Nothing that can’t be accomplished without merging, and the documented negative consequences that follow school mergers. The data is clear. Merging schools does not improve education or school finances. And it always damages communities.

Our two school districts – in the merger study, in merger information sheets, and in incredibly boring videos – have envisioned vague but candy-coated dreams of things that could potentially happen if our two school districts merge. They have also painted dire pictures of what maybe might, in a worst case scenario, happen if schools don’t merge. A forthcoming post will address those far-fetched, negative potential maybe-mights. In this post we are looking at the candy coated nothings school officials are using to try to entice us to merge.

The first candy-coated nothing is the $84 million in merger incentive aid. The previous post “Who would turn down $84 million?” shows why that bribe offers no impactful benefits. Here, we’re concentrating just on the candy that they say this aid “may” allow the merged school to purchase. The important factor here is that merger incentive aid is temporary. Any program started with merger incentive aid must be paid for with regular tax dollars in future years. And because education is provided by staff, all programs allegedly brought to you by temporary merger incentive aid very quickly will be part of the ordinary operating budget. See this statement about the merged Central Valley Academy facing that issue in recent years.

Second, the unspecified “efficiencies” that a merger “may” make possible are in no way limited to school districts that merge. School districts, including ours, successfully develop partnerships in all of the non-educational, “support” aspects of school operations. Transportation, food service, business office, purchasing; all are areas where our schools can develop collaboration and efficiencies entirely independent of whether schools merge. There have even been schools that have shared superintendents. Attempting to link these efficiencies to merging is simply dishonest, particularly when extensive research shows that the actual experience of schools that merge is that they fail to achieve the promised efficiency.

Similarly, the unnamed educational and extra-curricular potential benefits have no dependence on an irreversible school merger. As a 15 year Board of Education member, I know that Canajoharie has decades of experience with sharing teachers and other staff with various other districts. Do we only need one physics teacher between the two schools? There is no impediment to sharing a teacher with a hard-to-find credential. And finally, the claim that a merger somehow magically allows the school to right-size due to enrollment declines by attrition, defies logic. If one school can downsize solely by attrition then so can two! Furthermore, placements in BOCES and P-Tech programs do not increase when schools merge. Those placements are tied to enrollment, and overall enrollment will not increase, meaning there will not be more opportunities available to individual students. And don’t forget the evidence which shows that merged schools have more challenges retaining students than schools that do not merge.

There is no evidence that merged school districts in any way outperform schools that do not merge. The supposed benefits of merging all fail to materialize after mergers are approved. And there is not a single supposed benefit to merging that can’t be pursued without merging school districts. Mergers lead to poorer student achievement and damaged communities. Why would we approve a school merger?