Anyone who thinks the worst budget pain in California is over should think again. It will be years before state revenues return to pre-recession levels.
Hoping for a return to business as usual is a doomed strategy. In this climate, public education, which at 40 percent is the largest part of the state budget, should lead the way in fundamental rethinking and restructuring.
The task for local districts is: How to achieve efficiencies to assure that increasingly scarce funds go to classroom instruction?
School districts already are creating interdistrict collaboratives to achieve savings in providing some services - special education, transportation, purchasing of supplies and equipment, and more. That's a start.
But they can do much more to eliminate fragmentation and duplication. California today has 550 separate elementary school districts, overlapping with 84 high school districts. These relics from the early 20th century each have separate administrators and school boards.
The state has only 333 unified K-12 districts.
In 2002, the Legislature's updated Master Plan for Education called upon the state to take steps to bring all school districts into unified K-12 structures. The separate elementary and high school districts, it said, "perpetuate isolated approaches to education delivery."
A prime example is the multiple districts in Sacramento's north area. Between 1949 and 1972, unification proposals for these fragmented districts went to voters six times and were defeated - the casualty of conflict, distrust and mismanagement.
Voters in the Natomas elementary district finally became so frustrated with the Grant high school district, where they sent kids to middle and high school, that they created a breakaway K-12 district in 1991.
A breakthrough came in 2007, when voters merged three elementary districts (Rio Linda Union, North Sacramento and Del Paso Heights) and the Grant high school district. The old districts disappeared and a whole new district - Twin Rivers Unified - was created (see map).
But the work is not done. Two tiny elementary districts nestled inside the Twin Rivers Unified boundary - Elverta and Robla - declined to join. And the Natomas district remains on its own.
Now is a good time for these districts to join together in a single district. The Natomas district, with a deteriorating financial situation and a superintendent retiring in November, has an opportunity for major change. These tough economic times should unleash creative ideas with some urgency.
Tomorrow: Rethink River Delta Unified, spread across three counties.
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