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by Mill Moore
Vermont taxpayers hard hit by the recent property tax increases and in the line of fire for another increase this year may be alarmed to know Don Tinney, the President of the state teachers’ union, recently said “We’re not spending too much money on education. We’re having a difficult time funding it.”
The cost of public education is up an astonishing 26.6 percent during the last 3 years. Recent annual increases of about $185-million have contributed to a state education budget now topping $2-billion. While every taxpayer is hard hit, some low-income homeowners are at the point of being unable to afford to pay their property taxes. And, the State Education Fund is inadequate to pay the rapidly rising costs.
Vermont already has a higher cost per student than every single state in the country, save one. At $26,970 per student, Vermont is well above the national average (less than $20k).1 An increase in spending rivaling last year’s increase is an abuse of Vermont taxpayers.
Inefficient management of teacher resources in many schools has led to Vermont having the worst student-teacher ratio in the nation while student performance is on a steady downward trend.
Avoiding further tax increases will require cost-cutting. But, Tinney’s organization, a major player in Vermont education, has signaled it is not on board with controlling costs. His words have led to some “I told you so” moments among critics of the legislative commission named to recommend cost control measures. The critics predicted the commission, dominated by representatives of teacher and school administrator organizations, would protect their members’ entrenched interests instead of offering fresh and innovative ideas.
Those interests appear to have been protected. After six months of work, the Commission on the Future of Public Education failed to deliver required cost control recommendations to the incoming 2025 legislature. And now the Vermont NEA is openly advocating that Vermont should continue to spend more and to tax more.
Meanwhile, the Vermont NEA will advocate salary increases for its member teachers in districts where contracts are up for renewal this year. This will only reinforce Tinney’s glib remark about the “difficulty of funding education.”
The Vermont NEA and the public education administrator groups should understand that guarding their narrow self-interests, at students’ and taxpayers’ expense, ultimately will damage their members too. They should instead apply their professional expertise to finding workable solutions to some very serious problems.
Mill Moore is a retired Vermonter who occasionally writes commentary on education issues.
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Categories: Commentary, Education
Vermont house and senate set the rate at twenty thousand dollars per child this year and allow no more increase until this problem is solved. The new gang in the state house needs to fix this problem now or get out of office.
Kindly fill me in on when and where that 20K rate was set. That’s almost a 30% cost reduction. A step in the right direction.
Note: I’ve taught in classrooms with 28 students without paraprofessional assistance.
I also had 36 students in my 6th grade classroom 24 boys and 12 girls – not something I recommend, but it was a fun year – lots of winter soccer recess time, we made balsa wood airplane models, studied weather mapping, had a classroom zoo, and used self-paced math skill books.
The above-mentioned cost per student is either understated or doesn’t include all costs. The Vermont Agency of Education (AOE) – FY25 Budget Book – published February 20, 2024, states that there is “a $2.7 billion education system“ serving “80,284 students”. That’s $33,630 per student.
https://legislature.vermont.gov/Documents/2024/WorkGroups/House%20Appropriations/FY%202025%20Budget/6.%20Education/W~Heather%20Bouchey~AOE%20FY25%20Budget%20Book~2-20-2024.pdf
I suspect that there is significant confusion in the various other cost-per-student calculations being reported because the AOE often cites the arbitrary ‘equalized student enrollment’ data that persistently overstates the actual number of students in the Vermont public school system.
And the problem with the NEA and other education special interest groups isn’t in how much each person earns but in the sheer number of AOE employees these special interest groups represent. At last count, there are nearly 20 thousand full-time equivalent people employed by the AOE. That’s 20 thousand people serving 80 thousand students, or a 4 to 1 student to staff ratio.
That being said, I’m surprised Mill Moore, the executive director of the Vermont Independent Schools Association, doesn’t address the H.405 School Choice bill, currently languishing in the House Education Committee (although it’s reportedly being re-introduced).
Again: H.405 simply expands the provision currently allowing some parents to choose an independent school at public expense to all Vermont parents being allowed to do so. Afterall, when all parents have this choice, a true educational free market will take shape, while improving student outcomes and lowering education costs.
20,000 people work for the Agency of Education? That seems exponentially high
Sounds about right. Way more, when you consider the ancillary workers and their beneficiaries.
Eric and Timothy: FYI – The Agency of Education (AOE) accounting I have from four years ago (FY 2020-2021) shows 18,988 Fulltime Equivalent staff employed by the AOE. It should also be noted that the AOE – FY25 Budget Book also indicates that the AOE’s administrative operating budget alone is just over $ 55.7 million with 176 positions.
But don’t lose sight of the forest for the trees. While the current cost per student is in the $33K range, for every student who chooses an independent school, and qualifies for the average annual enrollment tuition voucher, the cost per student is less than $20K.
Imagine then, that if all students were allowed to take advantage of the H.405 School Choice bill and choose an independent school, the cost per student (and the correlating property taxes that fund it) could decline by as much as 30%.
Wouldn’t that be the cat’s meow….
Postscript: Mill Moore informed me that he is no longer the executive director of the Vermont Independent Schools Association.
H.405 is no longer in play. It’s a new biennium, and a new bill will have to be introduced.
Rob: I was told that Rep. Mike Tagliavia recently reintroduced H.405. I don’t know the details. Perhaps Mr. Tagliavia can weigh in.
At Vermont’s cost per student, we must be producing some really smart kids, and test scores must be at an all-time high……. Nah !!
Oh wait that’s the teachers’ salaries and benefits are at an all-time high, the cost we taxpayers pay and your kids suffer, remember the old days when teachers would say “It’s for the kids, ” those days are gone?
Here is a list it costs per student by state,
https://reports.ecs.org/comparisons/k-12-funding-2024
“teachers’ salaries and benefits are at an all-time high, the cost we taxpayers pay”-
I have seen it more than once on local news. “This city’s teachers are paid more than we are.” They keep saying it’s about the kids but when I hear that, I can’t help but think it’s a money grab.
I teach not for the money but because I love it.
John: Classroom teachers make up a minor portion of the AOE staff. There are School Nutrition Site Managers, School Nutrition Assistants, Student Support Paraprofessionals, CFG ELA Interventionists, Special Education Teachers, Confidential Secretaries, Principals, Superintendents, Related Services & School-Based Clinicians, Maintenance Workers, Custodians, Speech-Language Pathology Assistants, School Counselors, Interventionists, Library Media Specialists, Bus drivers, in addition to Supervisory District administrative staff.
Vermont’s public school system is, by far, the State’s largest employer. And as other commentors have mentioned, all of these employes receive the defined-benefit retirement program (as opposed to a typical ‘defined-contribution’ program), that is grossly underfunded by billions of dollars. It’s all a ticking financial time-bomb.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Get rid of the NEA ! Teachers are state employees. They should belong to VSEA like every other state employee. The NEA needs to go !
Has anyone ever read the small print on those “SupportTeachers” signs? Might you be surprised to see they are paid for by VTNEA?
Okay….how about we get this done. It is long past time to tune out the state “associations”, and to place excellent pre-K – 12 student learning and achievement, and affordability, as top priorities. I’ll take a stab at it……
1) Terminate the Commission. It has been a waste of time and effort.
2) Legislatively fast track a foundation formula.
3) Set the foundation amount at the average of the per pupil expenditures of the top 25 highest spending states.
4) Eliminate all current supervisory administrative units and replace them with a county-based system of educational administration and support, governed by elected boards. Restrict the functions of these to personnel and HR, finance and operations, and curriculum supervision.
5) Prepare and issue a statewide curriculum. Restrict schools to academic activities delivering the statewide curriculum, and nothing beyond.
6) Develop statewide contracts for personnel / staff. Aim for salary and compensation levels that reference / index to average compensation levels of the top 25 highest spending ( per-pupil ) states.
7) Limit the kind and quantity of “extra” personnel and staffing now found commonly and in abundance (and at high cost) in our schools: instructional “coaches”, “equity” people, social workers and therapists, behavior workers, curriculum “specialists”, etc. And as well, limit school-level administrator staffing to one administrator for every 250 students.
8) Moratorium on new construction. For existing facilities, develop a multi-year plan for addressing – statewide – needed repairs to critical or essential physical plant functions and systems. Heating, mechanical, water / wastewater, safety and security, roofing, etc.
The above took me thirty minutes. Mostly common sense and certainly not rocket science. Our legislature, governor and ed secretary ought to be able to get a package like this rolling by May.
Church Street Citizen: Just have your legislators pass the H.405 School Choice bill.
It took me less than a minute to type that.