We have an enormous K-12 administration level partly because we have so many local school districts, each of which typically needs to separately buy textbooks, serve food, apply for state and federal funding and handle compliance, run HR and physical plant operations and janitorial and IT, manage transportation, respond to inquiries from the public, etc.

It’s very hard politically to merge school districts because even beyond labor considerations, people have a sense that their district is superior to the one next door and think a merger will create immediate chaos and long term harm to their kids’ educations and their property values.