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The Wal-Mart approach to school savings

Not long ago, we used the analogy of the “Lindberg method” to advocate greater efficiencies among Ohio’s 612 traditional public schools, as well as the 320 or so charter public schools.

Charles Lindberg had figured out how to reduce fuel consumption and increase aircraft efficiency during WWII and did it with no new or additional resources. Smarter people than yours truly (and there are apparently quite a few) are starting to think along the same lines for delivering education more efficiently in the Buckeye State.

None other than the Columbus Dispatch reported a study by the Brookings Institute/Greater Ohio Policy Center that suggested setting up an independent commission to cut the number of public-school districts by one-third.

This is not a new idea, but it is fraught with a degree of thorniness that makes a buckeye husk seem smoother than a baby’s bum by comparison.

Shrinking school districts are reluctant to consolidate for many reasons, and some that already have still aren’t over it. They don’t, though, necessarily have to consolidate if they are willing to explore a more palatable middle ground.

An easier-to-implement intermediate solutions is to continue to allow school districts to remain extant and keep their identities, if they choose, by consolidating their central offices only. Can we do without all 900+ central offices providing with separate food service, transportation, purchasing and a range of other services?

The answer is unequivocally yes.

The Dispatch reports, for example, that Westerville City School District has 13,900 students. They compare it with the Tuscarawas County school districts (Claymont, Dover, Garaway, Indian Valley, New Philadelphia, Newcomerstown, Strasburg-Franklin and Tuscarawas Valley), where about 14,200 students attend public schools across eight districts and a Joint Vocational School.

They found that Tuscarawas County School districts spent $5.7 million last year, while Westerville spent only $3.3 million on the central-office staff salaries and benefits for the same period of time and about the same number of students.

The Westerville superintendent was paid about half again as much as any superintendent in Tuscarawas County, but there was only one of him. In fact, seven Westerville central-office staffers earned more than the highest-paid administrator in Tuscarawas County.

Westerville, though, got the job done with only 38 central-office employees, while more than 85 central office people were on the payroll in the eight Tuscarawas County districts, not counting the JVS. Westerville spent $2.4 million less on salaries, health care and retirement benefits.

The Dispatch rightly points out that the saving is the equivalent of about 60 first-year teachers’ salaries, assuming starting salary costs of $40 thousand per teacher.

That’s an awful lot of education.

Other Ohio districts have started down this road already and found a win-win scenario.

According to Jon Ritchie, superintendent of both the Orrville and Rittman school districts in Wayne County, where the two school boards decided in early 2007 to merge their central offices, “No student learns better because of where teachers get their paychecks”.

In the first year, the merger saved $270,000, and they are learning to save even more as they move ahead by combining other classes and services, according to Ritchie. Teachers’ unions were supportive, he said, because the districts are spending less on management.

“I never met a labor leader that cared about whether the superintendent is busy,” he said.

If the template for doing this is already in place elsewhere, then why haven’t we aggressively pursued this course locally?

That’s the sixty-four dollar, or maybe the 2.4 million dollar, question.

As the snake handlers like to say, it’s time to hiss or get off the pit.

Editor’s Note: Terry is a Bellaire resident and currently the deputy superintendent for the Woodland Hills (Pa.) School District.

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