Editor’s note: This commentary is by Heidi Spear, who is the chair of the Fayston Elementary School Board.
It was bold, I thought, for some in the Legislature to admit that they need “results-based accountability system training.” The $1.4 billion General Fund spending plan voted out of Senate Appropriations includes $10,000 for just such training for lawmakers, and this particular investment is a wise one. Since continued increases in state expenditures that far outstrip our growth do real harm to our labor force and real incomes, prioritizing investments is crucial. Here is an example of education spending that may provide a big return on investment.
Examples of insufficient accountability for results in state government abound in our current spending bonanza, but I’d like to delve into one we may yet avoid. I have noted elsewhere why I think H.883 is bad policy, expensive, unguided and ill-planned, but the nature of the Legislature’s evaluation of this bill is worthy of our attention as well. The absence of results-based accountability is striking in this case.
Being accountable to justify sweeping reforms with actual results seems kind of basic to me. When the proposed reform would eliminate all local school districts and reduces school governance by upwards of 90 percent, one would think some result-based accountability would be front and center. Yet H.883 has passed out of three House committees without a single case study demonstrating improved outcomes, expanded opportunity and greater efficiency associated with the consolidated governance mandated in H.883. Not one.
Consolidated districts may have more program offerings than many smaller districts, but the truth is their total resources are far in excess of what many other districts have, courtesy of our warped funding system. The significant heights of their actual spending are obscured through the complicated funding formula, but variances in resources, currently over 300 percent, has a lot to do with the spectrum of opportunity across our state. As for the foretold superior outcomes and efficiency, those results are simply not in evidence.
As we scan the horizon for case studies among our consolidated districts, we do find one interesting example that meets the target guidelines of H.883 and is in the home turf of the House Education Committee chair who is driving H.883 as if it were the be-all, end-all for quality education in Vermont. Alas, her consolidated district is hardly a case study for what we would seek to emulate.
The question before our Legislature is not one of aspiration. Aspiration doesn’t cut it when it comes to governance; results-based accountability systems do.
As reported by the Burlington Free Press, the Burlington School District is under investigation by the IRS for nonpayment of payroll taxes — something that can land a business owner in serious hot water. In addition, revelations of their many years of unreported deficits are just now being unraveled — deficits in excess of a million dollars and the total expenditures of many districts. The excuse offered for not reporting deficits was that the board mistakenly built new budgets off prior year budgets instead of actual expenditures. Ironically, the superintendent overseeing this Burlington School District morass testified in support of H.883 before the attentive House Education and House Ways and Means Committee members. I put her testimony in the why H.883 is a bad idea column.
Another notable absence of results-based accountability as concerns H.883 is the total pass the Agency of Education (AOE) is getting for providing no meaningful analysis on education equity, access to opportunities or efficiency to guide consolidation. Despite the AOE’s failure to provide any information to effectively prioritize education investments, the legislators who have voted for H.883 have earmarked more staff for the AOE to oversee elimination of all local school districts and design new regional boards — a move the AOE is strongly behind.
When asked by one legislator on House Appropriations why the AOE feels it needs to hire still more resources to tackle this work, the CFO of the AOE wasn’t required to answer. The chair of House Appropriations answered for him that since many constituents have complained about the AOE not being responsive to them, the AOE clearly needed more staff.
Through the lens of results-based accountability, one might not want to jump to that particular conclusion, but ask some questions. One might ask, “Is anybody at the AOE held accountable to return calls from citizens of Vermont?” Or “Does the AOE have a policy to return calls on the same day or within 24 hours?” Another salient question is “What are the 155 employees that cost taxpayers over $400,000 per current supervisory union and supervisory district doing instead of this crucial work?” This seems very relevant with expenditures at the AOE up over 10 percent this year and planned for over 9 percent next year despite, as they so often point out, a serious decline in student populations.
Not all, but many legislators are quite taken with the grand ideals of H.883, regardless of the total absence of any results to account for the plan. Enough are so taken with it that onward it goes despite very significant community opposition and savings projections based solely on “we should be able to reduce staff by 1 percent if we do this.”
Backers outside of the AOE, Vermont Superintendents Association and the Legislature clearly support the bill due to a desire to improve education. But who doesn’t support greater quality, equity and efficiency in education? The question before our Legislature is not one of aspiration. Aspiration doesn’t cut it when it comes to governance; results-based accountability systems do.
So I say bump up that budget for legislator training. Make it mandatory for them all. Accountability isn’t just nice to have, it is a necessity, if we want to invest across all our priorities and not see more of our aspiring workers and taxpayers departing for more opportunity-rich and affordable pastures.
