Editor’s note: This opinion is by George Cross of Winooski.
Economists, bloggers, reporters and politicians have written and commented abundantly for years about the cost of education in Vermont. Little of that discussion has been based on history or useful data. There are several very important starting points for such a discussion, some historical, some contemporary and all comparative.
Much of the current discussion revolves around student teacher ratios. We’ve heard many times that Vermont’s pupil-teacher ratio is substantially lower than the national average. Typically these comments have suggested that the state ratio is around 11 to 1 and the national average somewhere between 15-17 to 1. Plus, many have suggested that one of the causes of the low ratio in Vermont is the many small schools. Both of these oft-quoted “facts” are somewhat off-base.
Using data extrapolated from the National Center for Education Statistics (USDOE) and enrollment data from the Vermont Department of Education, the following comparison illustrates that it is not the small schools that are lowering Vermont’s per-pupil ratios.
Enrollment of School VT P-T Ratio US P-T Ratio % of Diff.
Under 300 pupils 10.7 12.3 (13.0%)
300 – 499 pupils 11.2 14.4 (22.2%)
500 – 999 pupils 12.3 15.8 (22.2%)
1000 – 1499 pupils 13.4 16.6 (19.3%)
Over 1500 pupils n/a 18.4 n/a
Public Academies 11.4 15.8 (27.8%)*
*The four public academies vary in size from 375 to 987. Three of the schools have over 600 pupils. Thus, for the purposes of this comparison school size of 500-999 pupils has been used for this group.
It is true that small schools in Vermont have a lower pupil-teacher ratio than the larger schools. However, it is the larger schools, especially the public academies, that are further from the national norm than the small schools
Schools and communities differ and those differences matter. Michelle Mathias, Principal of Hyde Park School, documented in her January 2010 doctoral dissertation a correlation between investment per pupil and test scores. Schools with lower per pupil investment had lower test scores and the high investment towns tended to have higher scores. For one thing, Vermont communities vary widely in the number of students from low-income families. Mathias found that students who qualify for free or reduced lunches consistently test lower than those who do not; however the impact of poverty could be mitigated to some degree through investment. At least three recent Commissioner’s of Education in Vermont have identified this “poverty gap” as an on-going, unsolved problem.
Another difference: a few Vermont schools have a high concentration of students who come from families with a home language other than English. Some of these students are refugees who have been confined to “camps” around the world where there are little or no education opportunities. Others come from cultures with no historical commitment to formal education. In recent years these students have been included in school-wide assessments long before they have become proficient in English due to the ill-conceived requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NLCB).
Schools that offer remedial or supplemental education programs to students living in poverty or students for whom English is a second language, by necessity, hire teachers whose services are not required in schools without as many of those students. Our current school funding formula takes into account this additional burden on these schools and communities.
Even though there are few serious proposals to return to a local and thereby inequitable tax base to support schools, it’s worth re-stating the obvious. Any revised system of education funding must continue to acknowledge that education funding in Vermont is a state responsibility. This concept is rooted in several Supreme Court cases, the most recent of which was the Brigham decision of 1997, which states, “Children who live in property-poor districts and children who live in property-rich districts should be afforded a substantially equal opportunity to have access to similar educational revenues.”
In conclusion, anyone who wants to present a creditable change in education funding or school district organization must explain the following: 1) How any move to larger schools in Vermont, will improve education outcomes. 2) Whether a move to larger schools would lead to Vermont being even further out of sync with national norms related to pupil-teacher ratios, 3) How to continue to provide added financial resources for students in poverty and those who are early learners of English. 4) How any change in the current education funding will ensure “substantially equal opportunity to have access to similar educational revenues.”
