Sometimes in the course of understanding Illinois, it helps to look beyond its borders to ponder issues in other states.

Today we shift focus due north, where Wisconsin Republicans have introduced bills aimed at incentivizing school district consolidation. In addition to pushing for a statewide feasibility study, the legislative package includes $25,000 grants for districts to conduct their own research on sharing services or merging and per-pupil financial incentives, including one that increases payouts from $150 to $2,000 for the first five years of consolidated operations.

Whether these bills might become law is analysis best saved for someone more familiar with Madison than Springfield – Republicans control the Senate 18-15 and the Assembly 54-45; the governor is a Democrat – but it’s interesting to at least consider the proposals as well as underlying factors in order to draw comparisons to Illinois, where it takes little effort to roil a debate between advocates for reducing our number of government units and preservationists crusading for local control.

From a top-line perspective, Wisconsin’s population is shy of 6 million while most estimates have Illinois comfortably clearing 12 million. There are plenty of other differences between the states, but the macro difference is an important distinction.

According to our State Board of Education’s annual school report card data, statewide enrollment has dropped from 2,075,277 in the 2006 data to 1,848,560 in the most recent count. The number of schools is down from 3,890 to 3,827 and districts have decreased from 872 to 864. That puts the present average district size at 2,140.

Wisconsin’s Information System for Education reports 805,881 students enrolled as of September 2024, noting that’s down from 829,935 over five school years. The Department of Public Instruction counts 421 public districts, which equates to an average of 1,914 students.

Both states have a mix of K-12 and 9-12 districts, which makes for some extreme outliers compared to those averages. Every state is dealing with the effects of birth rate changes concurrent with the Great Recession. A University of New Hampshire analysis in April claimed “there would have been 11.8 million more births in the last 17 years had 2007 fertility patterns been sustained through 2024.”

All that said, school consolidation is about much more than raw numbers, and with far more complicating factors than having a county highway department assume maintenance of township roads. It’s possible to entice voters and taxpayers with promises of getting more or better services for less money, but giving each Illinois district $25,000 to study consolidation would cost $21.6 million, to say nothing of $2,000 per student five straight years.

Bold ideas are welcome, especially those scalable statewide. Yet up-front costs and returns on public investment remain valid concerns.

• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Local News Network. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.