Rendell wants to eliminate 400 of Pennsylvania’s 501 school districts in an effort to reduce costs.
Pennsylvania School Districts

Ed Rendell believes that in today’s economy, we can no longer afford to support 501 school districts.

This wouldn’t be the first time Pennsylvania forced consolidation of its school districts.  Before 1962, Pennsylvania had almost 2,000 school districts.

This decision comes after a Standard & Poor’s report (pdf) stating that “average spending tends to decrease as districts grow in size from about 250 students to about 2,500 students. But spending tends to go back up
again as district enrollments exceed 3,000 students”.

According to the report, there are 312 districts in Pennsylvania with less than 3000 students

It probably won’t have much of an effect on the Philadelphia School District, as the school district already encompasses the entire county, and is the largest (by enrollment) in the state.

Most of the school districts already work together for Career and Technology Centers.  The report uses this as an example of the schools working together effectively.  There are currently about 75 of these Career and Technology Centers, so I expect the new proposed school district map should look something like the current Vocational School map, which can be found here.

For those of you with Google Earth, and interested in the current PA school districts, I have created a map of all the PA school districts for your enjoyment! It’s in KML format, because it’s too large for GeoRSS to support.

Download the Pennsylvania School District Map for Google Earth