But talk of redrawing district boundaries is a call to arms for many Kansans. Just ask Rep. Bill Mason, R-El Dorado. Some folks from the Goddard school district, fearing that they would be forced to join the Wichita district, even chartered a plane so that they could attend the committee hearing in Topeka. Mason's proposal never made it out of committee, as his fellow lawmakers treated the proposal as it were radioactive. It's understandable that the possibility of mergers raises fears and passions.
Schools are the social and economic hubs of many rural towns.
And in urban areas, many people buy homes based on school districts. But there is no getting around the fact that our crazy-quilt design of boundaries makes little educational or budgetary logic. Mason notes that Ness County in western Kansas has only about 600 students in the entire county. Before 1992, such inefficiencies didn't matter that much. Local property owners financed their own schools, and if they wanted to pay more taxes in order to have more schools, it was their choice.