New York City's school system is not really an example of anything except itself, despite the many times it's written about and pointed at. This should not be a surprise. We are lousy at history in this country, and so we miss obvious things, like the change in scale. Thomas Jefferson was the President of a country with roughly six million people in it; New York City contains a bit over eight million.
Our biggest school districts are huge. NYC schools contain almost a million students; the tenth largest school district (Palm Springs) just under 200K.
So when Howard Husock writing for the reliably right-tilted Fordham Institute thinky tank says that large urban districts should be broken up, he's raising a topic worth talking about.
Unfortunately, he mostly likes the idea of breaking up large districts because it would break up large unions, which is certainly in keeping with the current narrative that the Biden administration was Very Naughty for talking to teachers unions about re-opening schools. Why is it that when business folks form community groups in order to insert themselves into education policy, that's commendable and swell, but when unions that represent the people who actually work on the ground in education try to speak up, that's considered bad and selfish?
But it's still worth talking about.
The bigger the district, the harder to represent the interests and needs of communities within the larger whole. It's harder for voters to have a voice in the district, harder for teachers to have a CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Should Some School Districts Be Broken Up?