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By CRAIG CROSBY
Staff Writer 10/15/2007

enlarge Staff photo by Jeff Pouland

A WITNESS TO CHANGE: Former Mt. View High School guidance counselor and principal Rod McElroy stands in his home in Unity on Friday the way he used to stand against a radiator in the hallway of the high school watching students. McElroy was principal of Mt. View High School from 1967-1977 and saw the effects of The Sinclair Act which was passed in 1957.

enlarge Staff photo by Darla L. Pickett

FORMER TEACHER: Royce Knowles was a teacher at Skowhegan Junior High School in the 1960s and said the increase in per-pupil expenditures in the 1950s and 1960s was due to improving and adding programs for students.

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Staff Writer

Rod McElroy is still moved by the memory. A disparate group of students and teachers from throughout the region, strangers just weeks before, seamlessly gelling into a cohesive unit.

He was a 33-year-old guidance counselor at the new School Administrative District 3 high school that summer of 1964, but McElroy had been around long enough to know he was witnessing greatness.

"It was absolutely positive because of the leadership of the principal, Charles Cosgrove, and it was positive because of the staff coming together," McElroy said. "I'm sitting here talking to you about that situation and I've got goosebumps 40-plus years later. By Christmas that school was operating as Mt. View High School."

Stories like McElroy's unfolded throughout the state after the Legislature passed The Sinclair Act in 1957. Sponsored by then-Sen. Roy Sinclair, R-Pittsfield, the bill was crafted to equalize educational opportunities for students and streamline costs by offering incentives for communities to combine schools. the Sinclair Act led to the most comprehensive school consolidation effort in state history until this year's reorganization legislation, which will force the 290 school units throughout Maine to combine into 80 regions.

Gov. John Baldacci, who has predicted restructuring school systems could save taxpayers as much as $65 million in administrative costs, has compared current consolidation to Sinclair, even referencing the act in his 2004 State of the State address when he said, "We need a Sinclair Act for the 21st Century."

But while the driving force behind the current consolidation effort is saving money, Sinclair was primarily about improving education.

"What lots of people don't understand is one of the goals, the reduction in expenditures, was not an explicit goal in Sinclair the way the current law looks to cut back on expenditures," said Gordon A. Donaldson Jr., professor of educational leadership and research at the University of Maine at Orono. "I think the benefits of this are going to be a long way down the road, if we even see any."

A FAMILIAR IDEA

Facing pressures of the baby boom and aging buildings, communities had already begun to join forces before Sinclair, according to Stephen Bowen, education policy analyst at the Maine Heritage Policy Center and author of a study on the act.

"There were two schools of thought," said Gerald Libby, principal of Farmington's Mallett School in the 1960s. "One of them was 'bigger was better' and kids were better off going to a larger schools where they could have more opportunities in terms of class choice. Then there was the school of thought that, 'If ain't broke, don't fix it.'"

Ethelle Christopher, a representative on the SAD 59 board of directors, was a third-grade teacher at Madison Elementary School as the district took form in the 1960s. Though there was debate over specifics, there was a general feeling that consolidation would save money and improve education, Christopher said.

Most importantly, while the state promised increased funding and preference for building projects, there never was the threat of slashed funding as there is in the current consolidation effort.

"I never remember the word 'fine'," Christopher said. "'Right now, if you don't do this, and don't do that, you're going to lose this.' To me, those are threats. I usually go along with anything I know is going to help the kids, but I just can't accept the way that it's going now."

"They were talking about carrots in the 1960s; now they're talking about sticks and telling communities to find their own carrots," Donaldson said.

LOSING CONTROL

Bob Whytock said Cony High School in Augusta, where he was a teacher and coach, was big enough to stand alone after Sinclair, but smaller communities lost their voice as local school boards merged with bigger communities.

"Everybody's got a say in what everybody's going to do," Whytock said. "The choice to do things has to be voted on by many more people than it was in those days."

As larger districts emerged, the number of local boards making decisions about local schools was cut in half between 1950 and 1975, says Bowen, of the Maine Heritage Policy Center. As professional administrators and bureaucrats replaced community school boards, administrative costs increased, according to his study.

Per-pupil spending on administration grew 406 percent (in 2002 dollars) from 1950 to 1980, and the number of people working for the Maine Department of Education tripled, Bowen said.

"Between 1940 and 2000, the decades with the greatest increase in per-pupil expenditures were the 1950s and 1960s," said Donaldson, of UMaine.

Royce Knowles, who was a teacher at Skowhegan Junior High in the 1960s, argues that much of that increase was due to improving and adding programs for students.

"All these new courses required more teachers and more space," he said.

Donaldson agreed that a portion of the increase in costs can be attributed to more programs, but additional administration expenses cannot be ignored.

"The major goal (of Sinclair) was to increase the quality of education," Donaldson said. "It just came along at a time when there was money available to do that."

BIGGER NOT ALWAYS BETTER

Enlarging districts means more people, and more money will be needed to manage them, Bowen predicted.

Town governments spend less than the county, and county government spends less than the state, he says.

"If you start to get these districts too big, you have more and more administration and those costs continue to climb," Bowen said.

"Even when you compress and build these big agencies you're still going to have a lot of these people."

With few exceptions, Knowles believes districts were designed for maximum performance after Sinclair.

"My view is that most Maine districts have been very bare bones for most of their existence," Donaldson agreed.

Libby believes there are school districts that could benefit from consolidation, but the current effort may not the best way to streamline performance.

"I suspect a lot of people will go along with it because I think, in a lot of cases, it's a really good idea," said Libby, the former principal in Farmington.

"I think they are taking a really rocky road to get there. I think we need to try to save money and consolidation is a way of doing that. Whether or not this was the appropriate way to do it, I think, is open to argument."

Craig Crosby -- 861-9253

ccrosby@centralmaine.com

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