When such a bill is reintroduced next year, members of the General Assembly should keep in mind that despite concerns about additional financial costs imposed by enrollment caps, sending our state's children to "mega-schools" that are simply too big to maximize academic achievement imposes long-term costs of its own.

Gov. Sanford has proposed limiting enrollments to 500 for elementary schools, 700 for middle schools and 900 for high schools. Those caps would allow schools to retain more community identity -- and would allow teachers, administrators, students and parents to establish more effective individual connections with each other.

Numerous studies show that high enrollments rarely correspond with high educational performance. High enrollments also rarely correspond with high levels of parental involvement. The fiscal strategy of building large schools to avoid building more schools overall might seem efficient at first glance, yet there's nothing efficient about creating educational environments where children are more likely to become disinterested, alienated and lost in the crowd.

Though funding problems obviously are intensified by the current state-budget crunch, South Carolinians and their elected representatives should keep in mind that the costs of transporting students across inordinate distances to "mega-schools" can also be expensive -- as are the costs of schools with unnecessarily high dropout and failure rates.

And because "mega-schools" usually are constructed on the outskirts of communities, they perpetuate counterproductive growth patterns. As Gov. Sanford warned in January's State of the State address, the "construction of massive, isolated schools" tends to "accelerate developmental sprawl into our rural areas -- and what comes with it -- increased car trips, lengthened bus routes and a disappearing countryside."

An ample body of educational research indicates that the negative academic effects of large schools -- and the positive academic effects of small schools -- are particularly pronounced for financially disadvantaged students. South Carolina's economic future depends on giving its financially disadvantaged students a fair chance at a good public education.

That mean's South Carolina's economic future depends on reversing the trend toward "mega-schools" and eventually making Gov. Sanford's neighborhood and community schools concept an educational reality.