1. Full-scale school consolidation provides a very effective way to relieve the local property tax burden all across Pennsylvania. There is no need to maintain 500 separate schools districts across the state – each with its own staggering, and growing, administrative costs.

1. Reducing the number of school districts would not necessitate the closure of individual schools, but could instead improve the effectiveness and efficiency of public education through other means.

1. Only 10 states in the nation have more school districts than Pennsylvania, while many of the highest-achieving states are organized into far fewer school districts in order to achieve greater efficiencies and improve the delivery of quality educational services.

1. More than 40 percent of Pennsylvania’s school districts currently educate fewer than 2,000 students and over 80 percent of school districts educate fewer than 5,000 students, requiring significant bureaucracy while raising questions about the diversity of courses offered to students.

1. Consolidation is not a new idea in Pennsylvania: in 1955, there were 2,700 separate school districts before the General Assembly authorized consolidations statewide. Within two years the number of separate districts fell to 1,900. By 1962, the number of separate school districts fell to 600, and as of July there will be 500 school districts statewide.

• The proposed commission would have 12 voting members appointed by the General Assembly: