Why school consolidation is useless: bright flight

What local county grew twice as fast as any of the others? If you guessed Lowndes, nope, no prize for you. The answer, according to the 2000 census, is Lanier County:

What school consolidation would get us is more of that. Not white flight, rather bright flight, to Lanier and other counties. Many of the leaders of the local African-American community already don’t live in Valdosta; they live in Lowndes County or even Berrien County. More of both black and white people will move out of a county with a consolidated school district, resulting in lower educational results not just for Valdosta but also for Lowndes schools. Is that what we want?

How about all the people who claim they know how to take our schools to “the next level” get on with doing that right now with the two existing school systems?

-jsq