The verdict is in for Acts 60 and 68, Vermont's statewide education finance system. Lawrence Picus, a nationally respected consultant, told lawmakers last week that the state's school funding mechanism is doing what it was designed to do – it is ensuring that school districts are equitably financed.
Widening disparities in funding for schools based on the relative property wealth of individual communities have largely disappeared, Picus told legislators via web cam at a joint meeting of the House Education and Ways and Means Committees.
No other state in the country has a more equitable system of education financing, Picus said. There is a correlation, he said, between equalized funding and the decline in variation in student achievement in reading and math, based on the relative poverty or wealth of a given school district. School spending is neutral, according to Picus. Wealthy towns aren't spending more per pupil than poor towns.
“In Vermont, there is very little relationship between those two factors,” Picus told lawmakers.
“The system is doing what it was intended to do,” Picus said. “If the purpose was to provide adequate funding for schools, it's doing that.”
Picus was charged with evaluating the equity of the financing system, costs and student performance. He also examined statistics from Vermont against other states in New England and around the country.
The 281-page draft report includes statistics, graphs and case studies of five schools in Vermont that have significantly improved student scores on the New England Common Assessment Program tests. The schools are Brewster Pierce in Huntington, Colchester High School, Montgomery Elementary School, Whitcomb Junior/Senior High School in Bethel, and the White River School.
Vermont's complex hybrid of local and state school spending formulas is the only system of its type in the United States, according to Picus. Acts 60 and 68 created a statewide property tax to finance schools. Local school districts vote for budgets and municipalities collect a portion of the taxes for the state.
The state, meanwhile, manages an “income-sensitivity” program for the majority of Vermont households that qualify for a cap on property tax payments based on income. The Legislature sets a statewide rate and local voters decide how much they'll spend on education. Last year, the property tax generated about $900 million in revenues for education, or about two-thirds of the total $1.353 billion spent on Vermont schools.
Vermont's public school system is exceptional in other ways, too, that are driving up the overall cost of education for elementary, middle school and high school students, according to a draft report from Picus and Associates, which is based in Los Angeles.
Vermont is near the top of the national charts on a number of measures.
The state has the third highest per pupil spending ratio in the nation ($17,447 a student, while the national average is $10,826).
We have the smallest school districts – with 299 students on average - in the country (the national average is 3,213).
Student enrollments have declined by 18.1 percent over the last decade, faster than any other state except North Dakota. In 1999, Vermont had 104,559 students; we now have 85,635.
Meanwhile, teacher and administrative hiring has continued to increase. (Wages for teachers, by the way, are below average.) Our student to teacher ratio, 9.8 to 1 is the lowest nationally (we vie with Wyoming on that score), and the student to administrator ratio is the third lowest, 184.1 to 1.
Overall expenditures for primary and secondary public education have increased by 83.7 percent between fiscal year 2001 and fiscal year 2011.
The Picus report pins the blame on declining enrollments and reduced student to teacher and staff ratios.
Though the state is ranked high nationally on standardized tests, the Picus report shows that scores for Vermont students aren't as high compared with their New England counterparts. Some schools though have figured out how to improve student testing with existing resources.
The report suggests that school districts already have the financial and human resources in place to dramatically improve student performance, and Picus points out five examples of schools that have found ways to create a collaborative approach to teaching and have responded quickly to student academic needs as they arise.
Rep. Oliver Olsen, R-Jamaica, asked how Vermont's system compares with that of New Hampshire, which spends less on education and has higher test scores. He asked if increased funding was the primary lever for boosting student performance.
Picus replied, “Not at the level you spend.”
School consolidation, Picus said, is not a “silver bullet for savings.” The local connection to schools is deeply rooted in the culture of Vermont, he said, and bigger districts can create more distance between a community and its school. He recommended looking at supervisory union savings through shared contracts for transportation, curriculum development and other services school districts can share.
The response to the report was mixed.
Rep. Peter Peltz, D-Woodbury, a member of House Education, said the study puts the focus where it should be – on student performance, rather than the financing system. “This was by no means an aspersion of what we're offering, but a suggestion of what we can do better,” Peltz said.
Rep. Adam Greshin, I-Warren, was less enthusiastic. “I think it's clearly a half-hearted presentation on Vermont's education finance system,” Greshin said. “The focus was on equity, not adequacy, and we need to focus on both. I want more focus on student outcomes. That's the value proposition for education. We need to focus on the value. That's what we're looking for, period.”
The default answer, Olsen said, is “we'll just spend more money and the more money we spend the better the outcomes will be.” In this report, Olsen didn't see that correlation. “We could be doing a better job of educating Vermont children with even less money by focusing on some more fundamental reforms within schools,” Olsen said.