As they return to the Statehouse, key legislators say they have little appetite for big new ideas in education.
In the last five years, lawmakers have passed a slew of ambitious education reforms. A sweeping consolidation effort reorganized districts across the state, another mandate implemented half-day universal pre-kindergarten, and special education is in the midst of a massive overhaul.
Lawmakers say they would prefer going back to check their work, consider expanding on previous initiatives, and make sure schools are on track to enact existing mandates.
“I’m trying my best to make sure that the big things that we’ve done over the last five or six years continue without imploding, get better and better as we go, and ease the districts’ burden where we can,” said Senate Education Committee Chair Phil Baruth, D/P-Chittenden.
Rep. Kate Webb, D-Shelburne, his counterpart in the House, agrees. School districts, she said, have been kept “pretty darn busy” adapting to the ambitious reform agenda set by Montpelier in the last half-decade.
“I hear them when they say they’re not looking for new initiatives at this point, but really making sure that (for) the initiatives that we have in place, that school districts are getting the help that they need,” she said.
Webb and Baruth had a fractious relationship in the last session, one which nearly imperiled legislation on lead testing in schools that was deeply popular across all three parties and in the governor’s office. But the two appear to be working together, and have even agreed on a parallel work plan for their two committees.
“The Senate, the House, and the administration – it all works best when we’re working together,” Webb said.
The Senate Education Committee is set to begin the session following up on Act 173, a multi-year effort to transition Vermont special education funding from a reimbursement model to a block-grant system, which gives schools a preset amount of money based on enrollment.
The law, passed in 2018, left a key question unanswered: What happens when school districts need to spend more than their block grant because of an unexpectedly high number of students with particularly acute needs? Do districts make up the difference out of their budgets, or does the state provide extra aid?
The question was punted to a study commissioned by lawmakers to look at Vermont’s overall system for funding preK-12 education, which is due out at the end of the year from University of Vermont researchers. Baruth said his committee would be taking up its recommendations right out of the gate, and deciding whether or not to create a state mechanism for reimbursing excess special education expenses.
There is a possibility that study could kick off a larger conversation, particularly in the Legislature’s money committees, about whether or not to make changes to the way Vermont calculates education property taxes. The study – often referred to as the “weighting study” – takes a deep dive into how Vermont calculates per-pupil spending, which is how each district’s property tax is calculated.
Rep. Janet Ancel, D-Calais, who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee, said the study will certainly be of interest. But lawmakers might be loathe to act on education finance until the Tax Structure Commission, which the Legislature created in 2018, has weighed in. That could be another year.
“We’ll sort of have to play it by ear if this is a year we can tackle larger reforms or not,” she said.
Secretary of Education Dan French said he expected education finance would be a subject of “renewed interest.” That’s in part because of the study, but also given double-digit health insurance hikes and a spate of school construction bonds are expected to put increasing pressure on the education fund.
On the House side, Webb said her committee would be starting the session by looking at Act 166, which requires school districts provide 10 hours weekly of publicly funded pre-kindergarten, either in-house or via a voucher. Webb has toured the state, visiting school districts that have expanded on the mandate.
Several offer full-day pre-K free of charge, and some charge parents for the second half of the day. Still others are using under-capacity school buildings to host child care providers and help alleviate the shortage in available infant and toddler care. Webb said she’s interested in seeing what “creative solutions” devised by local districts legislators could help scale up.
French said both pre-K and bolstering the state’s flexible pathways during the high school grades remain key priorities for Gov. Phil Scott, although particular policy proposals are still in development.
Baruth would also like to tackle a college affordability idea left over from the beginning of the biennium, and hopes to convince his fellow lawmakers that revenues from taxing marijuana could help pay for it. And Webb would like to get an inventory of school building needs across Vermont, and ask state officials to crunch the numbers on what a spate of new school building bonds could mean for taxpayers.
And both Webb and Baruth said they’re interested in taking testimony on the roll-out of proficiency-based learning, which has been widely variable across the state, although neither could say whether or not they would ultimately decide to take any action. The State Board of Education is slated to take testimony on the subject in late January and to report back to lawmakers.
Webb would also like to take a look at literacy instruction, particularly in view of declining reading scores. French, too, said this would be an area of focus. Test scores have once again called attention to reading, but the same research that led to Act 173 also homed in on the need for more early literacy interventions.
“As a state we were already on the hunt for some policy reinvigoration in that area,” he said.
Both Webb and Baruth are also both in agreement the State Board of Education should likely be reformed. The board’s new chairman, John Carroll, has said he would like to see the body shed its administrative responsibilities and instead focus on big-picture policy questions.
“Everybody is on board with the idea that we probably need to fine-tune the mission and the vision of what the board is,” Baruth said, adding that he did not think the board should be disbanded altogether, especially given how understaffed the Agency of Education is.
Both lawmakers remain concerned about a perceived lack of capacity of the agency, which lost about a quarter of its staff to post-Recession cuts. The state entity charged with overseeing Vermont’s $1.7 billion education fund and spearheading statewide education initiatives has also seen turnover and retirements in several key positions. Baruth and Webb both said they hoped to get an update on the agency’s progress in filing vacancies; Webb said legislators may also consider reclassifying employees in order to help with recruitment.