BRATTLEBORO — Act 46 is about the consolidation of school districts. For most readers, this encompasses the districts within the Windham Southeast Supervisory Union (WSESU).
The first thing to remember about Act 46 is that, although it pertains to all public schools, it largely concerns only elementary schools. Most towns in Vermont, including Brattleboro, set up consolidated (union) high schools and, to a lesser extent, middle schools, many decades ago.
Vernon has already been exempted from consolidation with WSESU. Thus, the issue here revolves around the potential closing of Guilford, Putney, and Dummerston elementary schools.
Guilford and Putney school boards are going along. Dummerston is very unhappy. Brattleboro town schools just sighed and resigned themselves to bigger classes that parents never wanted.
Residents in general seem quite divided. The only real advocate was the WSESU superintendent, who looked forward to attending two school board meetings a month rather than seven.
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The intent of Act 46 was twofold: to lower education costs overall and provide a better education for kids who attend small rural schools.
As far as costs go, it appears that savings will be negligible. As far as improving education, I have never seen evidence that, in Vermont, kids from small elementary schools have done any worse in life than the kids from big schools. Our former governor, Peter Shumlin, went to one of the small schools that this legislation would close.
Brattleboro never bothered to check and see if kids who attended any of the surrounding elementary schools graduated from Brattleboro Union High School with any more difficulty than town kids. In fact, such a study would likely reveal that the kids from surrounding schools did better because most came from households with higher incomes. A recent major study has shown that more privileged kids do better in life than less advantaged kids regardless of their education. Also, studies show that kids in smaller schools have a better chance of overcoming poverty's negative effects.
It's also important to remember that Act 46 only addresses the consolidation of schools. All the other factors that affect school quality are not addressed.
We will have the same superintendent and administration. The same objectives, philosophy, and curriculums. We will have the same quality and culture in our school board, since no additional training is required. The teachers will be the same. The programs will largely be the same. And we will have to follow the same federal and state mandates.
Paraphrasing an old witticism, insanity is doing the same thing the same way over and over again and expecting different results.
Will it lower costs? The projection is that it will. But it will be so little in relation to the enormous school budget that the tax rate will not be noticeably impacted.
Proponents will make strong and unsubstantiated statements that the savings will be significant but not one will dare take a guess at what the tax rate will be three years from now. The incentive money provided by the legislation would be eaten up by the costs of the consolidation.
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The second thing to be aware of is that Act 46 is the law. It is going to be enacted whether or not it is against the will of most people.
Act 46 was questionable legislation from the outset. One legislator I spoke to speculated that then-Governor Shumlin's eager desire to do something, anything, to control school costs before he left office led to his support of Act 46.
The legislation was never overly popular and was a tough sell. It finally passed, after 94 legislative floor actions, 83–50.
The legislators, uncomfortable with the whole affair, avoided significant and substantive consultation with their constituencies. This was unfortunate. When the ink was dry and the mandate was on the table in every school district, a discontented murmur quickly turned into a rumble and then a collective howl across the state.
To the Legislature's credit, and to make a long story short, amending legislation was written and passed this last year. It did not nullify the act, but it provided a number of viable options to closing a school. Largely, the options had to do with demonstrating the quality of education in each particular school.
Locally, there came a sigh of relief: schools in surrounding towns are of very high quality.
That relief was soon dashed.
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When citizens from the adjacent towns went to the WSESU Act 46 Study Committee to request further analysis to consider the new options, they were flatly rejected.
The committee, mostly school board members, stated in no uncertain terms that they had worked two years to produce a draft agreement and that it was finished with the matter.
In the words of the committee's chair, members were “tired” and would not accept any further demands on their time. They stated that they did the best that they could do under the original marching orders and had no interest in considering new options the law recently provided.
The alternatives are reasonable and viable. If a no vote prevails on Election Day, the draft agreement will be set aside and the ensuing study and recommendations could enable Dummerston and Putney and Guilford to save their schools.
And in that case, parents in these communities will be able to maintain the close contact and involvement with their children's educations.