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Education agency admits a years-long failure as student performance nosedives
by Mill Moore
Vermont elementary school students’ reading scores have fallen below the national average and show no sign of trending back upward. Mississippi on the other hand has ascended to a level above the national average after many years of serious under-performance.
Standardized test reading scores for Vermont fourth grade students have declined by the equivalent of 1.5 grade levels since 2015 when Vermont students had been scoring among the top five states in the U.S. In other words, fourth graders are now, on average, reading as if they were still in second grade.
The decade-long nosedive in Vermont elementary school student performance has occurred in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) standardized testing program (otherwise known as The Nation’s Report Card).
The Vermont Agency of Education’s reaction to the 2024 NAEP scores was extremely unusual. It admitted to significant policy and operational failures extending over several years. In an October 2 news release, AOE Chief Academic Officer Erin Davis stated “the state has failed to support the implementation of key pieces of education policy.”
The situation is similar for fourth grade math. Vermont students’ average scores have fallen below the national average while Mississippi has climbed out of the cellar and into a top ten ranking.
NAEP scores also are available for eighth grade students. Their performance is little better than that of Vermont’s fourth grade students.
Again, traditionally bottom-ranked Mississippi has soared in the NAEP results after implementing significant instructional reforms. Mississippi is now ranked at ninth among all states in math and sixteenth in reading while Vermont now ranks a very mediocre thirty-sixth for both subjects.
The AOE released new test data from its own in-state VTCAP assessments on October 16. Education Secretary Zoie Saunders commented: “[the results] are consistent with recent performance on the NAEP …” In other words, nothing has changed and until some changes are made the downward trend is likely to continue.
The NAEP data show for about a decade Vermont elementary schools have been graduating large numbers students with reading and math skills so deficient that their performance on the NAEP assessment is beneath what the NAEP terms “basic.”
The NAEP defines “basic” as showing “some understanding of the material” but being likely to “struggle with more complex tasks or applications.” A sub-basic score means students have little to no understanding of the material.
Forty-two percent of Vermont fourth grade students were below basic in reading skills and 25 percent were below basic in math in 2024. Since fourth grade enrollment at the time was about 5800 students, about 2400 students were without even basic reading skills and 1400 students without basic math skills in just one year. Counted over the ten-year period in which Vermont scores have declined sharply; the total number of affected students is around 20,000.
How could so many students have failed without teachers, administrators, school directors and the AOE noticing?
Worse, what happens when students with serious skill deficiencies move on to higher grades or even into high school? Schools continue to advance these struggling students to higher grades.
Perhaps remedial programs are offered, though solving a problem after it has occurred is more costly and often less effective than prevention in the first place. Students whose early elementary years failed to prepare them properly can be disadvantaged for life.
The Mississippi experience, now being emulated in other deep South states, shows there’s nothing exotic about turning around a failing program. Mississippi made a commitment to give students a proper education by using proven instructional materials and teaching methods, with schools held accountable for results. Can Vermont do the same?
If admitting to failure is an essential first step to correcting a problem, then the AOE may now have gathered itself to make a positive response to this very alarming problem. Education Secretary Zoie Saunders has recently reorganized the Vermont AOE, in part to address dismayingly low student performance.
Recently named Chief Academic Officer Erin Davis has the task of leading the agency’s plans to support and train local school teachers and administrators. Davis says the agency has over 30 specialist staffers ready to deliver professional training at the local level.
Though the spotlight currently is on the AOE, its role is secondary to that of local school boards. School boards are ultimately responsible for their students’ performance. State law requires school boards to adopt annual improvement plans and to evaluate the results of previous years’ plans. If it is actually being completed, this annual exercise appears to have had no impact on improving elementary school reading and math instruction.
Compelling school boards to focus on student performance is greatly complicated by the pending Act 73 process to create school district consolidation plans for the entire state. An effective plan already in place in a particular district may not survive after that district is swept into a greatly enlarged consolidated district.
Plus, administrators must focus on establishing new administrative relationships with an enlarged district community while also addressing the failing K-3 learning problems.
Vermont legislators deserve credit for passing Act 139 last year, a law requiring schools to use evidence-based reading instruction and screening for students in grades K-3. Successful implementation depends on a strong leadership commitment to improvement at the AOE, within individual school boards and among district and supervisory union administrators. Unfortunately, Act 139 has two problems: it provides no funding and it ignored math performance.
Additionally, the Act 139 measures to ensure compliance are limited only to requiring schools to report to the AOE their number of below-proficient students and the assessments used to identify students at risk for reading difficulties. The act does not set up accountability for effective follow-through. The AOE itself can encourage and support change, but its tools to force change are limited and have rarely been used in the past.
However, passing a law requiring something “shall” happen is some distance away from prompt and faithful execution of legislative wishes. Educational reforms often meet grudging compliance in the field. School boards and administrators often claim they have priorities other than those desired in new legislation and few resources to deal with new requirements. The system inherently resists change.
The lack of clear performance accountability standards at the state, school district, and individual school levels is a significant weakness, both in evaluating past practices and in planning future improvements. School administrators’ responsibility for improving student performance is not clearly defined.
Citizens or taxpayers wishing to hold the AOE and schools accountable find local level NAEP and VTCAP test results either are unavailable or restricted from public disclosure due to recent changes in privacy protections. Though some student data are available through the agency’s web site, the process is unnecessarily complicated and many AOE web pages are far out of date. District-level and school-level assessment data are generally unavailable.
In June of next year Vermont’s elementary schools will graduate another cohort of 2400 near-illiterate and near-innumerate students, as they have done for the last several years. The imperative for change is obvious.
To its credit, the AOE is taking steps in the right direction. Next, the schools and the General Assembly must act—the schools to make instructional change a priority and legislators to create an Act 139 duplicate to address math education and to put strong accountability teeth in both pieces of legislation.
Avoiding action by making excuses about COVID impacts, social media influences, student use of cellphones and other such distractions is not acceptable. Mississippi has succeeded despite these problems. If Mississippi can succeed at this then Vermont surely can also.
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Categories: Commentary, Education
It would be interesting to have a local area comparison between sister states VT and NH educational systems. The two states are financially different, VT taxed to the hilt and NH more conservative without a sales or in come tax. Traveling in both states, VT by comparison to NH is dead, everywhere in NH it’s booming and a lot of construction and with shopping centers. VT’ers go to NH to shop where convenient, including the lower NE states, many seen in parking lots.
Vermont schools are not safe for our children.
Vermont. Schools are very, very expensive.
Vermont schools are making our children stupid.
How much do we have to witness before we change direction.
On a positive note, our children protest better.
Our children are well versed in lust at a young age.
One day driving thru Townshend, there were about 10-15 very young kids on the sidewalk (outside the school) waving professional made protest signs protesting climate change, during school hours. What an indoctrination.
Tom, “What an indoctrination.” isn’t it though ? And on our dime !
I agree with your assessment of the situation, Mill. 2 of my children have been negatively impacted by the poor literacy instruction in Vermont elementary schools, and I have been subjected to the usual litany of excuses. Luckily, we have been able to supplement our children’s literacy instruction to get them up to grade level, but I have had to learn WAY more about evidence-based ELA teaching and how the school system works than I ever anticipated.
Also, I’m unusual…the vast majority of well-intended parents with struggling readers are clueless as to how to help, through no fault of their own. And my heart breaks for those kiddos. “Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.” — Frederick Douglass
I spent a term on the school board trying to advocate for higher literacy standards and more successful literacy instruction. I was met with lots of hot air, some allies, some resistance, and virtually no change in outcomes. And now that I have left, I think the board has reverted to not discussing it, as far as I can tell.
There have been some changes in instruction locally, but even with additional teacher training, I do not see the evidence-based practices implemented with the high fidelity or intensity necessary to turn the ship around.
Over the course of a few years, I have gone from frustrated to furious and I wish I could see some way to make a difference for all the children in our community, not just my own. At this point, I feel the whole public school system is so bloated and wrong-headed that I’m not sure it’s salvageable. I hope I’m wrong.
And to be clear, I’m speaking about the system as a whole, not about individuals. I like and admire our local administrators and teachers, and they do a lot of wonderful work and I’m grateful to them. But when I look at the big picture, I do not see evidence of systematic success toward improving our children’s reading (and math, but let’s start somewhere!)
Mississippi cost per student, $12,000
Vermont cost per student, $24000
So, I can safely say that throwing more money at the problem probably will have no effect.
Re: Vermont cost per student. $24000
From the Vermont Agency of Education FY25 Budget Book:
“The Agency (VT Agency of Education) provides critical leadership, support, and oversight to a $2.7 billion education system”… (up from $2.56 billion), serving a “TOTAL 80,284 students (decrease from 80,509).”
https://ljfo.vermont.gov/assets/Uploads/7a070a013a/WHeather-BoucheyAOE-FY25-Budget-Book2-20-2024-v2.pdf
Keep in mind too that almost 8 thousand of those students are Pre-K (3, 4 and 5 year-old) part-time students who receive service from independent school providers at a cost of approximately $3500 per student per year.
In fact, according to the 2025 report, there are only 72,093 K through 12th grade students being served in Vermont – (down from 72,747). So, if we divide the operating budget of $2.7 billion (less Pre-K costs) by 72,093 K through 12th grade students, that’s approximately $37,063 per student. Not $24,000 per student.
It took the last 15 years of mismanagement to create this circumstance.
Harbinger of what’s to come…. The AOE budget increased 5.5% last year while student enrollments declined approximately 1%. If this trend continues for the next 15 years, a 1% enrollment decrease each year, for 15 years, from the current 72,093 K-12th grade enrollments, will result in a total of 63,526 students in the 15th year, which will equate to an annual projected cost per student of $93,901.
And VT Education Property Taxes must increase proportionately by 240% by the end of that period to sustain the status quo. In other words, if you’re paying $5000 annually on property tax this year, you’ll be paying $12,000 annually 15 years from now, totaling $167,415 total tax payments, or about half the value of the property (assuming its value isn’t negatively affected by its outrageous property tax carrying costs).
When will the proverbial straw break the camel’s back? Soon. Very soon.
worldpopulationreview.com shows Vermont is the second highest cost per pupil in the U.S. , second to New York.
The info I found was only for K- 12. Thanks Jay.
Go directly to the horse’s mouth, Dan. The 2025 Agency of Education’s (AOE) annual administrative operating budget alone is just over $55.7 million. Add to that that the AOE is Vermont’s largest employer, by far (with more than 20,000 employees), not counting private subcontractors.
We have been warned, over and again, that our Republic risks collapse when legislators use public funds to buy voter support, creating a cycle of dependency. According to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, approximately 40% of Vermont’s non-farm employment is in the education, healthcare, and government sectors.
And they are going bankrupt, ‘gradually, then suddenly’.
In a state that spends more money per student than practically any other, the fact that throwing more money at this problem will not fix the problem, aught to be obvious. Stop the stupidity !
Schools just need to stop following the leftist agenda of obsessing about race, diversity and promoting fringe sexual and gender lifestyle practices and return to math, science and language skills. Return to the original mission of public education. It’s not complicated.
I disagree, Rich. Schools should be allowed to do what they choose. And parents should have the right to choose the schools they believe best meet the needs of their children. The ‘mission’ of public education is the problem. Preference must be given to the parental ‘mission’. Let an education free market set the table.
“School choice” would introduce competition to the dysfunctional status quo and be the obvious solution to the problem but with the majority party of the Vermont Legislature being a wholly-owned subsidiary of the VTNEA union, that solution is but a fantasy.
With any discussion on changes the first response from the schools and ‘system’ is ‘you’re not an education professional like I am’ you don’t know what you’re talking about. Nationally the last report I heard was 68% of Americans 20-40 years can’t read above 6th grade level, taking us back over a hundred years when major newspaper articles were written at the 6th grade reading level (remembering from my Journalism classes)
Rich, if even ‘a discussion’ about “the obvious solution to the problem” is a fantasy, what’s the point of any of our commenting here on VDC? For that matter, what’s the point of VDC? It’s as though everyone is reading VDC the way they read and comment about obituaries, looking to see if any of their peers passed away today.
Is hopelessness really that contagious?
The real problem is that its not just we old geezers who are passing away. It’s our children and grandchildren who are dying because an evil twisted parasitic education system is feeding on them. If we know “the obvious solution to the problem”, I’m compelled to fight for it with every ‘keyboard thump’ I can muster.
In looking at the charts, I see steady improvement from Mississippi at half the cost. I find this disturbing. I know, I know, the Left will say “well Mississippi teacher don’t make much.” Maybe not but it’s the STUDENTS who get the money and quality. Having taught, I did so for the love of it, NOT the money.
By comparison, Vermont students are showing a steady decline. We pay extreme taxes to fund this? I know, the Left will say “Well, we need to spend MORE money.” I guess their 14% wasn’t enough.
No!! Merit pay, People. If students perform THEN we’ll look at teacher bonuses. Also, stop it with the gender studies and such. I find it troubling when people these days can’t count back change, write or do basic math.
Kids are kids, teachers are teachers, find out what Mississippi is doing and incorporate that program here. It shouldn’t be rocket science, but if it is – then teach that also.
Not with the teacher’s union standing in the way. They have all the money and all the say. The only way to change it is to have every teacher and admin refuse to join. Ha ha will never happen and nothing will ever change. This is the place the socialists want us.
Jhottenstein, At the risk of tooting my own horn too loudly, as I have stated here before, teachers in the SOV are the only state employees allowed to belong to any other union than the state sanctioned VSEA. That should not be the case. Get rid of the VNEA, and give teachers the same choice as all other SOV employees. Join the VSEA, or …….
Vermont student performance on 2024 in-state VT-CAP standardized test scores (by school district) ARE available on the AOE website and EASY to access.
As far as Mississippi…be careful. Performance in 4th grade reading on NAEP-Nation’s report card testing showed significant improvement for Mississippi BUT in 2024 8th grade reading, Mississippi students were 4 points BELOW the national average and had a comparative rank of #41 (compared to other 49 states).
Vermont in contrast for grade 8 reading NAEP-2024 had the average score (rank #24: 5 way tie). But in Grade 4 reading Vermont had a score one point BELOW the average (and had a rank of #32; 5 way tie).
The answer to the question of whether EARLY improvements in reading (such as Mississippi has seen in grade 4) hold up over time is “as clear as mud”. Essentially the results are a mixed bag.
Mississippi results in reading suggests improvement does NOT hold up over time….but that is one state and one year…so we need to be careful about drawing conclusions from one data point.
One thing seems clear: at local, statewide, and national levels learning in America’s public schools has declined, while spending has soared….and there is little evidence the situation is improving, and a fair amount of evidence the situation is not improving.
Isn’t someone, or many someones, being paid big bucks to make Vt number one in academics? Teachers, principals, superintendents, or our governor? And maybe they all need changing.
Skippy, “Isn’t someone, or many someones, being paid big bucks to make Vt number one in academics?” Yes they are, Democrats, Liberals, Lefties, Progressives, Socialists, Marxists, Commies, however you want to brand them, or however they choose to brand themselves, and that is why we are where we are at ! Take back Vermont !