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by Guy Page
Today on Hot Off The Press, we’re taking up a story that goes right to the heart of Vermont’s education system and the property-tax crisis that’s hitting homeowners and renters alike.
Remember Act 73? The law that required Vermont’s School District Redistricting Task Force to produce proposed maps of new, large “super-school districts”? Well, after months of work, the redistricting Task Force voted on November 10 to not to produce those maps. The seven vote majority at that meeting said forcing massive mergers simply doesn’t solve the problem.
Instead, at that meeting the Task Force majority proposed something different: a regional, shared-service model called the Cooperative Education Service Area, or CESA. It’s a structure that purportedly allows districts to share things like special education, transportation, staffing, purchasing, and technology.
And one thing became clear: the big cost drivers in education—health care, special education, transportation, aging buildings—don’t get cheaper when you create bigger districts.
In other words, the task force claims, consolidation doesn’t fix the big problem – that our schools cost too much, especially for the poor educational outcomes they deliver.
And that brings us to our guest today: Ben Kinsley from the Campaign for Vermont. His organization reached the same conclusion. Building super-districts doesn’t touch the spending pressures that are sending property taxes through the roof. Both the Task Force and the Campaign for Vermont believe the answer may lie in regional collaboration, voluntary mergers, and shared services—not in creating a handful of giant bureaucracies.
So today, we’ll be asking Ben and really any caller:
If consolidation doesn’t save money, what will? How, or even can we, get out from under the crushing tax burden of the rising costs of health care, special education, transportation, aging buildings.
Is there a better way to improve opportunities for students without erasing community identity?
That conversation is coming up next, right here on Hot Off The Press.
Before Ben calls in in a few moments, we thought it might be helpful to know who is on this task force, appointed by rules set forth in Act 73:
The members of the Vermont School District Redistricting Task Force include:
- Senator Scott Beck – GOP senate caucus leader. He is affiliated with St. Johnsbury Academy, a private, tuition receiving school who backed the model discarded on November 10.
- Senator Martine Gulick, Chittenden County Democrat, retired high school teacher.
- Senator Wendy Harrison, Windham County Democrat.
- Dr. Jennifer Botzojorns, a retired superintendent of the Kingdom East School District.
- Dr. Jay Badams, former superintendent of SAU 70.
- Kim Gleason, former school board member, Representative (REP.)
- Reps. Edye Graning (D-Jericho), Rebecca Holcombe (D), and Beth Quimby (R-Concord).
- Chris Locarno, a retired director of finance and facilities for the Central Vermont Supervisory Union.
- David Wolk, former Rutland superintendent, Vermont Commissioner of Education and state senator
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Categories: Hot Off The Press
Headline fixed:
HOTP today: Either school redistricting plan will increase our taxes
Re: “And one thing became clear: the big cost drivers in education—health care, special education, transportation, aging buildings—don’t get cheaper when you create bigger districts.”
These need not be ‘education’ issues.
Healthcare: …is not an education issue except in regard, perhaps, to providing a curriculum on promoting healthy-lifestyles. But I suspect this typically over generalized category is referring to the healthcare insurance costs of the public school monopoly’s employees – because, as with any monopoly, there are no market forces to counter ever-increasing insurance costs.
Special Education: … is a federal program (the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act – IDEA) for disabled children. Evidence suggests that school choice tends to decrease the proportion of students with disabilities in choice schools (e.g., charters and private schools participating in vouchers) compared to traditional public schools, due to enrollment patterns and service limitations. If anyone would like to see that ‘evidence’, I’ll publish it. Suffice it to say, the ‘evidence’ is extensive.
Transportation: This isn’t an ‘education’ issue either, any more than being able to buy and drive a car, ride a bus, walk, or ride a bike is. The transportation issue is stuck in Horace Mann’s 19th century, brick and mortar, school model. Ask yourself why, for example, students need transportation? Do they need it every day? What about homeschooling and remote learning? The transportation issue is a throw-back to warehousing students for convenience’s sake.
Furthermore, in Vermont, school districts are not required to provide transportation to all students. Instead, state law grants school boards discretion to determine transportation based on what is “reasonable and necessary” for a student to attend school. This is governed primarily by 16 V.S.A. § 1222 (Students who may be furnished transportation), which emphasizes policy development over a blanket mandate. Below, I outline the key requirements, factors considered, and related provisions.
Aging Buildings: Again, why do we need those buildings? In a dynamic School Choice environment, where students learn will not be restricted to expensive, massive school complexes. Again, think outside of that box.
These points are examples of ‘mission creep’. When the public-school special interest groups want to expand their market, they seek to be all things to all people. But in the process of their one-size-fits-all methodology, they are nothing for anyone.