WESTMINSTER — Education Secretary Rebecca Holcombe writes a somewhat disingenuous op-ed in which she contends school choice is not threatened by Act 46 and that voters in their communities ultimately decide whether to continue tuitioning to allow each family to find a school that best fits their child's needs.
In fact, Act 46 provides a variety of incentives, penalties, and rules that work against individual communities freely choosing their direction.
The preferred option laid out in the law would eliminate choice for any district in our area. The law includes significant tax incentives to have districts merge (and eliminate choice) and a looming threat that the state board of education will, in three years, decide for districts their fate without voter input.
Under this charge to consolidation, an accelerated timeline is pushing communities to make these important decisions by this June, pressuring school boards and voters to make big decisions without adequate deliberation.
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Holcombe fails to acknowledge the real choice for local districts is between supporting some form of consolidation, invariably by giving up choice or going it alone.
The reality is, many tuitioning districts have existing beneficial relations in a supervisory union that would be the logical extension for a merged district. Unfortunately, Act 46 does not allow tuitioning and non-tuitioning districts to merge. Thus, individual districts are forced to choose between continuing good relations with their supervisory union and giving up choice or continuing choice at the expense of their existing relations with neighboring districts.
Even towns that tuition most of their students to public schools value choice for the opportunities it provides, often at a substantial savings to taxpayers. At least one district that eliminated choice - Elmore - first voted down a merger. Voters there were pressured to revote (on the odd date of Dec. 29) to override their original decision.
The loss of tuitioning students for public schools such as Craftsbury Academy could result in those schools losing 1/6 of their budget. Conversely, if choice is eliminated under a merger, the Franklin County towns of Fletcher and Georgia will have to build a new high school at a cost over $20 million.
Also in Franklin County, Highgate stands to pay thousands more per pupil in a merged district and will end up with one vote on a merged board controlled by the larger town of Swanton.
One legislator told me that everyone below Route 4 should just ignore the preferred arrangements stipulated by Act 46, as they don't work for our configurations.
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Despite all the problems of merging in many areas of the state, local boards and citizens are feeling pressured to merge by an accelerated timeline, financial incentives, and the fear of state takeover in a couple of years.
The naive expression that local communities are free to choose their respective educational futures belies the realities for school boards and voters.
Act 46, as currently configured, works against tuitioning and choice in many respects. Losing choice will impact public schools that receive tuitioned students, as well as independent schools that serve a diverse group of children whose needs may not be met by local public options. In some cases, merging will increase costs to individual communities.
Most importantly, losing choice will impact individual kids and limit their opportunities, despite rhetoric to the contrary from supporters of Act 46.