{"id":74778,"date":"2016-11-02T07:57:51","date_gmt":"2016-11-02T11:57:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=74778"},"modified":"2016-11-01T21:02:56","modified_gmt":"2016-11-02T01:02:56","slug":"guest-column-magee-school-consolidation-should-be-decided-at-the-local-level","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=74778","title":{"rendered":"GUEST COLUMN: Magee:\u00a0School consolidation should be decided at the local level"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_33907\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-33907\" style=\"width: 226px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?attachment_id=33907\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-33907\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-33907\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Bill-Magee.jpg?resize=226%2C263\" alt=\"Bill Magee\" width=\"226\" height=\"263\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Bill-Magee.jpg?w=226&amp;ssl=1 226w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Bill-Magee.jpg?resize=128%2C150&amp;ssl=1 128w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 226px) 100vw, 226px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-33907\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bill Magee<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"m_-6236198376195613875s3\">Assemblyman Bill Magee (D-Nelson) recently criticized his opponent for calling for more school consolidation during a recent debate. Magee said that school consolidation should be decided at the local level by individual school districts, not politicians or Albany bureaucrats, and should only be done if it\u2019s in the best interests of students and the local community.<\/p>\n<p class=\"m_-6236198376195613875s6\">\u201cBureaucrats in Albany shouldn\u2019t be pushing for more consolidation \u2013 just look what they did with the disastrous rollout of Common <!--more-->Core,\u201d said Magee. \u201cThat\u2019s why it\u2019s especially troubling that my opponent wants to close more of our schools. That\u2019s a decision for parents, teachers and taxpayers to make. It\u2019s not for him or Albany bureaucrats to decide.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"m_-6236198376195613875s6\">Magee believes that consolidation should only be considered when academic programs would be enriched, community identity would be protected and it would be for the betterment of all school districts.\u00a0Magee also noted that school consolidation could result in longer bus rides for students, larger classroom sizes, a loss of jobs and higher taxes for local homeowners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Assemblyman Bill Magee (D-Nelson) recently criticized his opponent for calling for more school consolidation during a recent debate. Magee said that school consolidation should be decided at the local level by individual school districts, not politicians or Albany bureaucrats, and should only be done if it\u2019s in the best interests of students and the local [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33907,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[23814,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state","category-top-story"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p43meu-js6","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Bill-Magee.jpg?fit=226%2C263&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=74778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=74778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=74778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=74778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}