jon@dmcityview.com

Legislature misses on merging schools again

Des Moines Schools Superintendent Eric Witherspoon bit the bullet last week and admitted that the only way to ensure kids in the state's largest city will be guaranteed a shot at a decent education is by merging schools, by tightening things up a bit. There isn't enough money to make them all work the way we had once hoped. And although it's tough for neighborhoods to lose their schools, it simply has to be done.

The state legislature could stand to spend a little time in Witherspoon's classroom.

The first step toward saving Iowa's educational system as a whole is to merge dying rural school districts and have others share administrative services. Iowa's once-proud schools are failing miserably because the money designated for education here is not only inadequate, but spread out far too thinly. Anyone with half a brain knows this, and state leaders had the opportunity to begin making things right this legislative session (just like last legislative session). Creating a minimum size standard for schools was introduced and knocked around a bit. Then the gentleman farmers on the hill killed it.

Never mind that 70 percent of Iowa's population resides in 10 metro areas, Iowa, as usual, is slow to react to the most obvious problems. Iowa is ignorantly optimistic, stuck on an image of a Grant Wood one-room schoolhouse. Dickinson County, in the northwest portion of the state, has a population of 17,000 and four high schools. It is, like most rural counties, shrinking, as a number of its residents move toward Iowa's larger cities. West Des Moines, a burgeoning suburb, has more than 50,000 residents and only one high school. Make sense? Not by a long shot. And if Witherspoon wanted to, he surely could have made a stink about the fact that if our metro areas were tended to a little bit better by state officials who refuse to let their districts die, we wouldn't be having this problem.

I've read with interest letters to the editor in The Des Moines Register lately regarding the issue of the legislature even pondering the merging of our state's smallest school districts. Most of them have been, in a word, venomous. They hiss of pride, heritage, elevated test scores, high graduation rates and true cultures of learning in towns like Dumont, Paullina and Latimer. Their dying towns are being threatened with the seizure of the only hope of a future they have left: their schools. So the representatives they send to Des Moines get an earful, and each session we go back to square one.

It doesn't matter to these folks that according to the National Education Association, Iowa (the 30th largest state in the union) has 371 public school districts, ranking 16 out of 50 states and the District of Columbia, and that according to public school enrollment numbers, we rank 31st. And it also doesn't matter that our teachers rank 34th when it comes to average teacher salaries, or to the students whose teachers rank 40th when it comes to overall quality, or that our kids' Iowa Test of Basic Skills scores continue to be stagnant. Nor does it matter that their children would likely benefit by getting a top-notch education by top-notch educators who might actually stick around because we can pay them what they're worth if small schools were merged. When heartstrings are involved, or pride, or whatever you want to call it, common sense is simply tossed out the window. Which is why now, more than ever, we needed a legislature that, like Witherspoon, was ready to admit tough choices had to be made and, more importantly, was ready to make them.

But again the lights are being turned off at the capitol with unfinished business at hand. Maybe next year, when we've sunk a little further into mediocrity. Probably not, though.

Representing the state of Iowa where it needs to be represented most has to be job one of every legislative session. And this idea of merging schools where they are dying is truly for the benefit of all Iowans. Witherspoon, despite some of his past missteps, shouldn't have to be forced to make these cuts - sensible or not, lack of sales tax revenue or not. Schools in cities like Des Moines and West Des Moines and other metro areas shouldn't be constantly taking it on the chin in order to keep rural Iowa's life support up and running. But that's exactly what is happening. And we're all going to end up paying for it unless people of great will come forward.

Deciding which school districts to merge or simply shut down would be a dreadful process, and one that could only be taken on by individuals with true conviction. History is important, yes, but not if what's compromised is the chance to persevere or, better yet, reclaim our best-in-education status - a goal we are so far from realizing. The folks in Dumont, Paullina and Latimer won't lose anything but a little face, and it would only be for a little while. They need to understand their children are worth it. All of our children are. CV

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