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Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Educating students in remote areas can be costly | California Watch

Educating students in remote areas can be costly | California Watch

Educating students in remote areas can be costly

Louis Freedberg/California WatchStudents eat lunch at Pacific Valley School, a "necessary small school" south of Carmel.

In some very small schools in remote parts of California, the state is paying about $200,000 per student to educate them.

That's according to a report released yesterday by the Legislative Analyst's Office.

The main thrust of the report is to throw cold water on the idea that consolidating some of the hundreds of small school districts in California – those with student enrollments of less than 1,000 – would result in substantial savings to the state. The report recommends that the state increase the minimum size of districts to 100