Montana schools are not factories

SUMMARY: School funding reform should focus on what students learn, not how the system’s run.

The legislative committee charged with proposing a new system of public school funding will mire if it listens to recent advice from its hired consultants, who say the state has too many small school districts for efficiency.

Montana does have an awful lot of school districts — more than 400. A quick look at a Montana map explains why. Most of the districts serve relatively small numbers of students. A glance at census numbers for Montana communities explains that pretty well, too.

Conventional wisdom is that bigger is better, because larger school districts supposedly gain "economies of scale." That is, it becomes more economical on a per-student basis to run a school when you have more students. Economy of scale is the whole key to mass production.

By the Missoulian

Full Opinion: http://www.mtstandard.com/articles/2005/07/13/newsopinion_top/hjjejcigjcfjgf.txt