I really cannot even fathom what is being attempted here.
The short version is a segment of a financially distressed and very poorly performing Pennsylvania School District is attempted to secede from its district and join an adjoining district.
yjr
Steelton Highspire School District currently consists of the larger Borough of Steelton to the northwest and the smaller Borough of Highspire to the southeast. Highspire is attempting to secede from Steelton Highspire School District and instead join Middletown Area School District, which as shown on the map almost totally surrounds Highspire.
Just two minor problems here.
Steelton opposes the secession of Highspire.
Middletown Area S.D. wants nothing to do with Highspire and opposes Highspire joining their district.
A lower court judge had denied the secession, but a higher court judge just approved the secession and the creation of an independent district for Highspire.
So now what???
We now have an independent district composed of one small borough. While a Judge can compel the separate, no chance that a a Judge can compel Middletown Area S.D. to accept Highspire. So now we will have a fragment with no schools of its own that must figure out how to get its kids into schools.
This will eventually make its way to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and I think in the sheer name of common sense, the Supreme Court should reverse this judgement and maintain the existing Steelton Highspire School District.
But this ongoing fiasco demonstrates that Pennsylvania is at the breaking point. At some point, the State Legislature is going to have to step in and forcibly consolidate underfunded and poorly performing school districts.
It has to happen, but it shouldn’t happen in a half assed manner, as is the case here.
@Safiel for my benefit could you please explain how the school districts work and whether the state has control over things like syllabus, finances, etc.? Thanks.
The economic reality is that in very poor districts there is not the tax base to adequately fund their schools, especially since those kids typically have many other types of problems outside of learning.
When you think about it most of the problems in our country and the world for that matter are the result of poor parenting decisions. Number one being having a child while living in poverty.
(CAVEAT: This is how things work in Pennsylvania. Education differs State by State.)
In Pennsylvania, each of the 500 individual school districts are primarily responsible for actually providing the end services. Usually governed by a 9 member locally elected school board. Funded by a combination of local property taxes, State funding and Federal funding.
Then there are a number of Intermediate Units around the State which provide numerous education services to the individual school districts.
And there is the Pennsylvania Department of Education. While the State of Pennsylvania has general control over the individual districts, each district has a certain amount of flexibility over curricula and choice of materials.
Dauphin County does illustrate very well the educational disparities in Pennsylvania. Steelton Highspire School District consistently ranks around 490 out of 500 districts. Just a few miles to the west, Derry Township School District ranks 30 out of 500. Of course, Derry Township is home of Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, Hershey Company and Hersheypark.
Until the 1940’s, there were greater than 2,500 school districts in Pennsylvania. Basically every Borough, City and Township was a school district. In the 1940’s, 1950’s and 1960’s there were several rounds of consolidation that brought that down to the current 500.
But with current disparities, more consolidation will be needed. Proposals differ greatly.
Some want 67 countywide school districts, which is very unlikely to happen.
Others want a reduction to about 100 school districts, again unlikely.
I think a limited consolidation has more chance of happening. Forcibly combine distressed school districts, particularly in large urban counties such as Dauphin.
The political problem that will make this difficult is that the people that live in the more affluent districts being merged will scream bloody ******* murder.
Will there be the political courage to overcome that???
I am a big proponent of subsidiarity. Governance and funding should occur at the level closest to the area being governed. Local issues should be governed at the local level. National issues should be governed at the national level, and other issues fall at varying levels of government in between.
Ideally therefore, a school should be governed at the local level.
What is being discussed here should, on paper, be allowed to succeed or fail as the school determines is best for it. Key word: ideally. If I’m reading this correctly, a segment (Segment-X) of an existing (and under-performing) school district (District-A) wants to split off (and take with it a chunk of funding from that district) and it wants to marry to another district (District-B). Complicating matters is the target district doesn’t want that schismatic chunk (Segment-X).
I would argue that Segment-X should have the liberty to split off from District-A, but without a workable plan for survival (because District-B rightfully refuses their marriage proposal) it would doom itself to failure.
It looks like the first judge recognized the trajectory of failure that Segment-X was heading toward and just nixed the plan from the start. Judge #2 is letting Segment-X proceed. I would prefer a hybrid of the two, ruling that Segment-X would have a certain amount of time to show a viable plan that would not harm the students in that Segment. As the components of all this are depicted in the link, the only viable plan would be acceptance of the marriage offer by District-B. Otherwise Segment-X would have to remain married to District-A.
The whole thing is certainly a mess. Looking at the map, those school districts are horribly gerrymandered. I have no insight into the decisions that created that slash of district called Steel-High in the first place. It looks (visually) like it should be disbanded and the left half absorbed into Central Dauphin, and the right half into Middletown, but, as a weird analogy, maybe it exists like Kurdistan should exist in the mess of the Middle East. Perhaps it exists because the surrounding areas do NOT want it. Or perhaps it exists because it wants its own autonomy (and the current legal rift is now the result.)
I have no answers. Just observations. And the overarching observation is that it’s a mess.
I support limited and targeted consolidations. In those areas where all school districts are doing well, I would not consolidate.
Primarily, I would consolidate urban counties. For example, in Dauphin County, I would consolidate Steelton Highspire S.D., Middletown S.D., Central Dauphin S.D., Harrisburg City S.D. and Susquehanna Township S.D. into a single district. Probably Lower Dauphin S.D. and Derry Township S.D. into a single district. And the northern part of the county into a single district.
Here is the map of Allegheny County school districts (Pittsburgh and vicinity):
And the next level of governance up from the school district level is either city or county. Where there are multiple districts within a city that should be consolidated (or split!), let the city referee the necessary changes. If the issue is larger than a single city let the county oversee it.
Jumping to the state level should be considered only if the lower governance level cannot handle the issue.
PS: If school districts can work it out among themselves without involving city or county oversight, let it happen at that level.
(The issue that birthed this thread shows that those school districts cannot work it out on their own.)
yjr
