by Ben Kinsley
Governor Scott says the Act 73 School Redistricting Task Force “failed” because it refused to deliver a mandatory consolidation map that would force Vermont into a handful of mega-districts. Respectfully, I disagree with this assessment.
To assess if the task force failed its mission, we should agree on what that mission was. Was it to reduce the number of school boards? Create more opportunities for students? Or, generate cost savings? Those are three distinct goals. While some may argue that the former was the letter of the law (Act 73 in this case) most will agree that the latter two were the intent of the law. By those measures, the Task Force succeeded in its mission.
After hearing from more than 5,000 Vermonters who overwhelmingly said, “keep our local schools and local boards,” the Task Force chose to protect the community connections that make Vermont schools more than just buildings. Just as importantly, they recognized that the research shows no cost savings from consolidation and instead put forward a plan that actually achieves those goals.
That is not failure. That is leadership.
We at Campaign for Vermont have been making this exact case for over a decade. In 2014 we showed that larger school districts did not produce better outcomes or lower costs. In 2024 we updated the data and found the same thing — plus clear evidence that Supervisory Union size and staffing ratios matter far more than district size.
In March 2025 we released A Pathway to Viable Education Transformation, explicitly recommending replacing our 52 Supervisory Unions with roughly 15 regional Education Service Agencies (ESAs) aligned with Vermont’s Career and Technical centers. This approach would leave local school boards, and their community connections, intact.
The Task Force’s proposal, Cooperative Education Service Areas, looks remarkably like the model we laid out eight months ago. Other states (like New York’s BOCES or Pennsylvania’s Intermediate Units) have proven this shared-services approach delivers real savings in administration, special education, transportation, procurement, and professional development without destroying community identity. Our own analysis showed plausible annual savings in the hundreds of millions by moving to 15 ESAs.
The Governor’s frustration is understandable; there is no doubt that property taxes are crushing Vermonters. Education spending has increased a staggering 47% since 2019. But forcing the entire state into a few giant districts is not the answer. Act 46 already proved that forced mergers produce lawsuits, resentment, and little to no savings. Schools are the beating hearts of our rural towns. Rip that out and the research says you don’t get efficiency; you get resentment.
The Task Force heard that loud and clear. Instead of drawing arbitrary lines on a map, they proposed a framework that encourages districts to share the expensive stuff (administration, special ed, transportation, IT, purchasing, HR) while keeping school leadership close to home. They just handed the legislature a workable path forward: regional cooperative service areas, preserved local boards, voluntary but incentivized mergers where communities want them.
That is not failure. That is the first mature and well-researched education savings proposal Montpelier has seen in decades.
Lawmakers should take the Task Force’s recommendations, flesh them out with the cost-saving details we and others have already modeled, and pass them in 2026. Do that, and we can finally bend the cost curve without breaking the connections between our schools and our communities.
Ben Kinsley has over a decade of public policy experience in Vermont. Working for non-profit organizations, he has shaped public policy in areas such as education, elections, and ethics. He currently serves as the Interim Executive Director for Campaign for Vermont, a non-partisan advocacy group seeking to grow the state’s middle class.