During his lecture, Dr. Dewey and a student had the following exchange:
Q: Are spinoff districts a possible solution?
A: Sure, small unfunded districts are probably preferable to large unfunded districts. However, the people in power have an incentive to keep their domains as large as possible.
As a brief follow up on this topic: Florida’s school districts are co-terminous with their counties, although districts may cooperate or merge. They’ve been county-level since at least around the Depression, if I recall correctly the research I’ve seen. This is a constitutional mandate.
Each county shall constitute a school district; provided, two or more contiguous counties, upon vote of the electors of each county pursuant to law, may be combined into one school district…
To clarify: We cannot constitutionally move from large districts to small districts. Period.
I don’t know if I understand. Are you saying that smaller unfunded districts are constitutional or unconstitutional? Or are you just saying that school districts are coterminous with county lines — and could merge with other county school districts?
i think he’s saying it would take an amendment of the state constitution, on top of the act of God required to convince the school board administrators, to break a large, county-sized district into two or more smaller ones.