Editor’s note: This commentary is by David F. Kelley, who is an attorney and a co-founder of Project Harmony (now PH International) and a former member of the Hazen Union School Board.
The governor’s office says the ed fund will face a $167 million deficit as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. It doesn’t have to be a disaster. Austerity can be a source of progress. In most places, nothing inspires imagination like plain, simple need. If our revenue shortfalls prompt a wiser conversation about spending and priorities then there may actually be a silver lining.
Here are a handful of ideas from a former school board chair that I hope might be considered:
1. By now it should be obvious we must use technology more creatively. We don’t need to spend tons of money on new bricks and mortar and more centralized schools. Even with consolidations we don’t need to pay for more buses and longer bus rides. This pandemic has taught us how much can be done with the tools of the IT revolution. Local neighborhood schools are more viable than ever. Differentiated learning and personalized learning plans are more attainable than ever. We need to think more creatively and put these tools to use.
2. UVM’s recent Pupil Weighting Factors Report made it clear that the status quo is leaving students from disadvantaged families further and further behind. The pandemic and remote learning served to underscore that inequity. We need to address this problem and we can start by reorienting Vermont’s Department for Children and Families. Today that department is perceived as a threat by disadvantaged families. That department should be a needy family’s ally. DCF should become a liaison between schools and needy families. They should help identify our disadvantaged students most urgent needs and help take some of the pressure off guidance counselors. Where there is a special need we should identify it early and address it intensively. It costs more upfront but it can save tons out back. We should move DCF offices out of downtown and into school buildings.
3. Act 46 was only half jokingly referred to as “The Superintendents’ Relief Act.” The law guaranteed that superintendents would have fewer school boards to deal with, fewer budgets to create and fewer meetings to attend. As districts were consolidated, it would have made sense for supervisory unions to consolidate as well. That didn’t happen. Today some superintendents oversee a dozen districts and others oversee two or three. Throughout the system there is enormous redundancy. Superintendents offices should be support systems, not management systems. Instead of over 50 central offices we should have fewer than 25.
4. Special education should become the responsibility of the state, not supervisory unions. First, local school boards have no control over this cost whatsoever. Second, special ed budgets were moved to supervisory unions to even out the peaks and valleys of budgets when the costs of intensive needs moved from one district to another. Moving that cost to the state would do away with the peaks and valleys completely. The state is better able to assess needs and address conflict.
5. This is a “no brainer.” Now is the time to offer early retirement to our longest serving teachers at the highest end of the pay scale.
6. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, now is the time to innovate. It is clearer than ever that our students from Vermont’s most disadvantaged families are underserved by our current system. Along with using technology more creatively, the Northeast Kingdom should be designated as an “Innovation District.” Our tech centers and Act 77 have successfully given secondary school students more opportunities. It is time to take the next step and allow tuition dollars to be portable for every secondary school student in the Northeast Kingdom.
Albert Einstein is reputed to have said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting to get a different result. Whether he said it or not, now is the time to start doing things differently.
