PORTLAND -- According to a new report from The Maine Heritage Policy Center, bigger is not necessarily cheaper when it comes to schools. Maine's experience with the Sinclair Act, a massive school consolidation effort launched in 1957, has left a legacy of bigger schools, larger administrative bureaucracies, and higher costs per pupil.
The report, The Sinclair Act at 50: What History Tells Us about the Consequences of Consolidation, was written by Stephen L. Bowen, education policy analyst for The Maine Heritage Policy Center. The report is the first in a series that examines school reform strategies.
"Bigger is not necessarily cheaper and Maine's experience with the Sinclair Act proves that massive school consolidation is not the panacea that it is being sold as," said Bowen. "The consolidation resulting from the Sinclair Act certainly gives some insight into what to expect from the recently passed school reorganization legislation."
The Sinclair Act, a sweeping school and school system consolidation law, was passed by the legislature in 1957. The School Administrative Districts that are a common feature of Maine's educational system today were created by this act, which sought to merge the many small schools and school units scattered around the state into larger, and, it was hoped, more effective and less costly regional school districts.
Bowen's analysis of the Sinclair Actrevealed that consolidation lead to an increased number of school administrators and higher education spending. The consolidation actually contributed to the high level of school administrative spending that the Maine Legislature is currently attempting to deal with.
"Currently, the legislature is attempting to deal with high school administrative costs which seem to have resulted from the 1950s consolidation effort" said Bowen. "If past results are a good gauge of the future, the movement towards greater consolidation will only make the situation worse."
As a result of the Sinclair Act, the number of schools in Maine dropped by 40 percent. As a consequence of more students and fewer buildings, the size of the average school doubled, jumping from 148 students per school in 1957 to 300 per school by 1972. In 1957, 64 percent of Maine high school students were enrolled in a school with fewer than 200 students. By 1965, only one in five was. As one might expect, the iconic one-room schoolhouse met its end at the hands of theSinclair Act. In 1951 there were 569 one-room schoolhouses in Maine, but by 1971, just 20 years later, there were only 31 left.
Though the Sinclair Act had been sold as a means of controlling rising costs, per-pupil spending climbed dramatically during the consolidation era. From 1930 to 1950, per-pupil spending grew 21 percent in 2002 dollars. From 1950-1970, during the height of the state's consolidation efforts, spending grew 164 percent, eight times faster.
"School spending surged as a result of the consolidation efforts," Bowen. "Taking the place of volunteer school boards were fulltime bureaucrats and school administrators."
In addition to the reduction in the number of schools, the number of local community school boards making decisions about local schools plunged, halving in number between 1950 and 1975. The net result was that there were fewer opportunities for parents to be involved in the school decision-making process.
Taking over management of schools in place of citizen boards were full-time professional administrators, whose numbers climbed 22 percent from 1950 to 1970. The result was that per pupil spending on administration grew by 135 percent, in 2002 dollars, during this era.
The power and influence of the state also increased in this period as well. The Maine Department of Education had 43 employees in 1950, but by 1980, it had 124.
During the legislative debate on school consolidation this past winter and spring, The Maine Heritage Policy Center released the report titled Education Service Districts: Achieving school administrative cost savings while protecting local control and parental involvement.
The analysis examined ways in which schools can consolidate administrative functions in order to achieve savings and preserve local control while avoiding massive consolidation efforts such as those which resulted from the Sinclair Act.
"The formation of education service districts provide a community-driven approach to education administration reform that does not rely of massive school consolidation," said Bowen. "Education service districts preserve local control and parental involvement in education, while also reducing administrative costs."
Bowen's report is available at www.mainepolicy.org
The Maine Heritage Policy Center is a 501 (c) 3 nonprofit, nonpartisan research and educational organization based in Portland, Maine. The Center formulates and promotes free market, conservative public policies in the areas of economic growth, fiscal matters, health care, and education - providing solutions that will benefit all the people of Maine. Contributions to MHPC are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law. Material from this document may be copied and distributed with proper citation.
© 2007 The Maine Heritage Policy Center
