for all. A community’s personality is often linked to its schools, and mergers, they argue, can strip away identity.
Bitter merger, better schools
Those who have been through consolidation can point to both benefits and problems.
Eight years ago, residents in three school districts in Highland Park and Highwood voted to merge with North Shore School District 112.
The merger, which sparked a nasty public battle and a lawsuit that went to the state Supreme Court, was an attempt to save the financially struggling Highwood-Highland Park district.
The vote proved to be the least of the problems. Officials in the new district had to merge three very different curriculums and teaching staffs, redraw school attendanceboundaries, phase out duplicate administrative jobs and find a way to plug the $1.5 million deficit that came with Highwood-Highland Park.
Some parents and teachers resisted at every step. Supt. JoAnn Desmond even received threatening phone calls.
But time healed the battle scars, she said. Three years after the vote, residents approved a $40 million building plan to relieve crowding, mainly in Highwood-area schools.
The “jewel” of the merger, Desmond said, was creation of a districtwide, voluntary dual-language program, which brought together Spanish-speaking children from the Highwood area with English-speaking kids across the district.
The program, which got off to a slow start, now enrolls 240 pupils at three schools and has a waiting list.
Mollie Krent, 8, said she enrolled in the dual-language program at Sherwood Elementary School because she wanted to learn Spanish.
“I think it’s cool,” Mollie said, while helping classmate Cesar Carranza with a yarn weaving assignment. “When I get out of school, I’ll know a lot more than some of my friends.”
Cesar, 8, agreed. “I think I learned English faster here,” he said. “I can teach my parents.”
“For this community, consolidation was definitely in the best interest of all the children,” Desmond said.
Battle was last joined in ’85
The last time talk of a statewide consolidation surfaced, in 1985, turf wars broke out as districts scrambled to maintain their students, buildings and property tax bases. Wealthy districts resisted taking on poorer districts. Predominantly white districts did not want to merge with minority districts. Districts argued about team mascots, colors, sports rivalries and, in one case, the safety of a bridge.
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A consolidation law was so fiercely opposed in Cook and DuPage Counties that it became an issue in the gubernatorial race between Adlai Stevenson and Gov. James Thompson. The next year, legislators watered it down until it became moot.
State Rep. Mary Lou Cowlishaw (R-Naperville) said she still has scars.
“I have never, in all the years I’ve served in the House, never heard such an outcry,” said Cowlishaw, who serves on the House Elementary and Secondary Education Committee. Cowlishaw said that if state lawmakers don’t mandate consolidation, which few expect they will, it won’t happen.
“When [school districts] get to the point that absolutely no one will loan them any more money, and the teachers go on strike because they haven’t seen a significant salary increase, at that point, they may consider consolidation,” she said. “But it will practically take an act of war to cause any of these places to voluntarily do this.”
`Equity and efficiency’
But Leininger, of the governor’s task force, believes the time might be ripe to launch a discussion of consolidation as part of his group’s larger effort to develop a more equitable method of funding schools in Illinois, which relies more heavily than most on property taxes.
“It’s equity and efficiency we need to concentrate on,” Leininger said.
Because the state’s funding formula currently benefits unit districts over separate elementary and high school districts, consolidation proponents believe it would help even the playing field.
Bill Steichmann, of the Illinois Association of Rural and Small Schools, said the group’s board of directors voted in May not to oppose consolidation as long as residents in each district have a right to vote on the matter.
“They really need to look at what’s best for the students,” he said.
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Two options to create fewer school districts
Rising deficits and falling enrollment in some of the state’s 891 school districts are prompting officials to consider ways to consolidate the number of Illinois public school districts, which serve 2 million students.
OPTION 1: ESTABLISHING MINIMUM NUMBER OF STUDENTS
Legislators in previous years have proposed that school districts meet minimum size standards. If those requirements were put in place today, more than 500 districts would have fewer than the minimum number of students. This would affect about 300,000 students, including about 37,500 in the six-county area.
%%
Total districts in state: 891
Would be affected: 517 (58%)
Broken down by type of school district
MINIMUM TOTAL WOULD BE
STUDENTS DISTRICTS AFFECTED
Elementary 1,000 383 217
High school 500 101 18
Unit (K-12) 1,500 407 282
Of 517 districts that would be affected, 65 are in the six-county area.
%%
OPTION 2: MAKING ALL DISTRICTS K-12
State officials now considering consolidation appear to favor creating school districts that encompass all grades. Although fewer districts would have to be consolidated, more than twice as many students would be affected, including about 616,000 in the six-county area.
Total districts in state: 891
Would be affected: 484 (54%)
(383 elementary districts and 101 high school districts)
%%
Broken down for the six-county region
TOTAL DISTRICTS WOULD BE AFFECTED ELEM. H.S.
Cook 144 142 115 27
Lake 45 39 29 10
DuPage 43 37 30 7
Will 29 22 19 3
McHenry 18 13 9 4
Kane 9 0 0 0
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6-COUNTY 288 253 202 51
Downstate 603 231 181 50
%% Note: The Chicago Public Schools District, a unit district that has more than 435,000 students, would not be affected under either option.
Source: Analysis of 2000-2001 Illinois State Board of Education data
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