By Duke Heath

In an online video, Huckabee states that the 1500 number comes from an average of two major studies over the past 45 years on the optimum school size for maximum efficiency both academically and financially.

These studies show the optimum size of a school for academics to be between 2000 and 2500 students. The optimum size from a financial standpoint is between 1000 and 1500 students.

Now that we know where the number came from, let's see how many districts in our state fall short of these numbers. Out of 308 school districts in Arkansas, only 77 have 1500 or more students, so, the remaining 233 districts are under some level of threat.

It is a given that Arkansas has too many school districts. Consolidation is necessary. But where do we draw the line? How few districts do we need?

Let's look at states of similar size and population to see how 308 districts compares nationally. Kansas, which is almost equal in population with Arkansas has 304 districts while Mississippi, also about equal in population, has only 152 school districts.

So, if fewer is automatically better, then Mississippi must be far ahead of both Kansas and Arkansas in its academic performance. Since this seems so obvious I will not even bother to look it up to see if the last statement is correct. I wonder if others have failed to look it up also?

How about the other states? Alabama has about twice the population of Arkansas yet manages to get by with just 128 school districts. Florida, with five times our population, only has 67 districts. Oklahoma, on the other hand, has 544 school districts. Tennessee, with about twice our population, manages quite well with just 138 districts.

So maybe there is a correlation here, maybe not. Let's look at the size of the districts in some of these states.

In the great educational giant of Mississippi, 106 of the total 152 are at or above the 1500 number. In Kansas only 59 of the 304 districts would meet the 1500 cutoff, but 104 of Tennessee's 138 would make the cut.

So, what do these numbers say? Very little, with the possible exception, that simply severely cutting the number of districts alone will not solve our problems, and that performance rather than size should be the chief deciding factor in consolidation.

The problem with education in Arkansas as well as the rest of the United States is societal. The only way to change society is through education. This education must begin with kindergarten or earlier. We must reach these children while they are young and give them a love of education.

As soon as one begins to fall behind we double or even triple our efforts with that child before he or she is able to conclude that they not as good as everyone else, before they lose their self confidence.