Editor’s note: the Vermont Senate is scheduled to vote today, Thursday May 22, on H.454, transforming Vermont’s education governance, quality, and finance systems.

by Sen. Thomas Chittenden (D-Chittenden-Southeast District)

This session of the legislature has been intensely focused on education reform. Our current education financing system, implemented in the 90s, drew inspiration from the Vermont Supreme Court Decision often referred to as ‘Brigham.’ Brigham has loomed large in this current debate and is fundamentally grounded in Section 68 of our State Constitution, which states: “…a competent number of schools ought to be maintained in each town unless the general assembly permits other provisions for the convenient instruction of youth.”

Our constitution clearly recognizes the distinct roles of towns and the State in delivering public education. It does not lay the direct responsibility to educate our kids on the State; rather, it recognizes each town’s responsibility to maintain “a competent number of schools” and leaves it to those towns to determine what constitutes competency. Simultaneously, it empowers the General Assembly to make “provisions for the convenient instruction of youth.” This recognizes a need for balance between local control (freedom) and centralized State oversight (unity).

From the Brigham Court Decision: “Equal opportunity does not necessarily require precisely equal per capita expenditures, nor does it necessarily prohibit cities and towns from spending more on education if they choose, but it does not allow a system in which educational opportunity is necessarily a function of district wealth.”

As Ethan Allen wisely stated, “The Gods of the Valley are Not the Gods of the Hills.” Vermont is not a monolith in our values and priorities. Our lived experiences in Canaan differ from those in Colchester, and these differences are naturally reflected in how we educate our kids (among other things).

I began this session supporting a shift towards a Foundation Formula, based on my understanding of how other states use this mechanism to ensure a certain ‘foundation’ of educational quality while allowing districts to decide on spending above that foundation.

However, where we are landing with the current education transformation bill isn’t that, nor will it be, even with an allowed, narrowed range of state-forced spending levels and tax rates.  This bill, as passed by the House, would establish the highest foundation in the country at an amount equal to or greater than our current spending levels on education in Vermont. 

That is not a ‘foundation’ – that is the whole house (figuratively). 

The net effect of such a ‘foundation’ will be current low spending districts will be forced to pay more in taxes to cover that foundation and high spending districts will pay less in taxes.  The schools in current low spending districts will get more money and the schools in current high spending districts will have to make painful cuts.  This would be the State, and not our local towns, deciding how much to spend on their schools and what our property tax rate will be.  

This bill would drastically shift the balance in our education system away from Freedom towards Unity in ways I fundamentally do not support. As Ethan Allen wisely stated, “The Gods of the Valley are Not the Gods of the Hills.” Vermont is not a monolith in our values and priorities. Our lived experiences in Canaan differ from those in Colchester, and these differences are naturally reflected in how we educate our kids (among other things). Our approaches and priorities will diverge, and our systems must respect this diversity to the greatest extent possible – which our state constitution clearly does.

I am not convinced that what this bill contemplates is what Vermont wants. I am not convinced that Vermont wants Montpelier dictating education spending throughout Vermont with a uniform property tax rate for the whole state to fund a Montpelier defined level of spending.  This would represent far too much unity and not enough freedom, concentrating power in Montpelier putting in place a system where future legislatures, rather than local property owners and parents, would set spending and tax levels for our schools. I do not support this degree of power consolidation to the State House – this year or in future years.

What can be done that would be consistent with our constitution is to create “provisions for the convenient instruction of youth” with school district consolidation so we have fewer than 119 districts rationally configured spreading administrative expenses across core operations to achieve economies of scale, greater curricular depth and increased consistency in our school offerings throughout Vermont. 

I support the timeline outlined for this important work in the house version of this bill but it needs to be made clear that nobody wants to close our elementary schools.  Kids in Kindergarten through fifth grade need to attend schools close to their homes with short bus rides.  The Vermont school house is the center of our community.  It is often where we vote, where we gather for town meeting, where we have food drives, or spring fairs.  It is where we teach our kids.   

I don’t hear anybody in the State House saying we don’t need elementary schools throughout the hillsides of Vermont.  Where we could do better by our kids is with more rational  and intentional design of our Middle and High school buildings & programs.  Kids in these grades need curricular depth and 21^st century buildings so we need to find ways deliver these grades better and district consolidation can do that.

What can be done to achieve increased consistency is greater enforcement of educational quality standards throughout Vermont.  Our outcomes are not as good as they need to be and we have too many kids not graduating high school.  We need an agile agency of education that can be focused on more than our struggling finances but also on improving our statewide outcomes.

And what needs to be done within our existing system is to use strong spending controls by re-instituting allowable growth spending caps on local districts starting with fiscal year 2027.  Coupled with lowering our excess spending threshold penalty to be below the allowable cap, this would be a much less invasive mechanism than what is contemplated in H. 454 to drive down education spending without silencing the community voice.

Our current system, though not perfect, allows for a balance between freedom and unity – we just need to apply a little more unity using existing tools and more rational school district governance to reduce our spending and achieve efficiencies through economies of scale.   

We are paying too much in property taxes, and I believe we are spending too much on education for a continually declining student population.  To lower our property taxes, we need to calibrate our school offerings and reduce our spending to match our shrinking number of kids – and I do not see this foundation formula in H. 454 achieving that, either next year or five years out. The net effect of this really high foundation formula will be to disenfranchise Vermont property taxpayers, taking away their power in the ballot box each March and giving that power to future legislatures in Montpelier. Those future legislatures will either underfund or overfund education at levels they deem appropriate – instead of what each of our towns deem to be competent. The gods of the hills are not the gods of the valley, so towns need to be deeming that – not Montpelier.   

The author is a South Burlington resident and a Democrat member of the Vermont Senate from Chittenden County.