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What the Research Says (or Doesn’t Say): Consolidation of School Districts
Education Northwest recently received a request for the latest research on school district consolidation. As we discovered in our literature review, this is a strategy being considered by many states, especially those with large rural populations, such as Maine, Montana, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington. Although cost savings is the driving force behind most consolidation efforts, other important issues include: local educational autonomy, community identity, the pros and cons of larger districts, and the impact on students.
Below we provide a sampling of the most pertinent research we found. A full bibliography is available upon request from info@educationnorthwest.org [1]
Does Consolidation Reduce Costs?
Although the argument for cost savings is based on economies of size, there are limited pre- and post-consolidation studies from which to draw solid conclusions. Most studies focus on single districts and provide no statistical controls. Moreover, although cost-per-pupil may be lower in larger districts, savings can be offset by costs related to transportation, capital spending, and the leveling up of salaries across schools.
Duncombe, W.D., & Yinger, J.M. (2010). School district consolidation: The benefits and costs. School Administrator, 67(5), 10–17. Retrieved from http://www.aasa.org/SchoolAdministratorArticle.aspx?id=13218
This article discusses the authors’ study of 12 pairs of consolidated districts in New York State. The researchers isolated the impacts of consolidation by comparing the consolidated districts “both with their own costs before consolidation and with the cost of similar districts that did not consolidate.” The study found that annual operating expenses declined by 61.7 percent when two 300-student districts merged and by 49.6 percent when two 1,500-student districts merged. These cost savings were offset by transition costs and adjustment costs in capital spending, which may have been encouraged by state building aid. According to the complete study (citation listed below) a factor of the cost savings was a “sizable” subsidy that New York state provided to consolidating districts. Although the authors say that “states are likely to save money … by encouraging their smaller districts, specifically those with fewer than 1,500 pupils, to consolidate …” they also suggest that “state policymakers may want to consider several factors other than cost savings” such as “break[ing] parents’ valued connections with existing schools” and “higher transportation costs.” (For more information, read the full study: Duncombe, W., & Yinger, J. (2007). Does school district consolidation cut costs? Education Finance and Policy, 2(4), 341-375.)
Rural School and Community Trust. (2002). Closing costs: A summary of an award winning look at school consolidation in West Virginia, a state where it has been tried aggressively. Retrieved from http://www.ruraledu.org/articles.php?id=2043
This summary of a report on West Virginia consolidations showed that significant transportation costs occurred after consolidations, forcing counties to slash funding in other areas. Parents and students reported that the long bus rides left students “exhausted” and impacted grades, family time, and participation in school activities.
Silvernail, D.L., Gritter, A.K. & Sloan, J.E. (2007). Analysis of the impact of school consolidation on student transportation cost. Retrieved from University of Southern Maine, Center for Education Policy, Applied Research, and Evaluation website http://usm.maine.edu/cepare/Reports/Student_Transportation_Cost.pdf
The Maine State Board requested an analysis of transportation costs of consolidated districts to determine if student transportation expenditures increased or decreased after consolidation. The study found that ”in most cases transportation costs decreased—or increased at a reduced rate—in the first year of consolidation and then, in the years immediately following completion of the new school construction, returned to annual increases similar to those experienced before consolidation.”
What Is The Impact On Students?
In our search, we found only two studies that looked at student outcomes of consolidation; the other studies compared student outcomes of large districts with small districts. The outcome studies we found compared graduation and dropout rates with pre- and post-consolidation efforts—we found no studies that used student achievement data.
Bowen, S.L. (2007). Is bigger that much better? School district size, high school completion, and post-secondary enrollment rates in Maine. Maine View, 5(10), 1–5. Retrieved from http://www.mainepolicy.org/resources/media/51_244589835.pdf
This study by the Maine Heritage Policy Center compared high school completion rates of the 15 largest and 15 smallest school districts in Maine and found that the graduation rate for smaller districts was six percent higher than for larger districts.
Gordon, N., & Knight, B. (2008). The effects of school district consolidation on educational cost and quality. Public Finance Review, 36(4), 408–430.
A study of consolidations in Iowa during the 1990s found no statistically significant change in “pupil-teacher ratios, enrollments, or dropout rates” after consolidation. It should be noted that these schools did share high schools before consolidating.
Greene, J.P., & Winters, M.A. (2005). The effect of residential school choice on public high school graduation rates (Education Working Paper No. 9). Retrieved from Manhattan Institute for Policy Research website http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/ewp_09.htm
This study calculated the graduation rate over the last decade using officially reported enrollment and diploma counts made available by the U.S. Department of Education in its Core of Common Data (CCD). The study examined the relationship between graduation rates and changes in each state's average school district size. The researchers found that “decreasing the size of school districts has a substantially and statistically significant positive effect on graduation rates. Conversely, consolidation of school districts into larger units leads to more students dropping out of high school.”
Howley, A., & Howley, C. (2006). Small schools and the pressure to consolidate. Educational Policy Analysis Archives, 14(10), 1–23. Retrieved from ERIC database. (EJ806029)
The authors, who are part of a team of researchers on school size, reviewed the research on the effects of small schools. They report that children from economically disadvantaged families have higher achievement in small schools and small districts; the relationship between aggregate student achievement and socioeconomic status is consistently weaker in smaller schools and districts (equity effects of size); dropout rates are lower in smaller schools; students’ school activity participation is higher in smaller schools; and smaller high schools can offer adequate curriculum.
Jimerson, L. (2007). Slow motion: Traveling by school bus in consolidated districts in West Virginia. Retrieved from Rural School and Community Trust website http://www.ruraledu.org/user_uploads/file/docs/slow_motion_wvbusdes.pdf
A survey of high school students in four West Virginia counties found that students from consolidated districts had a 43 percent longer commute, rode busses more often, and participated less in extracurricular activities than students in nonconsolidated districts.
What Is The Impact To The Community?
Graves, B. (2010). The collision of athletics & consolidation. School Administrator, 67(5), 24-29. Retrieved from http://www.aasa.org/SchoolAdministratorArticle.aspx?id=13226
Although not a research study, this article discusses one issue of consolidation—losing interscholastic sports teams when districts merge and the effect this has on community identity and unity.
Hu, Y., & Yinger, J. (2007). The impact of school district consolidation on housing prices. Retrieved from Syracuse University, Center for Policy Research website http://www-cpr.maxwell.syr.edu/efap/Publications/Impact_of_Consolidation.pdf
This study found a positive impact on home values and rents in very small, low-income tracts in New York districts that were consolidated between 1990 and 2000. However, in higher-income tracts there was a large negative impact on home values. This effect declined with district enrollment, as expected by economies of size. In these cases, state aid to consolidating districts was a significant factor in the rise of home values.
Lyson, T.A. (2005). The importance of schools to rural community viability. In L.J. Beaulieu & R. Gibbs (Eds.), The role of education: Promoting the economic and social vitality of rural America (pp. 23–27). Retrieved from Mississippi State University, Southern Rural Development Center website http://www.ruraledu.org/user_uploads/file/role_of_education.pdf
Lyson reviewed demographic data on New York rural communities and found that proportionately there were fewer college graduates, fewer people in professional occupations, and fewer people employed in their home villages in rural communities without schools than in those with schools.
Additional Reviews And Resources
The issue of school district consolidation is a hot topic, and is not simply a matter of saving money, but involves a whole host of issues that we have only touched upon in this brief review. For additional reading on the subject, we suggest the May 2010 issue of School Administrator, which covers consolidation from various perspectives and profiles efforts from across the country. The Rural School and Community Trust also has many resources on this topic - http://www.ruraledu.org [2]. Below are two additional research reviews to consult,as well.
Bard, J., Gardener, C., & Wieland, R. (2006). Rural school consolidation: History, research summary, conclusions, and recommendations. Rural Educator, 27(2), 40–48. Retrieved from http://www.ruraleducator.net/archive/27-2/27-2_NREA%20Report.pdf
Pennsylvania School Boards Association. (2009). Merger/consolidation of school districts: Does it save money and improve student achievement? [White paper]. Retrieved from http://www.psba.org/issues-advocacy/issues-research/school-mergers/psba-merger-paper.pdf
If you have additional questions or would like a literature search done for another topic, please contact Jennifer Klump at Education Northwest’s Reference Desk [3], info@educationnorthest.org [4] or 503.275.0454.
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