Consolidate Our Schools - Editorial CCOnline
Published on Thursday, November 13, 2008
Editorial excerpted from CapeCodOnline - Read full story here
In late October, the Nauset Regional School Committee and Lower Cape elementary school committees invited officials from Harwich, Chatham, Truro and Provincetown to consider further regionalization of school services.
Brewster, Orleans, Eastham and Wellfleet have separate K-5 schools and send older students to Nauset's regional middle and high schools.
"The rational stance of any school system on the Lower Cape would be to participate in the planning of (regionalization), lest it be imposed from the outside," said Nauset Supt. Michael Gradone.
What's the urgency? At least two reasons:
1. Considering the state of the economy, it is unlikely Cape schools are going to see any increases in state aid.
2. Declining enrollments. Peter Francese, a demographer and consumer-market expert, said last year that there are 4,500 fewer students now than the Cape had six years ago, but the costs, such as salaries and health benefits of school employees, keep rising.
The state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education projects the next decade will see declines 2½ times greater than what Massachusetts saw in the last five years.
Why the sharp declines?
Two factors are largely responsible, according to Ken Ardon, an assistant professor of economics at Salem State College.
First, the commonwealth's population is growing at less than one-fifth the rate of national population growth.
Second, the Bay State's residents are older than the national average, resulting in a relatively small number of students for our population size. Add to that the fact that Cape Cod has the highest population of people over 65 in all of New England and it's easy to see why the number of school-age children is declining.
So how do we continue to offer quality public education without a steady stream of Proposition 2½ overrides? The Readiness Project, Gov. Deval Patrick's agenda for public education in Massachusetts, proposes reducing overhead and administrative costs by moving to a smaller number of school districts in the commonwealth.
"Massachusetts has well over 300 districts; cutting that number would redirect resources from administration into the classroom," said Ardon, who is also a member of the Pioneer Institute's Center for School Reform Advisory Board.
We're the first to admit that consolidating districts is not easy. As we have seen in Dennis-Yarmouth, disputes over the percentage of costs borne by each town in a consolidated district can be intense. Regionalization also has its limits given the Cape's large geographical area.
"But in a time of shrinking tax receipts, clinging to separate life rafts isn't an option," Ardon said.
The Lower Cape is not the only place in Barnstable County that should be seriously considering regionalization. The demographic shift has hit almost every Cape school district. Barnstable's enrollment is down 26 percent from the 6,136 students in 2001-02. Enrollment is forecast to drop another 24 percent in three years.
Falmouth is down 14 percent. Mashpee, which was growing with young families so fast in the 1990s that it built its own high school (students formerly went to Falmouth High), has dropped about 10 percent in the past five years. The Dennis-Yarmouth Regional District is down 14 percent.
As enrollments drop and fixed costs rise, combined regional schools or other forms of sharing are looking better and better.
As we prepare for the inevitable, Cape superintendents should look north for some advice. Right now, Maine is in the midst of consolidating 290 districts into 80.
