[T]he State Board of Education, in its annual report, has issued new priorities for the state’s kindergarten-through-12 public schools.
The message to the Legislature? No more unfunded mandates for schools. No more unstaffed work at the Agency of Education. Lawmakers, the board says, should simplify special education reimbursements; carefully consider changes to the education funding formula; fund more programs for low-income families; and beef up staffing at the agency.
The board then lobs a quiet volley attacking the state’s private school establishment on the issue of quality and access. The report ends with a plea for serious consideration of protections for student privacy.
If Vermont is serious about fixing schools and raising achievement levels for all students, then the state must address the root causes of poverty, according to the preamble of the board’s annual report on policy concerns and recommendations.
“With two-thirds of test score variation due to outside of school factors, solving this problem requires going beyond the schoolhouse walls,” the board says in the report.
Low-income families are dealing with drug addiction, mental health and food security issues that are making it difficult for children to learn.
To counter the pressures on children and families, the board recommends that communities provide “full service” schooling with high-quality child care and preschool programs, three meals a day and more expansive after-school and summer programs.
“We have to be far more proactive in how we do things, and we have to be able to work together with human services. We are in need of full-service schools, and frankly we are nowhere near where we need to be. Early education is probably the most useful thing we got in terms of having direct effects,” said Bill Mathis, a member of the State Board of Education.
At the same time, the board asks the governor and the Legislature to streamline existing programs and suspend new education initiatives until schools have time to address mandates already in place. School districts and the state, the board says, are “under severe financial constraints.”
Over the past few years, lawmakers have established mandates for education quality and graduation standards, school district mergers, universal early education programs, high school student enrollment at local colleges, and personalized learning plans.
Education Secretary Rebecca Holcombe explained to lawmakers and the board that legislative changes don’t have to be sweeping to have an effect on schools and the agency.
“Every single piece of legislation you pass costs us,” Holcombe said, adding that often the costs are difficult to calculate. She used an example of a Senate bill that would ask school districts to review and reform school discipline procedures: “How, as an agency, would we calculate the cost of every school district in the state reviewing and implementing new procedures?”
The state board used the annual report to reiterate its controversial position on choice districts that wish to merge with districts that operate schools for the same grades: “Doing both would result in redundancy, diffusion of resources, inefficiency, excessive duplicative costs and threaten the financial viability of schools.”
Jeff Francis, executive director of the Vermont Superintendents Association, has testified in support of the state board’s rule in the past. “If we ever got to a state where we are both operating and tuitioning in a single district, then things will get a lot worse, not better,” Francis said in October.
Francis said that combining the two systems would be like spending $300 a week on groceries and then eating out at restaurants five nights a week.
The state board says school choice decentralizes education, duplicates costs and increases inequality.
In an interview, Mathis said choice can “bankrupt” school districts.
“If a school has 150 students and tuitions away 50, they still have the same operating cost with 100 students as they did before, but they are also paying for those other 50 to leave their community school,” Mathis said.
“You need a critical mass of bodies,” he said. “There is a community that gets built when you have everybody going to the same school, rich, poor, people with a handicap,” but under choice this is diffused. “It tends to segregate along academic lines, which in turn segregates along economic lines,” he said.
Evoking Article 68 of the Vermont Constitution, Mathis added that public schools build the common good. Public education isn’t designed to serve private ends, he said. “The genius of American education is that we have this thing that is to help us all live with each other, get along, work together and form a better society,” he said.
The state board has asked the Agency of Education to require that private schools receiving state monies be subject to the same rules as public schools. Private schools are not required, for example, to educate low-income students, or students with disabilities.
At the February state board meeting, Vice Chair Sean-Marie Oller recalled January’s meeting when the headmasters of two private schools said their budgets are a “market commodity” and can’t be shared with the public. She then compared their position with public schools, where budgets are transparent and are reviewed by an elected school board. “We are here for public schools really,” she said of the state board.
The then-draft report and the discussion at the February meeting were upsetting to Mill Moore, who is executive director of the Vermont Independent Schools Association.
“Independent schools make the education board uncomfortable, and that is reflected in their discussion and their report to the governor,” Moore said. “That is unfortunate because independent schools have been around since the beginning of the state, and they are doing a fine job.”
