Breaking up school districts foolish to do

The proposal to break up Florida school districts certainly looks like a bad idea. How bad? No on ewould be able to tell until after it became law because only then would the Legislature hammer out the details. That’s one of theworst things about it.

Supporters insist the Legislature could keep it from being bad— could make it good, in fact— by making wise decisions after itwas enacted.

Pardon our skepticism. Consider as just one example the “wise” decisions our lawmakers made after Floridians told them in a constitutional amendment to stop rigging political boundaries. Only after multiple courts intervened has that been straightened out, sort of.

Two joint resolutions— HJR 539 and SJR 734— would place a constitutional amendment on the ballot, perhaps this year, asking Florida voters to give the Legislature the authority to break up existing school districts. Rep. Matt Caldwell, R-North Fort Myers, and Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, are the sponsors.

If it were approved, Rep. Caldwell noted in a Tampa Bay Times article, “itwould be on us and future Legislatures to guard against poor decisions.”

Now, school districts are county-wide. Under the proposed amendment, the 67 county districts could be chopped up into city districts. That’s theway itworks in many states; sometimes it works well, sometimes poorly.

Supporters of the amendment say it would allow more “local control.” But that’s not all itwould allow. Itwould allowa plethora of new districts to hire a plethora of new administrators to staff all those new district offices. Worse, itwould allow wealthy cities to split off from neighbors, creating “poverty districts.” Because of housing patterns, it inevitably would exacerbate school segregation by race and/or economic class.

Florida hasworked for decades to refine a system of school funding that smooths out economic unfairness. Wealthier areas might not like being “donors” to other districts, but providing equal opportunity in education to the extent possible is a basic principle of public education.

Evenmore than it happens today, teachers would flee poor schools towork for districts where incomes and test scores are higher.

Anew system would take years and years to straighten out— and, most likely, years and years of legislative bickering and court fights. Why create such problems in the middle of current turmoil caused by overtesting, under-funding, vouchers and the explosion of choice programs?

There are a ton of other problems. Consider the most popular magnet schools, like Atlantic Technical High School in Coconut Creek or the Alexander W. Dreyfoos School of the Arts in West Palm Beach. Could cities “own” such schools and restrict enrollment to residents? If two cities shared such programs, which school board would control them?

In fact all the choice programs that would make carving up districts so difficult also make it unnecessary to carve up the districts. Parents care much less about so-called local control than they do about choice. And now, with charters and magnet programs, parents and students who don’t like their assigned schools can pick froma menu of other programs.

Consider also thenew $800million bond issue voters approved in Broward County. If Fort Lauderdale were to break into its own district— followed by Deerfield Beach, Pompano Beach and others— how would the debt be divided?

There’s evenmore not to like about the constitutional proposal. Itwould allow non-partisan school board races to become explicitly partisan. That development would make it evenmore unlikely that the Legislature— itself fiercely partisan— would refrain from meddling in local school board decisions.

To become law, the Legislaturewould have to approve the amendment by a threefifths majority in both houses. Then, 60 percent of voters would have to agree to add it to the state constitution.

That’s before it could become law. What happens after it becomes lawis the overriding concern.