Editor’s note: This commentary is by Margaret Maclean, a Peacham resident, who is an international education consultant, a Vermont principal of the year and a former member of the Vermont State Board of Education.
[I]n all negotiations there are key moments when agreements can be made that can bring opposing viewpoints together. Or not. The art of negotiation is knowing when those moments have arrived and then making the best call. The state of Vermont has reached such a moment related to Act 46.
The goals of Vermont’s 2015 education governance law Act 46 are welcome. Every Vermont community is willing to embrace changes, which result in increased opportunity for children, transparency and substantial equity, all delivered at a cost taxpayers can afford. The architecture Act 46 prefers, while a fit for some communities, totally fails in others. This presents an opportunity the state should not dismiss. Whether the state will choose partnership and collaboration with communities in order to achieve the goals of the law — or choose to entrench in rigidity will be decided in what remains of the legislative session.
The events of last week clearly point to the need for clarity in the state’s relationship with communities struggling with the arbitrary nature of the school governance mandates of Act 46. The merger committee in Washington Central Supervisory Union voted to disband after a frustrating 18-month struggle to comply with the law. And after a six- month long public engagement process, the North Country Supervisory Union voted for its 13 school districts to jointly develop an alternative governance structure proposal and not form a merger committee. In addition many community members this past week took their case for fairness and transparency directly to the State Board of Education. In responding to these and many other similar developments across the state, the state should choose partnership, not paternalism. These communities are engaging in informed grassroots democratic deliberation to find a way to meet and exceed the expectations of Act 46.
Within Act 46 three clear choices are described. The so-called “preferred” model comes with significant financial carrots and no sticks. The “conventional” model comes with fewer carrots but some sticks. The “alternative” model, offers no carrots, a number of menacing sticks, and a black hole when it comes to how community proposals will be judged.
With far greater cumulative resources devoted to the problem than the Legislature can muster, the entirely predictable result is that local thinking on education governance has outpaced the Legislature.
Currently 96 towns have wrestled with Act 46 and concluded that, though they embrace the goals of the law, they will not embrace the preferred or conventional models. They have rejected the “one size fits all” preferred model. They have not embraced the narrow side-by-side permutations falling within conventional mergers. Instead, for the most part, these towns can see alternative pathways to significant improvement and the realization of the goals of the law. Increasingly their schools boards are choosing to pursue an alternative governance structure as their way forward. An alternative governance structure resembles our current governance model, but it is certainly not the status quo. Rather it is a revamped and retooled supervisory union, better able to meet the goals and aspirations of the law.
These districts range from Marlboro in the south to Holland in the north, from South Hero in the west to Peacham in the east, from whole supervisory unions to small town school districts. They represent communities that have rejected merger at the ballot box (27), some more than once, to communities that have disbanded merger committees without placing a governance proposal before their voters, to communities that never formed a merger committee but have been exploring all their options under the law.
The architects of Act 46 did not imagine that so many communities would reject the financial carrots and would be willing to face the sticks. Instead these communities will develop proposals to meet the goals of the law and preserve what they value.
Why would these communities make this decision? Because local school board members who volunteer their time to support wise local decision-making, see the problems Vermont faces related to cost and declining enrollment, through a totally different lens than legislators do. Their community, with its rich history, landscape and values, shapes their thinking. For some, merger has been the right trade off, but for others, the route to the achievement of the goals of the law looks very different. In large numbers these communities are choosing to make their case directly to the state.
The architects of Act 46 need to face up to this new reality. H.15, introduced by Rep. Janet Ancel with numerous co-sponsors, provides an opportunity for the state to work in partnership with these 96 school districts. It would allow districts to make their case directly to the State Board of Education and to be judged against the same set of standards for conventional merger. These districts would still get no carrots and the sticks would remain, but they would be able to demonstrate why their locally developed plans to the achieve of the goals of the law, are their best way forward.
While H.15 and its Senate counterpart S.15 remain bottled up in their respective education committees, S.122 is also making its way through the system. S.122 continues the Legislature’s pattern of trying (unsuccessfully) to force reality to conform to their wishes. Local boards and study committees throughout the state have meanwhile invested colossal amounts of time, energy and brainpower into thinking through the best forms of school governance attainable. All along they have been testing their thinking against reality. With far greater cumulative resources devoted to the problem than the Legislature can muster, the entirely predictable result is that local thinking on education governance has outpaced the Legislature.
This forms an ideal basis for an effective partnership. The Legislature can draw on local experience to inform its law-making. Townspeople can ensure the wellbeing of future generations by virtue of the laws the Legislature will pass. Surely the Legislature should not choose entrenchment, rigidity and battles about compliance. Collaboration and partnership to attain of the promise of Act 46 is the deal the Legislature should make.
