The draft changes proposed by a state task force charged with overhauling how public schools in Vermont are funded will hurt the state’s already vulnerable English language learners, Winooski and Burlington officials say.
In a letter sent this month to state and county officials, Winooski and Burlington city council members — representing two of the most diverse communities in the state — urged the state Legislature to move away from the funding plan on the table, which would pull students learning English out of the larger funding formula and provide money directly to those students’ school districts through grants.
Such a plan would create a “separate system of learners, based solely on their language and country of origin,” the city councils wrote in the Dec. 6 letter.
“This is, plain and simple, a discriminatory policy,” they wrote.
They also contend that the plan on the table — categorical aid — is an insecure form of funding that could change year to year depending on the whim of legislators and that it would give overall less money to students learning English in their school districts.
Currently, schools that enroll English language learners are funded through the state “pupil weighting system,” a formula intended to provide equal public education opportunities to all students.
Weighting is based on the idea that students don’t start on a level playing field, and some students need more resources — and therefore funding — to succeed. In an effort to even things out, the state gives students different weights through a complicated funding formula. Broadly, more weight means school districts can spend more money without raising local property taxes to pay for it.
But the system has not been working as intended, and an upgrade is long overdue, according to a 2019 report commissioned by lawmakers and prepared for the Vermont Agency of Education by a group of experts. The report found that English language learners — as well as students in poverty, from rural areas and students in grades nine through 12 — were not being weighted heavily enough and therefore not getting the resources needed to properly serve them.
The task force plans to recommend draft legislation to provide equitable access to education to the Legislature before the session reconvenes Jan. 7. The potential changes in education funding could affect Vermont students for decades to come.
Task force members, local leaders and experts in education finance agree that school districts across the state have not been equitably funded for the past few decades.
But not everyone agrees on how to fix it. And because the issue comes down to wealth distribution, it is particularly contentious.
The eight-person “Task Force on the Implementation of the Pupil Weighting Factors Report” began its pursuit of education equity this summer. It has been meeting bimonthly since June to figure out how best to revamp the state’s system of education funding.
The task force’s recommendation to take students learning English out of the education funding formula and provide direct grant money to their school districts through categorical aid is a significant diversion from the report’s recommendations released two years ago.
“We came into this process with a solution, and what we needed was a map to get us there,” the Winooski and Burlington city councilors wrote in their letter. “We are now leaving this process with two new solutions and no map. We are no closer to achieving equity than we were when the Report’s recommendations were first made public in 2019.”
In an interview, Winooski Mayor Kristine Lott called the issue “pretty critical.”
“If the Legislature implements (the task force’s recommendations), it will be very harmful to this area,” she said.
But legislators on the task force and education finance experts argue that categorical aid is no more or less subject to annual changes than weighting and that it would provide more equitable funding for English language learners across the state than weighting.
Categorical aid would yield one-fifth the amount of money per Winooski School District student learning English, compared with the amount that would be available if the students were included in the weighting formula — around $5,000 per student compared with $25,000 — according to an analysis by Winooski’s finance manager, Nicole Mace.
And that number could change year to year, Lott said.
Every year, the Legislature would decide how much money to allocate for categorical aid. That means “the Legislature in the future, with different folks in there, could make a different decision about funding,” she said.
That concern is shared by Marc Schauber, executive director of the Coalition for Vermont Student Equity, a consortium of school districts, supervisory unions and school board members advocating for equitable education funding.
“If you’re recalculating every year, it becomes a potential political football and negotiating tool for committees, which should be avoided,” Schauber said.
Schauber said the weighting system the way he envisions it, with weights recalculated every five years by an independent expert, would provide more stability and security to English language learners.
Rep. Emilie Kornheiser, D-Windham, co-chair of the task force, said those concerns are not entirely warranted and that the task force also wants to ensure funding is based on data and not political will.
Categorical aid would provide a base amount for every district with at least one English language learner and then an additional amount for each student. The amounts are not yet decided. Numbers and data are still missing from the task force’s draft report, Kornheiser said, so it is unclear precisely how much money would flow to English language learners in different districts in the categorical grant versus the weighting system.
Kornheiser said the task force is dedicated to making the funding as consistent as it can be by incorporating regular recalibration and independent oversight.
“We are doing everything we can to bake this into the system,” she said.
The weighting formula could be altered at any time, Kornheiser said.
“Everything is subject to change because we are not allowed to tie the hands of future legislators,” she said.
