In response to “Gov. Phil Scott’s education plan would create an optional school choice lottery in every district” (VT Digger, 2/6/25)
by H. Jay Eshelman
Governor Scott’s proposal is clearly trying to straddle two governance concepts. On the one hand we have continued clamoring for School Choice (the H.89 School Choice bill). On the other hand, we have H.122, the complete and total control of education by special interest groups, obviously interested in the single largest revenue stream in the State ($2.7 Billion).
This Scott/Saunders ‘plan’ is a typical political compromise, replete with the vague and undefined provisions that will not only continue but exacerbate the status quo – specifically, the chaos, academic dysfunction and outrageously high costs to taxpayers. It’s overly complicated, with oodles of operational details yet to be determined by various committees, existing and yet to be established. And we all know how that process works out.
Who, in the five districts, gets to ‘designate’ the private schools allowed to be in the lottery? What about private school governance and curriculum? What about out-of-state schools? What about religious schools? What about homeschooling? How are costs controlled? How are student outcomes improved?
Because this is a far more complicated set of circumstances of which most people are unaware, the pitfalls are just as obscure… and numerous.
There are two school bills currently being tossed around. The H.89 School Choice bill that simply expands Vermont’s existing and centuries old School Choice tuitioning – and H.122 submitted by VT NEA advocates, that not only eliminates all School Choice in Vermont, it gives all authority to the State Board of Education and as yet non-existent committees and commissions. H.122 severely limits private school curriculum to be carbon copies of the one-size-fits-all State controlled public schools.
There is no doubt that the H.89 School Choice bill is the way to go. It’s simple. It’s easy to implement. It does everything and more of what is proposed by Scott and Saunders… with little if any hidden restrictions. Basically, H.89 takes Vermont’s existing and time-tested tuitioning governance and allows all students in Vermont to have the same choices, from elementary school (PK-6) thru high school. No more committees. No more commissions or study groups. No politics. No special interest lobbying. Just parents using the Annual Announced Tuition voucher to send their children to the education program they believe best meets the needs of their children.
Keep this in mind. Currently, there are only 72,093 full-time equivalent K-12 students in Vermont’s $2.7 Billion public education system. Do the math. That’s a cost of more than $38,000 annually for each student. Even if we count the least expensive part-time PreK students, high school equivalency students, and all publicly funded students attending private schools to the mix, we are paying for 84,256 students. That’s still more than $32,000 of annual cost per student.
So, what do we get with these two governance models?
The H.122 and the Scott/Saunders proposals are all about controlling the money. Period. There’s nothing in these plans accepting responsibility for lowering costs or improving student outcomes. Zero, zilch, nada.
What do we get with School Choice?
First and foremost, for every student choosing to attend an independent school, taxpayers will receive up to $10,000 per student in annual savings. That’s the difference between the Annual Announced Tuition voucher and the current cost per student.
Second, when parents choose the school best suited for their children, Special Education labeling declines – because students can choose the program that best meets their individual needs, not a one-size-fits-all curriculum.
Third, when parents and students chose poorly (as some surely will), they learn from the experience and make better choices in the future.
Fourth, when schools make poor choices (and we surely know they do), they also learn from the experience and make better choices in the future.
The end result with School Choice is that we have an ever improving and lower cost education system, because outcomes and financial efficiency are incentivized.
Again, the current political environment is all about controlling and increasing the revenue stream to education special interest groups. Their concern is always that School Choice takes taxpayer money away from the public schools, gives it to private schools, and, God forbid, gives it to religious schools.
So what? No one is forcing parents to send their children to a private or religious school – as the special interest groups are trying to force students to attend the public-school monopoly. School Choice is school choice, be it a public school, a private school, or a private religious school.
To those taxpayers who don’t want their tax dollars to go to a religious school, understand this. The SCOTUS has ruled that once a School Choice voucher is awarded to a parent, the money is theirs. State and taxpayer control ends at that time. The First Amendment not only says ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”, it says “…or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;”. It’s our choice!
Clearly, neither H.122 nor the Scott/Saunders compromise are ‘for the children’… or the taxpayer. If Vermonters really want to improve education and our standard of living along with it, ask your representatives to enact H.89 and forget the rest of the subterfuge.