Editor’s note: This oped is a “white paper” by Rep. Heidi E. Scheuermann on her proposal for H.755, which calls for “comprehensive education transformation.”
Tax Rate Grows Ten Percent Despite Level-Funded Budget – The Barton Chronicle, January 13, 2010
North Country Union High School board members were stunned Tuesday night when they learned that despite holding 2010-2011 spending at this year’s level the tax rate for the school will rise by 10.33 percent.
School Budget Drastic Measures – Morrisville News and Citizen, January 21, 2010
Due to lower state revenues, declining enrollment, and property values that are remaining high in comparison with the rest of the state, the Morristown School Board would have to cut about $1 million from its K-12 budget in order to keep property taxes at the current rate.
Teachers Save Day for Stowe Budget – Stowe Reporter, January 21, 2010
Before the teachers agreed to contract concessions, the cost of preserving most existing programs and staff members and covering rising costs for such things as special education would have raised the school-tax rate 10 cents for primary homeowners, or $100 per $100,000 of assessed value. That would have added $400 a year to the bill for a $400,000 house.
Town Teachers, Board Unyielding in Impasse – Rutland Herald, January 22, 2010
Rutland Town – As of Thursday, Randy Dewey, a negotiator for the teachers, said the teachers are still requesting a 4 percent increase on their base salaries for one year. Stacy Chapman, chairman of the School Board, said the board is still holding firm at a 0 percent increase.
Cuts Loom for Teachers, Programs – Colchester Sun, December 17, 2009
The school board asked Waters for a budget that increases spending no more than 3 percent. To get the budget under that number, Waters has identified teachers, support staff and programs that could be eliminated.
ACSU Schools Tighten Spending – Addison Independent, January 21, 2010
The Addison Central Supervisory Union’s seven elementary school boards have all been preparing 2010-2011 spending plans reflecting less than a 2 percent bump in spending, but education property taxes are still pegged to escalate at a much higher rate — including by more than 19 percent in Weybridge.
These newspaper articles are merely six recent examples of the increased focus on our state’s education system, and the situation in which our state, our schools and our communities now find themselves. There are countless others throughout the state – stories of the slow dismantling of our schools, program by program, in order to address the skyrocketing property taxes that Vermonters are paying.
Over the past decade, net education property taxes in Vermont have more than doubled, from $450 million to $900 million – and that is merely two-thirds of what Vermonters actually spend on K-12 education. Vermont now spends over $1.4 billion on education, an increase of over $600 million since 1997. This combination of rapidly rising costs and unbearable tax burdens underscores the unsustainability of our current system of running and financing our public school.
Simultaneously, Vermonters are increasingly asking if our schools are able to provide the highest quality education for a knowledge-based global economy that requires more, not less, in terms of educational opportunities and resources. Doing better with fewer resources requires that we use our educational dollars more wisely, facilitate the sharing of resources between schools more efficiently and effectively, and re-think our educational delivery. We are not alone in this quest as schools and colleges across the United States are being forced to rethink their models and re-envision how they deliver services.
The time is now for an Educational Transformation in Vermont. The State Board of Education realizes this and the Commissioner of Education has spoken eloquently about the need to transform our delivery system to expand opportunities for our children and improve outcomes.
During the last months of 2009, my close friend, the late Representative Rick Hube and I were discussing ways in which to accomplish these two critical objectives – how to continue to improve the quality of our education while ensuring the system is one Vermonters can afford. It is clear the current system fails in both.
In 1997, the Vermont Supreme Court ruled in favor of Amanda Brigham and made clear that Vermont must provide “substantially equal educational opportunity to all Vermont students. As a result, the Legislature passed Act 60. A controversial piece of legislation at the time – which continues to remain controversial – Act 60’s principal goal of ensuring the equalization of funding has been realized. Communities that were not able to afford certain tools, programs, and services prior to Act 60 now are able to provide them.
With this goal arguably accomplished, we can be proud of our achievement. The equalization of funding, however, is no longer the issue at hand. Its impact on quality during this economic downturn and beyond is the next obvious challenge. As schools throughout the state become casualties in a race to the bottom in order to simply reduce costs, the question now is how we can provide a first rate education to students across the state so that they are able to compete successfully in the knowledge-based global economy of the 21st Century.
School districts and supervisory unions throughout Vermont already collaborate well on a number of things, including the services provided by speech pathologists, and psychologists. This is done in an effort to eliminate duplicities and to save costs, and has been a positive development over the years.
It is now time to build on that collaboration and cooperation.
The proposed plan will bring together our educational communities in order to expand educational program and service opportunities for all of our children and do so in a cost effective way. No longer will schools be forced to eliminate needed classroom teachers, or programs like middle school athletics and high school band, as the flexibility will be there allow schools to collaborate and cooperate with one another. No longer will the addition of two or three students with special needs cause a large unanticipated tax increase or reduced programs. And no longer will we face a funding system that pits neighbors against neighbors, towns against towns, and school districts against school districts.
Comprehensive Education Transformation Plan:
1) Eliminates Supervisory Unions and replaces them with “Educational Districts,” boundaries of which are similar to the current Regional Technical Centers (This has been proposed by many people throughout the years, but most recently by the State Board of Education)
a. Educational Districts would be responsible for the following:
i. All aspects of Special Education, including hiring of special educators, assignment of their services to schools within ED, development of IEPs in consultation with local special education instructors and administrators
1. Special Education Note: EDs will complete inventory of Special Education services provided and who provides them, and send information to State Department of Education. State DOE will then create and maintain a Management Information Service to track expenditures, develop reference costs of IEPs for all disabilities, and develop criteria and guidelines for EDs to deliver special education services
ii. Purchase and distribution of supplies to all ED schools
iii. Financial and student data management of all schools within ED
iv. Transportation services
v. Hiring of all educators, administrators, and staff employed within ED, with contracts negotiated and executed at ED level
2) Students would have the option to attend any elementary or secondary school within their ED
3) Each ED would have a District Board with representation from each participating community (exact representation to be determined)
4) Replace current School Boards with Advisory Councils that would focus on academic policy and educational quality – would not focus on budgets, but would be the voice to ensure the allocation of the global budgets meets program needs
As the State moves forward on a meaningful transformation of our education system to meet the needs of our children, we must also modify the funding system we currently use to fund our schools. If a transformation of this sort occurs, it will not be successful without a funding change.
The purpose of the second part of this proposal, however is not to fight the idea of equity that has already been established by the Vermont Supreme Court. Rather, it is a proposal to ensure that the transformation works – that, in fact, we do not see our reform efforts fail due to a complicated funding system that is not tied to the Education District structure.
Comprehensive Education Transformation Plan Funding Proposal:
1) Repeal the Statewide Property Tax and replace it with Education District Property Tax
a. ED would develop ED-wide budgets and be empowered to assess a property tax within the ED to fund the budget. Funds raised through this system would remain in, and be distributed by, the ED.
b. Non-property-tax funds would continue to go into the Education Fund to be used for categorical aid and to ensure “substantially equal educational opportunity”
2) Eliminate Common Level of Appraisal and replace it with rolling reappraisals within the ED
In a nutshell, it is time for the Vermont General Assembly to seize on this opportunity: to hear the pleas of our schools, teachers, and communities to reform the system. It is time to be bold, and to create a system that increases local control, expands opportunities for our children, and improves the quality of our education so that our children are prepared for the knowledge-based global economy that our world has become.
