Study: consolidation of school districts into larger units leads to higher dropout rate!

Nor will we see the Education Management Group whose consultants have ties to the PA Department of Education (and who remain unnamed by Rep. Tim Mahoney and the Herald-Standard) and organized directly by Rep. Mahoney include the following studies in its study. EMG, LLC was hired by the local Redevelopment Authority of the City of Uniontown after Requests for Proposals were advertised and EMG, LLC was the only so-called "bidder." The Request for Proposals was obtained by NES and we discuss it thoroughly on our blog.

The study is supposed to determine cost savings for administration consolidation of Fayette County Schools, and impact of consolidation of administration (and other purposes) on quality of education, or improvement of education in Fayette County Schools.

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

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.

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.”

http://educationnorthwest.org/news/1119