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By Michael Bielawski
Vermont’s Education Secretary Zoie Saunders told VDC on Friday that having larger districts – the governor is proposing five large districts down from the current 119 – would enable more equal distribution of resources.
“In these decisions, the Brigham Decision [declaring that education spending must be equally available to all communities] comes front and center in making sure that there is parity in property tax wealth meaning that communities have an equal opportunity to raise additional dollars,” Saunders said to VDC’s editor Guy Page in a 27-minute interview on Friday.
The governor’s proposal would be a major overhaul. She said, “The proposal moves us from 119 school districts to five school districts and that’s largely intended to achieve scale so that we can really bring in additional resources and support for our schools.”
She said that compliance with federal standards is one example of a regular administrative task that could benefit from a larger scale of operation.
Foundation funding
She got into how having a foundation-funding formula will help ensure equal distribution of resources.
“The rationale for that is to ensure that students that have similar needs receive similar resources regardless of where they live or the wealth of their community,” she said. “Right now we can’t say that is happening in practice right now we see great variability in terms of spending across communities.”
Foundation funding means each school gets a state-approved block grant and then if an individual community votes to spend more, the cost would still be socialized but there could be more limits on what projects the state will approve, potentially a spending cap.
“We do need to be thoughtful around establishing caps around that and what the state would be able to support and up to what limit,” she said.
She continued that this new system would allow them to pay more competitive salaries as well as offer new education opportunities.
Saunders has discussed in recent weeks how Vermont’s use of a shared state-wide education fund has resulted in an unintended consequence of wealthier communities feeling confident to spend more and poor communities spending less.
School closures?
Page asked if school closers were in play and she said that not initially but the state will eventually come up with some standards so that small schools serve a practical purpose.
“So in our modeling, we have assumed that we will be retaining largely our current school portfolio but making some adjustments in terms of how those are staffed and operated,” she said. “And then in time, we will be developing criteria for schools that are small by choice versus small by necessity so we have to be practical as we do this work.”
She noted there are examples of small schools that need to be that way for geographical reasons or other reasons concerning the needs of that community.
Federal dollars/religious schools
Another conversation they had was about school choice and how religious schools might fit into the equation. Saunders said when it comes to education and religion, they follow federal law.
“So there’s federal law governing how dollars are shared,” she said. “If you share public dollars for education with private schools which we refer to as independent schools within our context, so that would definitely be part of that conversation. I would say around choice there’s a lot of different discussions happening just around how does that best serve students, what type of programming do we want available.”
The author is a writer for the Vermont Daily Chronicle
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She continued that this new system would allow them to pay more competitive salaries
We need better schools and fiscal responsibility; this is just yet another school scam coming to all of Vermont……will the 5th time be better or more expensive?
In our “modeling”…they have no idea what they are doing, other than working for the blob, which want’s more money and no change, which they will gladly give.
We are being scammed, once again, politely with wonderful sounding words, empty rhetoric and no plan, except for more of the same.
Headline fixed:
Education Secretary: Bigger districts mean more student control
This makes perfect sense. Students that go to schools like West Rutland, Proctor or Cabot with 70 kids in them cannot offer their students a rich curriculum or a diversity of experiences. (Sorry, I know you don’t like that word) Division IV sports in Vermont are a joke and shouldn’t count as official records. The best students and athletes in these schools are just another kid at places like Rutland, Essex or Burr and Burton.
Chris: If a given school can’t offer its students’ a rich curriculum or a diversity of experiences’ (by whatever definition), why not let the parents choose an alternative educational program that does?
Back to the 70’s and earlier. My kids did very fine with the poor resources they had back then. It was all due to the competency of the teachers, some were not very good.
Come on VDC. Don’t just rehash the same old same old. Been there. Done that. Got the T-shirt.
What are the operative issues?
Re: Federal dollars/religious schools
“So there’s federal law governing how dollars are shared,” she said. “If you share public dollars for education with private schools which we refer to as independent schools within our context, so that would definitely be part of that conversation. I would say around choice there’s a lot of different discussions happening just around how does that best serve students, what type of programming do we want available.”
‘Part of the conversation’? The discussion already happened. It’s the law!
September 14, 2022:
“Vermont school districts must use public dollars to pay for students to attend approved religious schools, Education Secretary Dan French wrote in a memo sent to school superintendents on Tuesday.”
And how’s this for the false dichotomy this article glosses over yet again?
Re: “I would say around choice there’s a lot of different discussions happening just around how does that best serve students, what type of programming do we want available.”
‘Around choice’, it’s not about what type of programming ‘we’ want available. School Choice is based on what programming each parent wants for their individual children.
Please, just give each of us the same School Choice voucher everyone else gets (equal educational opportunity) and then… step aside.
Lastly, as I mentioned earlier when this interview was first published.
“Great interview, Guy. Your questions astutely and politely extracted the fact that we didn’t learn anything specific about the Scott/Saunders education plan. There was a lot of speculation and ‘feel good’ sentiment expressed, but nothing concrete. If I may, when you get the chance, will you ask Ms. Saunders when we will see the actual plan? Something tells me it’s going to be a while.“
So, I’ll ask again: when do you think we will see the actual plan?
They are building the model Jay, not quite complete! And funny thing is my bet is it looks just like the current system.
Guy was polite, you can be polite and direct. But then he’s the only one who’s gotten an interview so there is that.
They are going to more of the same, they are just going to make some minor changes, declare victory and just like the last few times things will get worse and more expensive, that I can promise you.
Yes Guy ask her what is the actual plan?? When nation wide the average cost per student is just over 14,000 per year, why are we in paying so much more. In Williamstown we are paying 23,000./year???? For what-a year in college room and board?? That gender reassignment surgery?? I want to know. The standardized test scores for 4th and 8th graders are terrible again so why do we continue giving raises to teachers for terrible results??? And how are parents to grade teachers when there isn’t a school board meeting to go to any longer?? Maybe parents don’t like CRT, gender ideology in kindergarten or even teaching common core math—-parents want education to get back to basic reading and math-tried true methods like flash cards that do not leaving anyone behind.
Maybe-something happened at school involving their child, your child was injured maybe physically, psychologically but nobody from the school notified the parents at all-parents do have rights and children deserve better. If they don’t fix this mess—direct your lawsuits to the vt department of education!!!
Turn the clock back to 1996, the year before act 60 was passed and break the clock. All the ideological driven legislation passed to reform education since then will cease to exist. Problem solved.
Am I missing something? Wouldn’t real school choice extend the same breadth of opportunities to students?