Editor’s note: This op-ed is by Morgan Daybell, the executive director of the Vermont Progressive Party.
Montgomery Elementary School (disclosure: I serve on the board and am a parent) was recognized yesterday at a DOE press conference as one of 14 schools statewide with significant success in closing the achievement gap between poor and upper/middle class students over the past three years. Our principal came down with several staff and a bus load of students, and she and several students spoke about the strategies and successes we have seen. Several other educators attended, along with a handful of legislators scattered in the back of the room.
The VT DOE has identified eight characteristics of effective schools, including: effective leadership, high expectations of all students, a professional teaching culture, and strong support from the community at large. We do well in these areas, and I suspect the other 13 schools do as well.
One other attribute the schools share is size: thirteen of the fourteen schools are below the state average of school population. Thirteen of fourteen are also in the bottom half in terms of grade size. The last school is just at the average for both measurements. These are the very schools that feel as if they are in the Legislature’s crosshairs.
Ultimately, the push for consolidation (as enacted last year under Act 153) may close down the schools that the DOE is now celebrating. And promises in that bill that a new district “shall not close any school within its boundaries during the first four years” after the merger is really telling boards like ours: “enjoy the next four years; after that you are gone.”
The last four years have left many school board members feeling embattled — not by voters, who largely rejected former Gov. Douglas’ calls to defeat school budgets as a way to send a message to Montpelier, and current Gov. Shumlin’s “Vote Twice” scheme to make school budgets harder to pass. Rather, we are embattled by Montpelier, and laws like vote twice, consolidation, and Challenges for Change. We frequently spend more time in school board meetings trying to find out what has been done to us by Act 153 than we spend on discussing what we can do to continue to chip away at the achievement gap.
Imagine instead if the Statehouse acted as a partner with local schools, addressing issues where they could actually help: health care costs, SPED funding, and how we raise education revenue. And imagine if they left teaching to teachers, governance to school boards, and voting to the voters. We’d certainly welcome them from the back of the auditorium and the recesses of their committee room to be allies in the work we are doing for our schools.
