1. Bringing Students Together: The Obstacles & Opportunities of School District Consolidation June 15, 2016
Benefits of and Obstacles to School District Consolidation
Remarks by Paul Tractenberg

2. Benefits of and Obstacles to School District Consolidation
The mandate for an “efficient system of free public schools” and the role of school district consolidation
NJ Constitution’s Education Clause:
“The Legislature shall provide for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of free public schools for the instruction of all the children in the state between the ages of five and eighteen years.”

3. Benefits of and Obstacles to School District Consolidation
The (In)efficiencies of NJ’s current system:
1) The crazy quilt of more than 700 school districts (each charter school its own school district)
About two-thirds of all districts not K-12
Curriculum articulation problems
Lack of meaningful local governance authority for schools in another school district
High administrative costs
Contributes to racial, ethnic and socioeconomic isolation
A root cause of school funding inequities

4. Benefits of and Obstacles to School District Consolidation
2) A seriously problematic school funding system
Heavy reliance on grossly disparate local property tax bases with a preponderance of at-risk students in low property wealth districts
Perennial failure of the legislature to fully fund its own school aid formula
State aid decisions too late in the school year to permit effective educational planning
Nation’s highest property taxes and among the highest per capita education spending

5. Benefits of and Obstacles to School District Consolidation
3) Extreme racial, ethnic and socioeconomic segregation from district to district with at-risk students disproportionately isolated in poor urban and poor rural school districts
NJ public schools among the most segregated in the nation racially, ethnically and socioeconomically even though NJ has the strongest state constitutional law in the nation requiring racial balance in the public schools “wherever feasible”
About 26% of NJ’s black students and 13% of its Hispanic students are being educated in “apartheid schools,” those with fewer than 1% white students. When black and Hispanic students being educated in “intensely segregated schools” (fewer than 10% white students) are added, the numbers exceed 40%. Many white students are educated in “reverse-apartheid” schools
Consequent academic and social learning deficits as well as failure to prepare students effectively to be citizens and workers in an increasingly global and technological world

6. Benefits of and Obstacles to School District Consolidation
4) Too much focus on standardized testing as main benchmark for students, teachers, schools and districts
5) Lack of capacity in the state department of education and other branches of state and local government
Extends to research, technical assistance, and effective monitoring and oversight
Too much attention and too many resources devoted to extended state takeover and operation of large urban districts

7. Benefits of and Obstacles to School District Consolidation
How can we enhance the efficiency of our system of free public schools?
1) Follow what a succession of NJ blue ribbon commissions have recommended repeatedly over the past 50 years—school district and municipal consolidation
Current NJ law and policy favors consolidating districts into K-12 systems
2) Follow best practices models in this country
For district consolidation
In most of the U.S. there has been a precipitous decline in the number of school districts over the past three quarters of a century; in NJ there has been a substantial increase
In 1939, the first year in which the number of school districts was published, there were more than 119,000 in the U.S.. By 2013, the number had declined to about 13,500, a decline of almost 90%. By contrast, the number of NJ districts increased by at least 20%
A number of state have adopted county school districts, some with notable success (e.g., Maryland); NJ’s own experience with county vocational districts and their magnet high school programs suggests it’s an idea worth considering

8. Benefits of and Obstacles to School District Consolidation
For integrating the schools
Make racial, ethnic and socioeconomic diversity a primary goal of K-12 consolidation
Adopt the Morris School District model of district consolidation for racial balance
Create a pilot county-wide district (Essex County?)
Amend the existing inter-district public school choice statute to emphasize racial, ethnic and socioeconomic diversity as a primary goal

9. Benefits of and Obstacles to School District Consolidation
3) Follow best practices models in other countries
For example, in the neighboring Canadian province of Ontario, during the past dozen years a number of relevant reforms have reshaped the education system:
Ontario consolidated its relatively small number of school districts (135 for 2.1 million students, as compared to about 700 for 1.35 million students in NJ) to 75; Ontario has almost 30,000 students per district; NJ has less than 2,000
Ontario rejected a shared provincial/state-local funding system in favor of full provincial funding
Ontario has virtually no standardized testing and relies on classroom teachers for most of its accountability system
Ontario has eschewed school choice and charter schools focusing instead on enhancing the quality of its public schools
Ontario stresses child well-being at least to the same extent as academic achievement
By the way, Ontario spends only about 60% as much as NJ does on education per pupil and its students are the highest- scoring English-speaking students in the world on NAEP

10. Benefits of and Obstacles to School District Consolidation
Conclusion
Mandate of an “efficient system of free public schools” has been part of NJ’s state constitutional education clause since 1875 yet it has been honored more in the breach than in the observance. It is long past time to remedy that default and to attend seriously to our state’s public schools. They must be made to serve all our children well. That is the essence of the mandate of an “efficient system of free public schools for the instruction of all the state’s children.”
School district consolidation is a foundational aspect. Main obstacles:
Political third rails
NJ’s passionate love affair with localism
Fiscal details of funding consolidated districts
The “other people’s children” syndrome?