[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

Having worked in a school district, I feel like this is true. The number of administrators, many of whom didn't seem to do anything, was staggering.

[maxerickson]

The fun thing is that much of the administrative overhead is built into the system. My county has less than 40,000 people (not students, people) and 5 school districts (and private schools).

2 of them do share an administrator, but in general, there's lots of places where a single district has ~8,000 students. There's not any thought of combining them (I guess largely because funding is so local…).

[bobthepanda]

Funding is extremely local.

The other reason districts are so territorial is that a lot of them were founded specifically for their people and to keep the “others” out.

[enraged_camel]

I think this is a common cognitive bias though: just because someone seems to you as if they don't do anything does not actually mean that they don't do anything. It might be that you, yourself, are not affected by their output.