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Governor’s education plan “fixes” too many things that don’t need fixing
by Rob Roper
Governor Scott’s plan for education reform does some things right, and others unnecessarily very wrong. What’s right? The move to a foundation-based funding formula and the primary focus on cost savings being the elimination of supervisory union level of bureaucracy. In no way shape or form do we need 52 supervisory unions governing 109 school districts servicing just 80,000 kids. Kudos on that. However….
The plan to eliminate all the supervisory unions and consolidate the 109 school districts into five, and scrapping all the local school boards is… I struggle for the right word and not finding it will go with “what and why the [heck]!” accompanied by the pulling out of clumps of precious hair.
Vermonters prize local control – even if it’s just the illusion of local control – when it comes to our schools. But the only way to break the money hemorrhaging gordian knot that is Act 60 Plus and simultaneously comply with the Brigham decision is to wrest away local control of budget and spending decisions to a large extent. That may be a bitter pill for some to swallow, but necessary. Recognizing that, wiping out locally elected school boards – the people voters likely know personally and see as their primary points of contact and levers of local control over their schools – is, I’m sorry, too much to ask. An exceptionally large suppository to accompany that exceptionally bitter pill. Only in this case, it’s totally unnecessary!
Scott’s plan replaces local school boards with “advisory committees” for each school. So, question. Why do this and not just leave the local school boards in place to fill that role? Maybe even expand the number of locally elected school boards if you want one for each school or schools making up grades k-12 in a community. Make this a desirable political trade: less local control over how much a school can spend so that we can keep costs and thus taxes down in exchange for more local control over how the money is spent in your local school. I bet if you did this the school boards as well as parents and local voters would be on your side instead of making dolls of you to burn in effigy as they are currently doing.
As for supervisory and school district consolidation, here’s my humble suggestion: ONE supervisory union for the entire state and keep (at least) the 109 school districts and their boards in place, maybe with some tweaking. Otherwise you’re just alienating huge constituencies in every town and the whole plan becomes a non-starter.
And this gets to school choice in Vermont, or “tuitioning” as it is called. When public education was becoming a thing a century and a half ago, our ancestors here in Vermont – unhindered by the political influence of educrat special interests – made a very common-sense decision. If a rural community was too small to support a public school and so didn’t (a “non-operating district”), the parents could simply take the money for what a local public school would cost and use it to “tuition” their kid(s) to whatever the most convenient school they chose, public or independent. This system still thrives today for some ninety non-operating towns and has given rise to some of our most celebrated and successful schools such as St. Johnsbury Academy, Burr & Burton, The Long Trail School, Sharon Academy to name but a few.
However, under Scott’s plan of five mega school districts, every district would operate public schools and so tuitioning would be abolished. Every kid in Vermont would be assigned to a public school. For example, all the kids currently attending St. Johnsbury Academy would be assigned to, say, Danville or Cabot High School. Some of those kids might be able to return to St. J as part of a “school choice” lottery system, but no guarantees.
With Scott’s school choice lottery system (Side note, access to a lottery is not school choice. Nice try.), only some independent schools will be allowed to participate and only for the 9-12 grade levels. So, independent middle and elementary schools such as Thaddeus Stephens, Riverside School, Mountain School at Winhall and the Village School of North Bennington will be wiped off the map. Sharon Academy’s, Long Trail’s, Compass’ middle school programs will be obliterated. In addition, the plan dictates many small rural public schools will be forcibly shuttered. This policy, in a word, sucks.
Not only is it damaging some of the best educational opportunities we offer in our state, but these schools also tend to operate at less cost on average than their government-run counterparts. As such, the policy undermines both the goals of cost control and better educational opportunities and outcomes. Moreover, politically you are guaranteed to lose the support of most everyone – and I suspect a lot of their Representatives and Senators – who lives in over thirty percent of the towns in our state. More pulling out of precious hair. It’s an unforced political loser.
So, here again is my humble suggestion for not fixing what isn’t broken and fixing what is. Leave Vermont’s school district map and tuitioning system in place. When school boards (that have not been foolishly eliminated) across the state get their foundation formula grants – and these calculated to lower costs and save taxpayers money — they can determine locally whether to remain an operating district and maintain their local public school with the funds available, close their local public school and designate one or more schools to act as their public school, or become a tuitioning town that allows parents to choose the best option for their children.
This is a much fairer, more organic, and, most importantly, locally controlled means to right-size the number of schools, ensure kids have access to the best options available for their particular needs, and lower education taxes all while maintaining and even enhancing local control over education.
I suspect the teachers’ union and the other government school special interests may not like this idea very much. Here’s what I have to say to the folks whose greed and incompetence have exploded the cost of our public education system to the point where taxes are driving families out of their homes while producing increasingly worse outcomes for our kids across pretty much every metric, academic and social: (I asked Grok to suggest a polite way to express this sentiment, and…) “please take a whimsical wander elsewhere.” Nobody should care what you think at this point. You’re the problem.
Rob Roper is a freelance writer who has been involved with Vermont politics and policy for over 20 years. This article reprinted with permission from Behind the Lines: Rob Roper on Vermont Politics, robertroper.substack.com
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Categories: Commentary, Education
Re: If It Ain’t Broke……..
Sorry folks. Vermont’s education system isn’t just broken. It’s dangerous. It’s adversely affecting our children. It’s bankrupting everyone. And the problem is that some people believe they know how to fix the education system.
They don’t know how to fix the system. No one individual knows how to fix the system. That is the one fact that epitomizes the problem.
No one… not me, not Rob Roper, not Governor Scott, not Zoie Saunders, and certainly not the dem/prog controlled education establishment, knows what the best education programs are for all of Vermont’s children.
We don’t need school boards. We don’t need a meddling Agency of Education. If Vermonters believe education should be subsidized (and not everyone believes this to be the case), all we need is a method for distributing that subsidy to each parent to choose the education program they believe best meets the needs of their children. Period.
The proposed H.89 School Choice bill (a reference that is curiously absent in this article) expands on Vermont’s existing, and very successful, School Choice tuitioning governance. Pass H.89 and everything else will fix itself. Period.
Let Them Eat Cake:
Unfortunately, the real problem we have is the totalitarian governance in our legislative, executive, and judicial branches.. And make no mistake, they are CORRUPT! They are stealing our money to feather their own nests. If they aren’t voted out of office, our society, as a whole, will be bankrupted… academically and financially.
Praemonitus praemunitus.
Forewarned is forearmed.
I’d be delighted with full school choice across the state, but H.89 isn’t a serious bill. It’s just a sentiment. A good one, but just a sentiment. You say we don’t need school boards, Agency of Ed, etc. Well, H.89 leaves those in place. H.89 also proposes to enact its choice program within the current funding system, Act 60 plus, which is a disaster. I wish we could wave a magic wand or declare school choice for all the way Michael Scott declares bankruptcy, but it’s actually a job that requires planning and intermediate steps to reach that goal. For example, does government have a role in making sure enough spots are available to serve every student? What happens in a purley school choice system if no school emerges in a certain region, or only one that is too small (by choice or practical necessity) to serve all children. Do we say tough luck to those kids left out? Or is there some sort of safety net? If the latter, who operates it and how? If you try to force a school choice system on communities that aren’t ready for it and don’t understand it you will get about as far in our political system as I suspect this plan to eliminate our local school boards will get. That is to say nowhere.
Re: “’I’d be delighted with full school choice across the state, but H.89 isn’t a serious bill.”
Why isn’t H.89 a serious bill, Rob? Because you say it isn’t?
Re: “… school boards, Agency of Ed, etc. Well, H.89 leaves those in place.”
So what? That doesn’t mean we need them.
Re: “ H.89 also proposes to enact its choice program within the current funding system, Act 60 plus, which is a disaster.”
No. You present a classic false dichotomy. The Vermont School Choice Tuitioning funding mechanism predates Act 60 by decades. It’s been working just fine.
Re: “I wish we could wave a magic wand …”
“If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we’d all have a merry Christmas”
Re: “…or declare school choice for all the way Michael Scott declares bankruptcy,”
Who is Michael Scott?
Re: “does government have a role in making sure enough spots are available to serve every student?”
What’s a ‘spot’? This is another classic false dichotomy. Whether or not ‘government’ has a role in anything depends on what role the electorate decides it has. Government doesn’t have to have any role in education.
Re: “What happens in a purely school choice system if no school emerges in a certain region, … or only one that is too small (by choice or practical necessity) to serve all children?”
The same thing that happens today.
Re: “Do we say tough luck to those kids left out?”
Aren’t we saying ‘tough luck’ to the kids condemned to the public school monopoly today?
Re: “Or is there some sort of safety net?”
Safety net for who? The kids condemned to the existing public school monopoly? They’re the ones who need it.
Re: “If you try to force a school choice system on communities that aren’t ready for it…..”
What is it about the word ‘choice’, Rob, that you don’t understand? That’s not just a false dichotomy – it’s a contradiction of terms. The only education system being ‘forced’ on anyone is the current public-school monopoly.
Re: “… get about as far in our political system as I suspect this plan to eliminate our local school boards will get.”
There is no ‘plan’ to get rid of school boards, Rob. You said it yourself. “… H.89 leaves those in place.” I said they aren’t necessary.
Again, “No one… not [I], not Rob Roper, not Governor Scott, not Zoie Saunders, and certainly not the dem/prog controlled education establishment, knows what the best education programs are for all of Vermont’s children.”
Our problem is not letting parents make that decision.
Why isn’t H.89 a serious bill, Rob? Because you say it isn’t?
– Because it doesn’t provide any structure for how school choice would actually be implemented. What is the voucher amount? Who determines it. What happens to existing public schools? How are they run? Etc and so on ad infinitum.
So what? That doesn’t mean we need them.
– So H.89 leaves in place a massive and expensive bureaucracy we don’t need. That’s a serious proposal? If it leaves it in place, what does it do?
Re: “ H.89 also proposes to enact its choice program within the current funding system, Act 60 plus, which is a disaster.” No. You present a classic false dichotomy. The Vermont School Choice Tuitioning funding mechanism predates Act 60 by decades. It’s been working just fine.
– Quoting H.89, “This bill also proposes to require the Joint Fiscal Office to issue a report with recommendations for the integration of the school choice program into Vermont’s current education funding structure.” Maybe you didn’t read the bill.
Who is Michael Scott?
– People not living under a rock get the reference.
Re: “does government have a role in making sure enough spots are available to serve every student?” What’s a ‘spot’?
— Don’t be an idiot; a seat in a classroom. You’re pretending you don’t understand the obvious so you don’t have to answer the question.
This is another classic false dichotomy. Whether or not ‘government’ has a role in anything depends on what role the electorate decides it has. Government doesn’t have to have any role in education.
– Oh, so government isn’t providing the voucher under H.89? We are discussing a specific bill here that you are advocating for.
Re: “What happens in a purely school choice system if no school emerges in a certain region, … or only one that is too small (by choice or practical necessity) to serve all children?” The same thing that happens today.
– What happens today is the VT Constitution mandates every kid gets access to a school. How does the system you’re advocating for guarantee that?
Re: “Do we say tough luck to those kids left out?” Aren’t we saying ‘tough luck’ to the kids condemned to the public school monopoly today?
– Yes, which is why we need a realistic, serious plan to move toward a full school choice system. Not the BS Scott proposed. And not howling at the moon I want it all and I want it now.
Re: “Or is there some sort of safety net?” Safety net for who? The kids condemned to the existing public school monopoly? They’re the ones who need it.
— I’ll repeat my example with more detail and maybe you’ll answer it in a thoughtful way instead of changing the subject. What happens if we went to all school choice for everybody tomorrow as Act 89 would do. A rural school with twenty kids loses ten to a nearby independent school. That’s all the independent school can take. The public school closes because it can’t operate with just ten kids. There are no other schools within reasonable driving distance. How does your system deliver an educational experience to those ten kids? A serious plan to move to a school choice system needs to be able to answer questions like this. If you’re serious about school choice, answer it.
Re: “If you try to force a school choice system on communities that aren’t ready for it…..” What is it about the word ‘choice’, Rob, that you don’t understand? That’s not just a false dichotomy – it’s a contradiction of terms. The only education system being ‘forced’ on anyone is the current public-school monopoly.
— Yes and no about the current system being forced on people. Yes too many kids are stuck in a system that is not doing them much if any good because they are forced by zip code to attend the wrong school. But it is also true that in order to change that system you need the support of a majority of voters because they will ultimately decide what happens and you can’t force them to vote the way you want them to. You have to persuade them. What’s your plan for reaching that consensus? If you don’t have one, you’re not serious.
Re: “… get about as far in our political system as I suspect this plan to eliminate our local school boards will get.” There is no ‘plan’ to get rid of school boards, Rob. You said it yourself. “… H.89 leaves those in place.” I said they aren’t necessary.
— But there IS a plan to eliminate the school boards AND SCHOOL CHOICE WHERE IT CURRENTLY EXISTS. It’s the governor’s education reform proposal. If you care about school choice at all you better take this proposal seriously and oppose it strenuously.
Again, “No one… not [I], not Rob Roper, not Governor Scott, not Zoie Saunders, and certainly not the dem/prog controlled education establishment, knows what the best education programs are for all of Vermont’s children.”
— I never said I knew what programs are best for children and agree parents should make those decisions. How do we get there? Howl at the moon? I don’t think so. You need to convince a majority of voters to change the system to allow school choice for all kids, and they are not going to do that until you show them a serious pathway for how that works and what it will cost.
Re” Why isn’t H.89 a serious bill, Rob? Because you say it isn’t?
– Because it doesn’t provide any structure for how school choice would actually be implemented.
H.89 most certainly does provide structure – in detail. Read it. H.89 provides the same tuitioning governance defined and used in Vermont for the last hundred years or so, as referenced in 16 V.S.A. § 821. School district to maintain public elementary schools or pay tuition, and in 16 V.S.A. § 822. School district to maintain public high schools or pay tuition.
Curiously, Rob, your missive actually elaborates on Vermont’s tuitioning governance.
“And this gets to school choice in Vermont, or “tuitioning” as it is called. When public education was becoming a thing a century and a half ago, our ancestors here in Vermont – unhindered by the political influence of educrat special interests – made a very common-sense decision. If a rural community was too small to support a public school and so didn’t (a “non-operating district”), the parents could simply take the money for what a local public school would cost and use it to “tuition” their kid(s) to whatever the most convenient school they chose, public or independent. This system still thrives today for some ninety non-operating towns and has given rise to some of our most celebrated and successful schools such as St. Johnsbury Academy, Burr & Burton, The Long Trail School, Sharon Academy to name but a few.”
The important aspect to H.89 is that it extends this tuition governance to all Vermont students, not just those who happen to live in the 90 or so districts that currently have School Choice tuitioning.
H.89 also directs “the integration of the school choice program created in Sec. 1 of this act into Vermont’s current education funding structure, in accordance with the State policy set out in 16 V.S.A. § 822b(a), which includes the voucher amount determination methodology using the Agency of Education’s Average Announced Tuition. This year, for example, the Average Announced Tuition for Elementary Schools is $18,346. For 7th-12th Grade Schools it’s $19,774.
Re: – So H.89 leaves in place a massive and expensive bureaucracy we don’t need. That’s a serious proposal? If it leaves it in place, what does it do?”
Yet another false dichotomy. It leaves it in place. It doesn’t direct that it be a massive and expensive bureaucracy.
Re: “– Quoting H.89, “This bill also proposes to require the Joint Fiscal Office to issue a report with recommendations for the integration of the school choice program into Vermont’s current education funding structure.” Maybe you didn’t read the bill.”
Tell me Rob. What does “the integration of the school choice program into Vermont’s current education funding structure” mean to you? Do you know what the current funding structure for tuitioned students is? Read my comment above.
Again, the current education funding structure is specified in 16 V.S.A. § 821 and 16 V.S.A. § 822.
Re: “Who is Michael Scott?
– People not living under a rock get the reference.”
I won’t dignify this ad hominem reference with a lengthy retort. Suffice it to say, I have no idea who Michael Scott is. Apparently, he doesn’t live under my rock.
Re: “— Don’t be an idiot; a seat in a classroom. You’re pretending you don’t understand the obvious so you don’t have to answer the question.”
Idiot? There you go again. Suffice it to say, Rob, you see education only as occurring in ‘a classroom’. To the other VDC readers who may be indulging in this give and take – and I hope many of you are – ‘classrooms’ are but one aspect to an educational setting. Those of you who have been following the previous posts on School Choice, course collaborations, micro-schools, pods, homeschooling, apprenticeships, internships, and so forth, understand what I’m describing. Classrooms and traditional brick and mortar schools are the epitome of our antiquated 19th century pedagogy. If you want your kids in the same old classroom, expect the same old results. And, if H.89 becomes law, you and Rob will all have the equal opportunity to choose those classrooms. But H.89, thank goodness, will let the rest of us choose something different.
Re: Howling at the moon.
‘Nuff said…. for now.
“To the other VDC readers who may be indulging in this give and take – and I hope many of you are – ‘classrooms’ are but one aspect to an educational setting. Those of you who have been following the previous posts on School Choice, course collaborations, micro-schools, pods, homeschooling, apprenticeships, internships, and so forth, understand what I’m describing. Classrooms and traditional brick and mortar schools are the epitome of our antiquated 19th century pedagogy. If you want your kids in the same old classroom, expect the same old results. And, if H.89 becomes law, you and Rob will all have the equal opportunity to choose those classrooms. But H.89, thank goodness, will let the rest of us choose something different.”
– I agree. But H.89 DOES NOT provide tuitioning to anything other than a classroom. A serious proposal would consider the other options. And you still didn’t address my question.
What does “the integration of the school choice program into Vermont’s current education funding structure” mean to you? Do you know what the current funding structure for tuitioned students is?”
– Second first. Yes, tuitioning is based on having non-operating districts. Under the governor’s proposal there would be no non-operating districts, so tuitioning — school choice in Vermont — would be eliminated. That to me is the critical issue facing the state right now. H.89 is an irrelevant side show. But what that phrase means is under H.89 we keep the disaster that is Act 60 Plus. This is a bad idea. But even if it were to move forward trying to graft tuitioning onto operating districts under the current financing system would require a very detailed plan of how to integrate the two systems, which H.89 does not provide. Hence, it is not a serious proposal.
Great commentary Rob. Thank you.
I absolutely agree — The proposed state-wide per, pupil funding formula is about the only good thing in Scott/Saunders proposal. Kinda wonder if this proposal was intended to fail. Ugh!
And yes, Vermont should have just one state-wide supervisory union to negotiate contracts for goods and services in order to reduce costs and maximize value for all schools.
I do wish there was more that the State could do to support home-schoolers. At least provide the same books and learning equipment that in-school students are getting.
Thank you very much, too, for discussing the problems with H.89.
Local school boards often make decisions that allow unsustainable spending in budgets to be brought to the voters.
Rarely in my community of South Burlington do 30% of registered voters turn out to vote on school budgets. Not surprisingly it is common to see a majority of those who do turn out to be parents with children in the school system and most vote to approve budgets, regardless of the economic impact.
If the proposed FY26 budget in SB is approved then the 2-year education tax rate increase will be 16%, far above twice the rate of inflation.
The State is legally responsible for public school education in Vermont and so fiscal decisions should be made at the state level (even though I am not optimistic the Legislature has the courage to make the decisions necessary to place spending on a sustainable trajectory).
Vermont has the lowest ratio of pupils to staff of all 50 states and the 2nd highest spending per pupil of all 50 states… yet academic achievement of students in Vermont’s public schools does not reflect the economic investment being made.
School District leaders and School Boards have proved they are incapable of spending in a sustainable manner. Blame must also be assigned to teacher’s unions that demand compensation packages that drive unsustainable spending.
The Vermont Constitution does not require ‘the State’ to be legally responsible for education. Education speciofics are based on Statute, as put forth by the legislature. And currently, Statute directs the use of public schools, independent schools, and homeschooling. And the level of public education funding is controlled by Statute too. And that funding is required to provide the ‘right to equal educational opportunity’. But Statute does not dictate specifically what those opportunities are.
Unfortunmately the Governor’s proposal will destroy school choice in Vermont, the farcical lottery proposal notwithstanding. I have called this the “waste management model” in past years. The answer is to make choice available to any pupil, never mind where they live. I hope Gov. Scott won’t want to be the governor wno presided over the destruction, while the rest of the country is moving steadily in the other direction.
Until we DOGE or in this case DOSE these school districts, nothing is going to help us. The amount of waste and fraud within these mini governments is staggering and no one on the outside can see it easily. They are all run be liberal leftists here in Vermont and we know how they love to pad their pockets and work as little as possible. Vermont residing Democrats think these bloated budgets are “for the kids” and they couldn’t be farther from the truth. It sure feels good to have that sign on the yard though.