On the other hand, tiny little school districts were created for the purposes of racial segregation and continue to act as mechanisms of racial and economic segregation. Also depending on state law and various other contingent factors, you can end up with regional or even state wide union contracts even with balkanized school districts. Finally, specialized (including aggressively tracked) schools are difficult to impossible with small catchment areas that only support a few schools per level.
Although it's far far from perfect, the NYC education department has managed to increase principal autonomy somewhat without throwing out all the advantages to scale.
You must have read a different post than me. The one I read pointed concrete (true or not) problems with the model of small school districts, not "platonic ideals".
Although it's far far from perfect, the NYC education department has managed to increase principal autonomy somewhat without throwing out all the advantages to scale.