WESTMINSTER — Feeling compelled to do something about education costs in Vermont, legislators passed a poorly considered, last-minute bill that will result in fewer educational opportunities while doing nothing to reduce taxes.
This bill is flawed in numerous ways, most notably in its inflexible disregard of the unique circumstances of different districts, schools, and regions.
Act 46 provides significant financial incentives for districts to consolidate. But it stipulates that these consolidated districts meet highly restrictive criteria, including that the combined districts must have at least 900 students, have the same grade configuration, and work under one consolidated board.
While being promoted to save money, there is no evidence that any savings occurs by forming larger districts. State data shows that the most costly schools are those operating K-12 or as a union high school.
All other configurations are less expensive in per-pupil spending! One factor that might keep costs lower in some districts is school choice, where students are able to find a school to best fit their respective learning needs.
Forcing all students into a single school, especially in middle and high school, often demands expensive accommodations to fit all the various shaped pegs into a single-shaped hole.
In our region, our supervisory unions have already done everything Act 46 is asking in terms of potential savings. The SUs have consolidated special-education services and transportation, and schools in the unions have coordinated curriculum. The only thing not done is consolidating the boards, and is hard to know why the state should dictate this step - one that offers almost no savings at all.
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In addition to imposing one-size-fits-all governance structures, Act 46 imposes unrealistic spending caps on districts, with penalties for exceeding this limit. Given raises in the teachers' contract and health-insurance increases, this cap is almost impossible to meet. Even with small budgetary increases, penalties will likely end up increasing taxes.
Consolidation will bring the end to Town Meeting. Without school budgets on the agenda, Vermont's participatory democracy will disappear.
Equally problematic will be the disenfranchisement of small towns. Under consolidation, board representation is determined by town size. The largest town in the consolidated district will be able to outvote all other representatives on the board.
Small towns will have no power in this configuration and when hard decisions need to be made about school resources, the smaller towns may find they have little say in the result.
Finally, this top-down edict from Montpelier is out of character with our Vermont traditions. There are few one-size- fits-all solutions to much in our lives. Vermont has a scale where we can honor a wide variety of ways of living our lives.
Mandating a single approach for all school districts statewide is ill-conceived from the start. As educational leaders and board members learn more about Act 46 and the incentives and penalties being used to force its adoption, it becomes ever more clear that this is not the solution to the complex issues surrounding how we educate all our children in Vermont.