Tom Brokaw reveals his inner bureaucrat in today's NYTimes.
When I write "bureaucrat", I'm referring to the idea that reason and rationality are the supreme considerations, that order is important and history is not.
Brokaw points out the abundance of county and local governmental bodies in various states. He points to the abundance of higher educational institutions in the Dakotas. He suggests, as I think Gov. Corzine of NJ did a while back and a panel reviewing NY local government did, if we rationalized and consolidated functions we would save money.
No doubt it would, and no doubt we won't. Schools, governments, and similar bodies tend to die only when there's no bodies left to populate them or when a superior paradigm comes along. (I added the last phrase as a hat tip to my father, who was part of the "central school" movement in NY back in the 1920's. The movement got rid of the one-room schools by consigning pupils to bus rides to the "central school".
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