Editor’s note: This commentary is by Wavell Cowan, of Montpelier, a research scientist, inventor, entrepreneur, businessman, social activist, and author.
[T]he government’s piecemeal/Band-Aid approach to educational “reform” is now looking at a state negotiated, statewide health insurance contract for teachers. A more fundamental approach is suggested in an essay I wrote some 12 years ago, based on six years’ experience on a Vermont school board. It was titled “Teacher Contracts and School Choice.”
Teacher contracts and school choice may seem strange bedfellows. However, I perceive a linkage that would enhance the benefits derivable from Vermont’s pluralistic (less so now!) educational system.
Teachers in Vermont are paid in accordance with their specific educational qualifications and their longevity in the system, by contracts negotiated or supported by a powerful teachers union. This means that teachers’ pay has no necessary connection to perceived quality of teaching. Thus local knowledge of teacher quality has no relevance whatsoever in teacher negotiations. Under such conditions it is a colossal waste of time for hundreds of school boards (somewhat fewer these days) across the state to be individually negotiating local contracts with representatives of the same statewide teachers union. For these reasons I feel the state should negotiate a single statewide teachers’ contract on behalf of all school districts. This would properly connect the major education taxing authority with negotiating the largest educational expense. School boards would be relieved of an onerous and time-consuming task for which they generally lack adequate expertise. Importantly, there are other, less obvious, advantages to this arrangement.
Currently, school boards are reluctant to authorize the employment in new positions of high cost teachers as long as acceptable quality low cost teachers are available. This reality means that experienced teachers, because they become higher paid by virtue of longevity, tend to become trapped in particular schools for the rest of their professional lives. A statewide teacher contract would allow the state to “charge” local school districts for their teachers based on the average Vermont teacher salary multiplied by the school district’s total full time equivalent teachers. In this way each school could refocus on acquiring the services of the perceived best teachers without regard to salary level. The average statewide salary level would already determine the local financial commitment. Movement of teachers between schools is far more desirable for quality education than a system that discourages such periodic movement. Further, promoting such freedom for teachers will add a useful statistic to identify poor and good quality schools. Poorly administered schools will be less likely to attract teachers of recognizably high quality. Good teachers will tend to migrate to well-administered schools. This is a statistic that will create pressure for upgrading school quality.
Public education is a robust concept. Nothing is more fundamental to the welfare of the American democracy than a well-educated populace. A public school system is the only institutional form that will ensure that the necessary, ongoing educational debate will be genuinely public. Schools run by communities promote community involvement.
I believe school choice would strengthen the public school system in Vermont. Only one thing needs to be changed in the current law. A school’s pupil count determines the amount of state general funds awarded to the school. The number of students attending the local school “that are resident” in the school district determines this amount. Removing “that are resident” would allow school choice. Any parent could then apply to tuition a child to any school in Vermont, just as they can do now. Schools could accept such tuitioned students in accordance with non-discriminating tuitioning policies just as they do now. The only difference would be that state funding would follow the child. The parents would not be responsible for paying tuitioning costs.
Only really committed parents would take advantage of this change. The convenience of the local school bus is of paramount importance to most residents. Few would find the argument for changing schools sufficiently dramatic to accept the transportation commitments that they would then have to assume. Tuitioning policies would allow local school boards to properly control any influx of non-resident students. School boards could also actively pursue non-resident students to optimize their student populations. Even a very small minority of students switching schools would create a healthy competitive environment.
That is the connection between teacher contracts and school choice. Good teachers who are free to leave poorly administered schools, and pupils who are free to leave educationally deficit schools highlight deficiencies for local school boards and the communities who elect them. Poor schools would no longer remain anonymous.
