The Courier-Post had an editorial yesterday urging the consolidation of five school districts in Camden County, specifically Hi-Nella, Laurel Springs, Magnolia, Somerdale, and Stratford. Seems reasonable: add all the kids together among the districts and you get a grand total of 3,100 students. Right now, with separate administrative offices in each district, four superintendents are paid $507,289 and four business administrators are paid $263,607. Do the math. How much extra do the taxpayers get stuck with if we operated efficiently with one superintendent and one business administrator? Says the Courier-Post,

We can only hope, for the sake of taxpayers, that consolidations being studied, such as this one, actually come to fruition. This state has far too many school districts, and with high taxes driving lifelong residents out of this state in droves, it’s time we gave up the expensive luxury of home rule and started combining public entities such as school districts to save money.

Talk about low-hanging fruit. Where do we sign?

On the other hand, an organization up in Bergen County called Dollar$ and Sense is advocating a different sort of consolidation. Organized by Board members and administrators from the Demerest, Ramsey, and Ridgewood school districts, this group challenges the State funding formula because rich districts get much less money than poor communities. (FYI: Demerest and Ramsey are listed in the DOE database as having DFG’s of I and Ridgewood is a J. These are the two richest designations on a scale from A – J.) Dollar$ and Sense recently issued a 9-page analysis on the NJSBA’s Special Education Report, which is almost painful to read because of its attempt to both advocate for the preservation of Bergen County’s highly-localized and high-performing schools and yet remain politically correct. While the Courier-Post editorial itemizes clear potential savings through consolidation, Dollar$ and Sense disputes the notion that there would be any savings at all:

There is currently a strong belief that regionalization results in meaningful cost savings. Our experience shows that this is not always true.

So, what’s the right answer? Forget about consolidating school districts and typical kids. Instead, let’s just consolidate our kids with disabilities, suggests Dollar$ and Sense. Hmmm. Isn’t that just a tad dicey? Not to this bold Bergen County consortium:

There has continually been a reluctance to look at special education. It opens topics for conversation that most are uncomfortable talking about. It shouldn’t be. Our goals are consistent. We want to do the best for our children and we want to be fiscally efficient. We want to get to the point where we can offer more for less.

Aha! The reason we’ve been reluctant to talk about the monkey on our backs – our special ed kids – is because it makes us “uncomfortable.” Give the man a shingle and call him Dr. Freud. Now that we’ve been liberated from our psychic load, we can cut to the chase. Special Education in NJ costs too much. Special Education parents in NJ litigate too much. So Dollar$ and Sense takes us through their analysis of how we can emulate other states that provide cheaper models for educating students with special needs and pass laws that curtail due process. For instance, Pennsylvania has, like New Jersey, many schools districts – over 600 – and many kids – 1.8 million.

Proportionately, they are not so different from New Jersey. They also are very committed to home rule, again, not so different from New Jersey.

And,

Special education services done cooperatively can balance the needs of children and the dictates of law in an economically practical and hometown friendly manner.

Now, let’s be fair. They’re not completely wrong. Special Education costs in New Jersey are impossibly high, mainly because most of our districts are so small that they can’t achieve efficiencies of scale. It’s a microcosm of our home-town school problems. The problem with Dollar$ and Sense’s answer to our school funding problem is its self-righteous disregard for any negative impact it would have on our children with disabilities for the purpose of preserving local governance for our children without disabilities. Let’s try to sort this out while remaining “hometown” and “friendly” to everyone, not just those without handicaps and with Bergen County addresses.