Davidson County is considering a school system merger in order to save the state money. Personally, I can’t think of a worse excuse.

Goldwater’s Vicki Murray says it better than I can:

“These scale savings are illusory and actually come at the expense of classroom instruction,” Murray said. “Decades of empirical evidence show consolidation leads to administrative bloat, not streamlining.

“The decision to consolidate should be left to local communities and not made on the basis of economies-of-scale savings claims,” Murray said. “Such claims, made by proponents at the state level, do not take into consideration the attendant upheaval, expense, and social impacts–especially in rural communities. Basically, there is no such thing as an ‘ideal’ size for a district or school.”