See

Central Valley School District: Archetype for (Fayette) County-wide Consolidation?

Locally, as well though I don't have the info handy right now, school districts have entered into cost-savings arrangements via bulk purchasing, etc.

Should citizens demand more of this, or further consolidation between Fayette County schools, they can already elect those school board members to office who see it their way.

The reason this legislation has come 'round is because Gov. Ed Rendell's proposed mandated consolidation idea, to take the 500 separate PA school districts and consolidate them down to 100, did not sit well with much of anybody. (the exception being some newspaper editorial writers)

The "much of anybody" included the PA School Boards Assoc. who had completed a study of cost-savings and impact of formal consolidation on quality of education.   (Hint.  It wasn't all that rosey)

The "much of anybody" included those who had already read and absorbed the findings in the Standard and Poor Study on Cost-Effectiveness of Consolidating Pennsylvania School Districts.

The "much of anybody" included experts who've managed to blast the idea that mandated consolidation of small school, or medium-sized schools would result in immediate or long-lasting cost-savings.

Studies have clearly shown the potential for some savings but also shown these savings can be gleaned by not consolidating but joining in other ways to bulk purchase, health care trusts, etc.

See Standard and Poor's Study

Studies have shown, Standard and Poor, cost-savings obtained from consolidating school districts could be had when school districts so merged do not result in student enrollment over 2,999.  The study also points out in consolidated schools, the closing of some schools results in higher transportation costs, and other costs.

Studies have shown a drop out rate increase in what were smaller rural schools into larger consolidated schools as well.

The PA General Assembly members are well aware of the studies and the critics of mandated consolidation.

So former Gov. Rendell's proposal was dead-on-arrival.

Along comes another means to not really "mandate" consolidation, but to further consolidate our public schools into "larger" constructs.

Larger, meaning, bigger, meaning bigger government.

That is what Rep. Tim Mahoney's legislation is all about.

All on the public dole, all on the taxpayers' hard-earned dime = bigger government that is even more difficult to constrain as we are seeing in our lifetimes with fill-in-the-blank trillion dollar debt/deficit ridden federal government.

Actually, one would think there would be huge public school union support for bigger schools but maybe even they realize the sky is not the limit for PA's state budget, and if costs not only tend to rise in larger school districts, they do rise in larger school districts as studies have shown, then (Gov. Rendell's) mandated consolidation is going to necessitate property tax increases across the consolidated school district.

Maybe more than one might think have also taken into consideration this from authors Nathan A. Benefield and Fred D. Baldwin

"Why would consolidation fail to achieve the cost savings Gov. Rendell hopes for?

While measures such as bulk purchasing and cross-district health trusts are sensible cost-savings measures, these can already occur without consolidation.

It's possible that some administrative savings might materialize, but it won't help that some superintendents will become "assistant superintendents" and others will expect large raises.

The notion that larger districts have fewer administrators per pupil runs counter to experience.

The single largest school cost item (about half of every district's budget) is teacher salaries and benefits.

These would become standardized over the newly merged districts. Does anyone believe that salaries will be standardized at any level lower than the highest prevailing in the county?"

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?new sid=20272562&BRD=2231&PAG=461& amp;dept_id=447593&rfi=6

The People can already decide in those independent school districts by their vote to replace school board directors who give away taxpayers' monies to exhorbitant salaries of Administrators, Superintendents, Teachers, Salaries, and generous retirement packages.

That they don't change school board directors often with different directors may be telling as well.

There is no guarantee in a larger consolidated school district the same would not occur, that is, school directors in a county-wide school would retain the positions over several election cycles.  There is really far less competition to be had because each of 6 or 7 sub-districts would elect only 1 director.

As the authors of "School District Consolidation is a Red Herring" say: greater transparency is what is needed.

"As long as school board directors can negotiate contracts in secret and vote on them without any chance for public comment, it hardly matters whether the district represents a small area or a large county.

If cost savings is truly a goal for Pennsylvania schools, a good first step would be greater transparency."

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?new sid=20272562&BRD=2231&PAG=461& amp;dept_id=447593&rfi=6

That is additionally where citizens can hold their elected school board members accountable.

And if that is what they want to do, they do not need Rep. Tim Mahoney's countywide consolidation of school districts legislation to help them do it.

Demand greater transparency.

We don't need a referendum of county voters on altering the independent school districts in Fayette County to get that.