Time will tell if Cary citizens and town leaders have the patience and persistence to improve North Carolina's mediocre education system by seceding from the Wake County Public School System.

Every year, parents disgruntled by reassignment plans get together and gripe. They say shuffling around thousands of kids, in part to mask the achievement gap, disrupts family activities and destroys the concept of neighborhood schools. But this year, Cary parents have persuaded the Town Council to create a countywide task force that will take area municipalities' concerns to the Wake County Board of Education.

Mayor Harold Weinbrecht isn't hot about the idea. He says the school board ignored recommendations from a similar 2003 study (compiled by officials from Cary, Apex and Garner). However, Councilman Don Frantz is flexing his muscles, saying that if the school board continues to walk over his constituents' concerns, he'll pursue breaking up the Wake County system, a threat that doesn't keep school board chair Rosa Gill up at night.

Secession would be a tall order. It would take approval from the General Assembly, a body the state's Big Education lobby has in its hip pocket. Establishing a separate, smaller school system would also have significant start-up costs. Mayor Weinbrecht estimates it would cost $300 million just to buy the buildings, although I wonder why Cary citizens, who have already helped pay for those schools with their property taxes, wouldn't warrant a huge discount. Or better yet, a straight-up property transfer.

A more daunting challenge is overcoming the education elite's attitude that bigger is better. What they really mean is, bigger is more powerful.

Consider remarks by Gill, the school board chairwoman, who recently said that although she'll listen to concerns of Cary parents, talk of a system break-up is nothing more than a dream. More telling was her response that "neighborhood" schools are a dream, too.

In January, Gill made that point clear, as reported in an N&O news story.

"The schools belong to all residents of the county. There is no such thing as a neighborhood school. Defining a neighborhood is based on who's defining it," Gill said. "We do try to assign kids to a school that's as close to their home as possible, but we don't call it a neighborhood school."

As chilling as that statement is, Gill isn't being arrogant. She's simply telling the truth. Regardless of what the parents of Cary, Garner and Apex think, they all reside in Gill's neighborhood, because she has the votes to define it any way she wants.

School system supporters refute parental objections by pointing to the district's fine overall academic record. But the annual beefs over reassignment, diversity and growth reveal a more fundamental question that county and particularly Cary civic leaders need to ask: Is a mega school district the best vehicle to deliver a sound K-12 education?

In most cases the answer is no. Studies have demonstrated that the economic efficiencies large school districts are supposed to deliver are usually spent on increased administration, while penny-pinching continues in the classroom. More important, it's no secret that as an organization gets bigger, individual autonomy is sacrificed. In this case, the desires of Cary parents become subservient to the countywide goals of the school board.

The future couldn't be clearer. As the Wake system gets larger, the concerns of individual communities will continue to be further marginalized.

Reorganizing the countywide system into smaller, more manageable and responsive districts is hardly revolutionary. Many North Carolina counties used to have more than one district (segregation was a factor, admittedly). Orange County escaped the consolidation craze that hit in the 1960s, '70s and '80s. Today it has two parent-responsive school districts with distinct educational missions. Extensive cooperation between the Orange County and Chapel Hill-Carrboro city systems has yielded significant economic efficiencies. Efforts to combine them have been strongly rebuked by Orange County citizens. In their minds, smaller is definitely better.

By seriously pursuing a reasonable, rational spin-off of Wake County schools into community-based districts, Cary leaders and parents have a unique opportunity to provide Wake County residents the same educational choice and diversity those in Orange County enjoy.

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