Eroding Local Control & The Influence and Climate of the Courts - 8 Essay

Eroding Local Control & The Influence and Climate of the Courts - 8 - Essay Example In a state where white flight is particularly prevalent, such as Texas, this disparity can cause massive difference in the amount of money spent, per pupil, in different educational districts, if each county is divided into many districts. Wealthier areas will thus provide more money per pupil, because the average property value per pupil will be higher, than other districts where those values are lower. This can create massive disparities in the facilities available – children of wealthy districts will get excellent gyms, music programs, laboratories and so on while children in less fortunate areas will get few if any of those things. Reducing the total number of districts in a state can correct for this problem by pooling money from wealthy and less wealthy areas together, reducing the disparity between money spent per pupil. Wealthier areas will still have advantages in terms of outside fundraising, but this can be diminished if districts are larger and more diverse. 2. The case in this Tennessee county is one of optimal size and scaling of costs. There are some costs that cost progressively more as the size of something increases (for instance, the larger the diamond the rarer it is, so a diamond that is twice the size of another one will often cost four times as much), while other costs go down (for instance buying products in bulk can reduce prices). As payroll is one of the most strenuous costs of school districts (Brimley et. al., 2008), the situation described here has some financial pitfalls, because some levels of administration will be repeated. For instance, the curriculum needs of each individual school district is probably very similar – it would be difficult to believe that students in one section of a Tennessee county need to learn different things from those in another, so that level of administration could be combined easily at significant savings. Furthermore, the upper echelons of administration would also not need to be