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By Michael Bielawski
In 2024, the Green Mountain State saw education costs, aka property taxes, rise more than 13%. All while academic performance continued to decline. The 13% rise could have been higher had the tax rate not been bought down with one-time funds.
The low staff/student ratio, increased compensation costs, the Legislature’s incentivizing local school spending, and aging infrastructure are among the suspected culprits.
$27,537 per student?
Political Commentator Rob Roper in 2023 wrote “Vermont’s public schools are a hot mess” which broke down some of the sobering trends when it comes to spending per student.
“For the 2021-22 school year, the average per pupil spending rate was $23,299 compared to the national average of $14,360 and the New England average of $21,535. Since 2001, Vermont has climbed from the eighth highest per pupil expenditure in the country to the second highest,” he wrote.
An August 2024 report from the Agency of Education indicates that spending per pupil is only continuing to rise. It says that from 2020 to 2024 the cost has risen from $22,782 to $27,537.
Poor student performance?
The same report highlights a concerning report from the Joint Fiscal Office indicating that Vermont’s historical advantage in testing performance over the national average has nearly disappeared even as spending keeps increasing.
A JFO statement notes, “While Vermont has traditionally been better than the national average, over time it is moving down and closer to the national average.”
The report notes that this trend is occurring while spending is increasing. It states, “These figures are particularly striking when considering the continued increase in education expenditures per pupil in Vermont without a commensurate change in student performance when compared to national trends.”School funding formula incentivized school spending2024 school boards built their local budgets under a school funding system approved by the Legislature that ‘socialized’ paying for school funding statewide, thus encouraging some districts to add big ticket items, knowing that the cost wouldn’t all fall on local school district taxpayers. That feature of the statewide funding formula was reformed late in the 2024 session and is up for further review and improvement in the coming session, some legislators say.
Aging infrastructure
One of the pressing issues is that Vermont’s school buildings are overdue for repairs. The state mandated a report on the situation via Act 72 passed in 2021.
The report concluded that the state needs about $300 million for school repairs per year ongoing for the next two decades. They also concluded that a new state fund just for that purpose will likely be necessary.
“In summary, an effective school construction aid program should act as a policy lever so that the state can ensure that smart decisions are made about how money is being spent,” it states. “In the absence of a state school construction aid program, districts must ‘go it alone,’ with the result that Vermont’s taxpayers pay for projects over which they have no control and do not necessarily align with state goals.”
Chris Rupe, an Associate Fiscal Officer for the State of Vermont to the State Aid for School Construction Committee, said in November that the key to making the repairs work for taxpayers is to try and keep the impact away from the property taxpayers.
“The crux of the issue we are wrestling with is how to shift some of the cost for school construction off of the property tax,” he said.
Too many staff?
A recently republished commentary from nearly two decades ago by political analyst and former Reagan Administration advisor John McClaughry foreshadowed that the student/staff ratio was already back then unsustainable for Vermont’s taxpayers.
McClaughry first wrote in 2006, “In 1997 the public schools employed 10,857 licensed teachers and aides, yielding a pupil/teacher ratio of 9.74 to one. In 2005, as the pupil count steadily dropped, there were 13,089 licensed teachers and aides, a ratio of 7.48 to one. This is by far the lowest ratio in the fifty states. [The ratio in 2024 is now 4.4 to one.] No wonder education costs – and education property taxes – are shooting through the roof.”
New Education Secretary
Despite getting voted down by the State Senate earlier in the year, Zoie Saunders, whose background includes being vice president of strategy for Charter Schools USA and more recently the chief strategy and innovation officer for the sixth-largest school district in the nation, has recently been confirmed the next formal Secretary of Education.
“Zoie’s exemplary resume, fresh perspective, and impactful experience as a public school leader will be invaluable as we move forward,” Gov. Phil Scott wrote back in March before she was initially voted down.
Permanent programs started with temporary money?
The Lake Champlain Chamber of Commerce issued a warning at the start of the year that the public education finance situation in Vermont did not look good. They noted that a lot of school districts treated COVID-19 relief funds as an opportunity to fund new programs.
The report states, “Many districts used one-time, pandemic-era ESSR funds for positions in schools that they are now seeking to retain. As an employer, you are well aware that healthcare costs are climbing for everyone, including the large education workforce.”
The author is a writer for the Vermont Daily Chronicle
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Categories: Education, State Government, Taxes
At this rate, in 10 years the schools will have all our incomes and the kids will graduate knowing nothing.
At school budget voting time, I always see lawn signs saying don’t shortchange our children’s education vote YES. The budgets pass. The teachers, principals and superintendents get raises and the performance declines. Who’s at fault here. Another shovel load of money isn’t the answer. Maybe a better curriculum and hiring dedicated teachers and principals need to be addressed, it may also mean dismissing the incompetent staff.
Maybe School Choice and an educational free market. Pass the H .405 School Choice bill. It’s just that simple.
The elephant in the room is the lousy educational system we have built. It can’t be fixed by changing funding streams, seeking increased federal aid, or coming up with more taxes. We are shrinking in students and adding bureaucracy. At about twice the national average per pupil cost for only average outcomes, we spend way too much for far too little. The elephants in the legislature need to start talking about slashing administrative costs, school choice, and gutting useless DEI programs.
Now, what great person on this website would call for a twenty percent decrease in all salaries of the education cartel????? The bird feeder is empty.
Education should be cheap if they were doing that, but indoctrination is costly, not just for your finances but a real disservice to your children’s future…………………………
Wake up people, they don’t care.
In 1955 I was 8 years old in a Catholic school, my teacher, Sister Leadore, capably taught 56 of us. as I went to public school, 6,7,8, the classes hovered around 28. High school, certain classes were down to the teens, like math 4, chemistry etc. We all after school, seek livable employment. housing, and a family. Some stumble, some succeed. Basically, beyond grade 8 is maybe not as useful to success as the individuals desire for better things. And probably there is no honest study that can guarantee classes of less then 10 will perform better then classes of 30, but will be a lot cheaper. Also a big help is the name of the family one is born to.
Imagine that! Quality can’t be bought despite with the Liberals in Montpelier think. Until we start getting quality, no more should be extorted from the taxpayer.
Suppose we take a roll of the dice and underfund the schools for a change and watch the results.
Do you think the scores would drop and wholesale departures of protected tenured staff would occur? I would venture not and the current rate of decline would continue till such time we change the model of expectations for both students and staff.
Maybe you are one of the 50% that failed math? Defund the schools, and fund the parents. You think giving parents $38,000/yr earmarked per child would set their children up for more or less success than the current system? The schools aren’t underfunded, we live in the age of the internet where you can get a MIT Level education for free.
The internet gives us unlimited opportunities, while the unions and the state give us a 50% chance of a child being able to read or do math. I’ll take my chances on firing them all and letting the parents decide.
High education taxes mean the young won’t be able to afford to live here, and those that wish to stay who can’t afford the high cost of living caused by government will suffer. The middle and lower class will endure many stresses that will increase many types of crimes, whose effects will cost us even more money to deal with. People can’t afford standard maintenance of their homes, which results in a decrease in the housing stock, further making it unaffordable to live here.
Use your head and stop rewarding failure. We don’t have a money issue, we have a government ripping us off and causing all the problems at our expense issue.
Forget an increase in expenses, it’s time to cut. Throwing money at education is a waste
“… the key to making the repairs work for taxpayers is to try and keep the impact away from the property taxpayers.” Wow. What a stupid statement. Do you realize that nearly all of your school-designated property taxes get funneled to the state and Supervisory Unions so they can skim a huge portion and then give you back a small portion to run your schools? We MUST be pushing back on our legislators to demand cutting the fat from the state Dept of Ed. If they refuse to do that, then how about we all start seriously considering forming independent schools and get ourselves disentangled from the public school system altogether? This is absolutely insane and inexcusable.
2024 has been a tough and painful year as we have watched the public education “blob” endeavor to spend money Vermonters don’t have, while attempting to rationalize and fortify the worst aspects of “blobbery”.
Fortifying this pathetic melodrama has been the Commission on education which embarrassingly hemmed and hawed while making no real progress in fashioning a set of reasonable and workable ideas for reducing cost while maintaining quality.
So let’s see what we can come up with. For starters, a few ideas to consider for cutting cost and tightening up the ship; none of which would – in all honesty – have any adverse effect upon student learning, and in fact could/should improve it.
1) Live with the facilities we have, for another ten years. Only address what’s absolutely broken and needing repair.
2) CUT universal meals.
3) CUT all DEI-flavored and curriculum coordination positions from all schools and supervisory entities. Push equity-focused and curriculum work down from bloated central office staff into the schools. Eliminate all “coaches”, “mentors” home-school coordinators (guidance counselors can do this work), etc. except mentors for 1st year teachers.
4) CUT all extraneous “professional development”. Principals and teachers don’t need to attend such costly events as winter retreats, summer leadership conferences, etc. Focus ALL professional development exclusively on teaching and learning that will impact student learning I.e. reading curriculum and instruction etc.; delivered in as cost-efficient manner as possible.
5) Consider consolidating the supervisory unions / districts into 4 or 5 from the current 45+.
6) Mandate average class size of 22- 25 k – 3, and 25 – 28 in 4 – 8.
7) Eliminate assistant or associate principals in any schools with enrollments less than 300 students.
Above is for starters.