Hicks: Indiana needs another wave of school consolidation - Affect on Indiana High School Football?

[Muda69]

https://www.indystar.com/story/opinion/columnists/2024/01/24/indiana-needs-another-wave-of-school-consolidation/72324397007/

Quote

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There is an abundance of research finding that very small school corporations have worse educational outcomes for students than more modestly sized ones. There are also studies finding very large school corporations shortchange students. These studies find that the size of affected small corporations are under roughly 2,000 students, and large corporations closer to 50,000 students.

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Here in Indiana, 162 out of 290 school corporations enroll fewer than 2,000 students, and none close to 50,000. For Hoosiers, small school corporations are the issue. The challenge is exacerbated by continued shrinking of school corporations. Of the small schools, 120 are smaller now than they were a decade ago. The simple fact is that there are almost no organically growing school corporations under 2,000 students and many more that will shrink to fewer than 2,000 in the coming decade.

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Still, our research, and that of many scholars before us tells a clear story. Very small school corporations, with roughly 2,000 or fewer students, are shortchanging the educational outcomes of a substantial share of their students. This is a tough, yet unambiguous conclusion. Our study made no recommendations on how to address this problem. I can think of four options.

First, school corporations could do nothing. For most communities this is a very, very high-risk strategy. Another two or three generations of declining enrollment aren’t guaranteed. But if I were a betting man, I’d put my life savings on a wager that 90% of Hoosier school corporations with fewer than 2,000 students today being much smaller by 2040. This will be a disaster for many places across the state.

Second, school corporations could structurally consolidate, or merge. Here, the state could help by allowing some flexibility in the size of school boards for a few years after merging. This offers the opportunity for school corporations to divert resources towards the courses they lack and fill the educational gaps they face. The challenge is that smaller corporations tend to cluster, so it may take multiple mergers to make a single ‘average sized’ school corporation.

 

Third, school corporations could functionally consolidate services. A potential model for this is to extend how schools now offer CTE education through the 49 CTE districts around the state.  This service could be offered for AP STEM classes. Corporations could also share more costs from transportation to teaching and administrative staff. I suspect the legislature could take several low-cost steps to help school corporations do this.

Fourth, school corporations could hold school funding referenda. Tax increases are always unpopular, but small school corporations are predominately located in counties with very low effective tax rates. This would be an excess burden in no communities.

Indiana school corporations have been through two consolidation waves. The first accompanied the invention of the automobile, and the second followed the big declines in agricultural employment. Another wave of changes lies in the near future, as population decline continues across much of the state. 

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Of course this study focuses on academic matters, and not extracurricular ones like sports, specifically football.  But what does such a population decline across much of the state and the subsequent government school consolidations that have to occur hold for the future of the sport in Indiana?

 

[BDGiant93]

Indiana's population is not declining. It's showed stability or very small growth. Now, if you're talking community by community, then I get what you're saying. There are some areas where the population is declining and others where it's growing exponentially.

[Coach_K]

This is an interesting article... but does this take into account some of the newer charter and parochial schools in the state?  Not to mention in some rural areas, there are parochial schools which feed into public schools.  So if we examine district student enrollment, does that include the students in those parochial schools? What about when there is an agreement between private and public schools?  Students might be a student at a private school but take CTE classes at a public school or through public funding.

To @BDGiant93's point we are stable here in Corydon, but with the growth in the Louisville metro area, we are seeing growth push out towards us.  Charlestown is up to 4A, Floyd Central and New Albany are the 12th and 13th largest in 5A, while Jeffersonville is 6A.  We might see more student growth in Harrison County for the football schools, us and North Harrison.

[foxbat]

13 minutes ago, Coach_K said:

This is an interesting article... but does this take into account some of the newer charter and parochial schools in the state?  Not to mention in some rural areas, there are parochial schools which feed into public schools.  So if we examine district student enrollment, does that include the students in those parochial schools? What about when there is an agreement between private and public schools?  Students might be a student at a private school but take CTE classes at a public school or through public funding.

To @BDGiant93's point we are stable here in Corydon, but with the growth in the Louisville metro area, we are seeing growth push out towards us.  Charlestown is up to 4A, Floyd Central and New Albany are the 12th and 13th largest in 5A, while Jeffersonville is 6A.  We might see more student growth in Harrison County for the football schools, us and North Harrison.

Don't know if they still have the agreement, but I know for a while, some students at LCC were taking honors biology classes over at Lafayette Jeff. 

As for the parochial schools feeding into public schools, that even happens outside of the rural areas.  Here in Lafayette, St. James Lutheran only has K-8, so while some of their kids may mosey over to Faith Christian or even possibly LCC, the vast majority end up in the public schools around the area.  Similarly, Lafayette Christian only has K-8.  A decent number of their kids end up heading to Faith Christian, by comparison to St. James, but there's also a decent amount that end up heading to the local public schools when high school rolls around.

[coachkj]

Blah, blah, blah...

[Titan32]

It's nice being in the 10% then I suppose.

 

[Muda69]

How's are those football programs at Cannelton,  Jac-Cen-Del, Rossville, Barr-Reeve, etc. coming along?

 

[Cloudy14]

Here is an opposing view from the ISBA:  https://web.isba-ind.org/news/newsarticledisplay.aspx?ArticleID=1112

[Muda69]

11 minutes ago, Cloudy14 said:

Here is an opposing view from the ISBA:  https://web.isba-ind.org/news/newsarticledisplay.aspx?ArticleID=1112

The ISBA and Indiana Small and Rural Schools Association are both hardly non-partisan voices in this argument. 

From the statement:

Quote

From our perspective, there is nothing wrong with school consolidation or re-organization if it is initiated by the people in the communities affected.

And Mr. Hicks pretty much said the same.  He did not call for state-forced consolidation:

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Finally, like many others in the debate, I doubt the efficacy of state mandates on corporation size. These are inherently local matters, with local solutions. Indiana needs many more vibrant, growing communities, with superb schools that draw new residents. For well over half of school corporations, that means facing unpleasant facts and a difficult set of options about the future.

Organization like the ISBA simply don't want to face the unpleasant facts, because less school corporations equals less school boards,

 

 

[Cloudy14]

@Muda69 what are the unpleasant facts?  Not trying to be combative, but I guess I'm not sure what is unpleasant.

In my opinion, leaving this decision to the community should be the proper route.  The ISBA also states:

Indiana’s approach is to have the state carry more and more varied and individual expenses for education, not to consolidate them. 

Its important to keep in mind that the discussion is being lead by the Indiana Chamber, not lawmakers.

[Muda69]

2 hours ago, Cloudy14 said:

@Muda69 what are the unpleasant facts? 

Did you read Mr. Hick's piece?  Here are some of the unpleasant facts:

Quote

Here in Indiana, 162 out of 290 school corporations enroll fewer than 2,000 students, and none close to 50,000. For Hoosiers, small school corporations are the issue. The challenge is exacerbated by continued shrinking of school corporations. Of the small schools, 120 are smaller now than they were a decade ago. 

The simple fact is that there are almost no organically growing school corporations under 2,000 students and many more that will shrink to fewer than 2,000 in the coming decade.

This is worrisome because smaller school corporations do worse on the most important metrics of performance than larger schools. Small corporations have substantially lower pass rates for the IREAD and ILEARN tests, lower SAT scores, a smaller share of students graduating with honors diplomas and a smaller share heading to college. 

Among the most worrisome figures is that about 60 of the state’s smallest school corporations offer no Advanced Placement classes in the STEM fields of calculus, biology or chemistry. 

Very small school corporations, with roughly 2,000 or fewer students, are shortchanging the educational outcomes of a substantial share of their students.

The challenge with small schools is simply the age-old problem of economies of scale. It is a dollars and cents problem, that managed poorly will exacerbate the challenges facing many of Indiana’s most vulnerable communities

 

[MarshallCounty]

Who funded this research? Oh the Chamber of Commerce. Glad they aren't pushing an agenda in this state.

[tango]

3 hours ago, Muda69 said:

How's are those football programs at Cannelton,  Jac-Cen-Del, Rossville, Barr-Reeve, etc. coming along?

I have no personal knowledge, but I've always heard Barr-Reeve and Loogootee don't want a football program to compete with basketball. At around 260 students each, they would not be the smallest 1A football schools...  

[First_Backer_Inside]

31 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

Did you read Mr. Hick's piece?  Here are some of the unpleasant facts:

 

If less than 2,000 students in 162 of the 290 schools in our state is what makes you feel unpleasant and keeps you up at night, I'd love to have your life.

[Cloudy14]

@Muda69 Yes, I read the Ball State study (located here for reference:  https://www.indianachamber.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/School-Corp-Size-2024.pdf)

The conclusion was summarized in one sentence:  "Increasing school corporation size to around 2,000 students has the potential to reduce per pupil cost and free up funds for classroom instruction of other purposes which could improve the educational outcomes of students." 

It is important to note that they use aggregated data to perform this study and they do not dive deeper into each school corporation to address potential outlier conditions.  For example, the number of foreign exchange students, the number of special education students and those with an IEP. All these items (and more) can affect graduation rate or test scores. 

I think the study provides insight, but should be expanded to provide real insight to the unique qualities at all schools.  As a reminder, these are children, not numbers and each child will flourish in different settings.  I think my main point is that I would caution consolidation based on aggregate data and leave this up to the communities where the children and their parents live.

[Muda69]

56 minutes ago, First_Backer_Inside said:

If less than 2,000 students in 162 of the 290 schools in our state is what makes you feel unpleasant and keeps you up at night, I'd love to have your life.

Where did I say such facts keep me up at night?  Anyway, I assure you that they do not.

 

17 minutes ago, Cloudy14 said:

  I think my main point is that I would caution consolidation based on aggregate data and leave this up to the communities where the children and their parents live.

And where has Mr. Hicks said anything different?

 

[Cloudy14]

@Muda69 While he doesn't say it explicitly, here are a couple of quotes below that appear to encourage it. I see the quote at the bottom of the article stating it is a local matter, but he still qualifies it with the "unpleasant" quote.  It's also hard to deny the entire tone of the article is set toward consolidation.  

So, if you have low educational attainment that’s keeping your local economy from growing, or if you face a local nursing shortage, it is time to connect the dots to local school corporations.

Still, our research, and that of many scholars before us tells a clear story. Very small school corporations, with roughly 2,000 or fewer students, are shortchanging the educational outcomes of a substantial share of their students.

[Muda69]

1 hour ago, Cloudy14 said:

@Muda69 While he doesn't say it explicitly, here are a couple of quotes below that appear to encourage it. I see the quote at the bottom of the article stating it is a local matter, but he still qualifies it with the "unpleasant" quote.  It's also hard to deny the entire tone of the article is set toward consolidation.  

So, if you have low educational attainment that’s keeping your local economy from growing, or if you face a local nursing shortage, it is time to connect the dots to local school corporations.

Still, our research, and that of many scholars before us tells a clear story. Very small school corporations, with roughly 2,000 or fewer students, are shortchanging the educational outcomes of a substantial share of their students.

Yes, I believe Mr. Hick's tone is set toward consolidation.   But he also states that such consolidation should come from the people, and not government coercion.  A stance I support.

 

[coachkj]

Mr. Hicks does state this falsehood.  It is an ignorant and insulting statement. 

"Colleges keep close tabs on course offerings, and schools that offer no AP STEM classes are saying loudly, “Don’t admit my students, they aren’t ready for college.” "

[vicvinegar]

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/indiana/rankings

 

Speedway has less than 2,000. Now let's look at the schools once you get pass the wealthy suburbs of Indy. What I see is Heritage Hills, Cascade, Tell City, Eastern, Northwestern, Manchester, North Putnam, Argos... The list goes on. 

 

Where is Warren? Lawrence Central? Jeff? Elkhart? I mean Elkhart just consolidated... One would think they should be at the top of the list!!! 

I have taught/coached at a lot of schools. Some were in a wealthy community, some in a poor community. Some were large corporations and others were small. There are a lot of factors that go into a school corporation being successful academically. One of the last factors would be school corporation size. 

The most important would be parent involvement. So how about we start by fixing that. 

[BDGiant93]

On 1/24/2024 at 10:55 AM, Coach_K said:

To @BDGiant93's point we are stable here in Corydon, but with the growth in the Louisville metro area, we are seeing growth push out towards us.  Charlestown is up to 4A, Floyd Central and New Albany are the 12th and 13th largest in 5A, while Jeffersonville is 6A.  We might see more student growth in Harrison County for the football schools, us and North Harrison.

Exactly. Great example. I'm sure we'll see those areas around major metros continue to see growth. We're seeing it around Indianapolis where, when I was a kid in the 90's, Avon and Brownsburg were small, country farm schools. Now, they're massive. When I taught at Franklin Central, we had 1,700 kids. That school is almost twice that size now 25 years later.

[gindie]

I'm not sure how this relates/compares to the Indiana discussion, but in Ohio there are 711 football playing high schools.  Exactly one of them has a total enrollment over 3,000 and only 19 more have an enrollment over 2,000.

[Goose Liver]

Are there any school systems that have student enrollments of 50,000 anywhere in the United States? (asking for a friend)

[Coach_K]

According to Wikipedia, there are 95 school districts with over 50,000 students.  How accurate is this information IDK?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_school_districts_in_the_United_States_by_enrollment

[oldtimeqb]

On 2/3/2024 at 8:35 PM, gindie said:

I'm not sure how this relates/compares to the Indiana discussion, but in Ohio there are 711 football playing high schools.  Exactly one of them has a total enrollment over 3,000 and only 19 more have an enrollment over 2,000.

I think I read on here a long time ago (pre-Covid even) that OH had a rule that high schools could not be over a certain size (2,500 comes to mind) without building another one.  I have tried to find an actual law or rule but can't seem to find one.  We need @Bobref our resident OH expert to chime in.