While I agree with most of Karen Noll’s post, especially the part about CUEE should come clean about why it’s spending so much money on something about which it knows little, I don’t agree that consolidating high schools would help.

I remember when Lowndes County consolidated two high schools into one, and the rationale was cost saving and more resources for science classes. What it was really about was football. And it worked: Lowndes High School now often wins the state championship, and Valdosta hasn’t in a decade. While education lags behind.

I think the Lowndes County Board of Education is doing the right thing by aiming at splitting the current too-large county high school into two. But that’s a logistical thing that has little to do with improving education.

Tinkering with the number of schools doesn’t improve education.

Consolidation to save money is not a worthwhile goal because a. CUEE’s own research and CUEE’s expert consultant says it won’t and b. the purpose of public education is not efficiency. If we want to save tax money, let’s stop locking so many people up! Even Gov. Nathan Deal points out we spend more per prisoner that than we do per student, and we can’t afford that anymore.

I think Karen Noll could be on to something about coordinating with Wiregrass Technical College. You don’t need to change the number of high schools to do that. Has anybody looked at places that have tried that and seen how well it worked or not?

You know, study the problem and come up with a plan that has a chance of working before spending a hundred grand to put it on a ballot….

-jsq

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