Keep local control

Legislation will be introduced this year in Olympia that seeks to eliminate half the school districts in the state. The goal: more efficient, super-sized districts. Unfortunately, overall efficiency is unlikely in these larger districts.

One result of forced consolidation is reduced community-driven local control.

This is uniquely dangerous because this local control currently acts as a check to governmental overreach. Nowhere is this loss more harmful than in public education where centralized controls can too easily lead to social and intellectual indoctrination, attributes we all hate. Also lost is the diversity of approach and innovation, which allow for best practices to emerge. Further, any arbitrary, forced-consolidation effort will result in an increasingly disenfranchised citizenry.

Finally, if enacted, many small schools in remote communities will be closed.

This outcome is inevitable due to the loss of “small schools funding,” which recognizes that a minimum level of funding is necessary to run these smaller community schools. This loss of funding would force the newly reconstituted district to close down these schools. Once closed, the results include multihour bus rides for very young students, the withering away of communities, lower graduation rates and a squandering of the community’s investment in the abandoned buildings.

Andy James

Colville