Your editorial on the need for local folks to hear what state officials are saying follows a familiar pattern: a local school district bumps up against the near impossibility of running a successful school system under the state funding model; a state official (or consultant) mutters darkly about the number of separate districts in Franklin County, commenting that “it’s not sustainable”; and local pundits start warning that folks around here ought to figure out a solution before the state comes in and forces one on us.
It’s not that you’re wrong, but we’ve been through this before, and now we’re back here again, so maybe it’s time to figure out why?
Your suggestion that “the county’s towns get together and begin to develop an action plan” was tried almost 10 years ago and reported on in this paper. The Franklin County Public Education Study Group produced a report, and the Franklin County School Committee Caucus was formed to follow up on the recommendations. What happened? Before heading back down that road, it might be worth trying to figure out why that effort didn’t succeed in solving the problem.
One answer is that the study group was not able to find significant savings from any of the three regionalization scenarios they considered. Apparently it’s an idea that sounds good in theory (especially to people in Boston), but when you look at the details, the numbers aren’t there. Have things changed? If not, why is regionalization still being pushed by people like Jeff Wulfson, who was around back then and saw what happened?
Have state education officials really come up with no new ideas during the past decade? What’s going on here? Perhaps Richie Davis might like to tackle this one?
Michael Naughton
Millers Falls