I recently got into an argument on Facebook over Governor Quinn's proposal to force some of Illinois' 800+ school districts to merge with one another, on the grounds that having so many districts must necessarily be inefficient.
The thing is, I like the small districts. It means that the feedback loop between the school board and the taxpayers is quite short. When your electorate is only a couple thousand voters, you can't afford to ignore even a relatively small group. I grew up in one of the largest school districts in the Midwest (MSD Washington Township, Indianapolis) and the school board might as well have been appointed by God; there was no way Joe Average Parent would have any way at all to get traction with (or even noticed by) them.
Of course there are many many ways in which the school board's hands are tied, but at least we've got the locality of control down right. In school districts, especially elementary districts, smaller is better.
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