This commentary is by Matt Wormser, a member of the Shelburne selectboard.
As a member of the Shelburne selectboard, one of the unfortunate benefits of my service is the continual reminder of tradeoffs, which acutely come into focus during budget season.
This year, we are struggling to maintain services and limit our property tax increases to twice the rate of inflation — an unsustainable pace even in the best of times.
This pales in comparison to the forecast for my colleagues on the Champlain Valley School District Board, which, after cutting 8% of their staff last year, would need to cut another 50 positions — roughly 4% of staff — to meet that same targeted increase.
Keeping services steady is forecast to drive double-digit tax increases, absent further action by the legislature. Much of this is related to the punitive nature of the funding formula of Act 127 on higher-cost parts of Vermont, such as Chittenden County, but statewide, the outlook is little better.
At a time when we as a state are struggling to invest more in affordable housing, health care, treatment for substance abuse, infrastructure, public safety and a range of other services, having education spending continue to squeeze out other essential services has a big impact.
Addressing it is central to the challenge of affordability in Vermont — an issue that continues to limit our state’s attractiveness to the families we desperately need to populate our schools and workforces.
There is undoubtedly enormous good going on in our schools — my two kids thrived during their years in the Champlain Valley School District (CSVD).
However, by the metrics we use to measure success nationally — graduation rates and the New England Common Assessment Program (NECAP) reading and math test scores — Vermont is significantly underperforming.
This is especially true relative to our second-highest in the nation per-pupil spending. There is enormous variation in test and graduation results from district to district, but this only underscores how we are not consistently delivering a quality education statewide.
Sadly, the Act 73-mandated school district redistricting task force report, and associated verbiage from the Vermont National Education Association (NEA), read to me like a defense of a flawed status quo.
The NEA’s website warns of efforts to “all but eliminate local control” through Act 73. The redistricting task force essentially recommended voluntary gradual efforts to consolidate schools through what amounts to regional purchasing co-ops, and a push to larger high schools as a way to trim costs and improve quality.
Based upon my experience on the Shelburne School Board when it merged into CVSD, and more recent experience on the selectboard around partnering with other municipalities on shared service models, I believe unequivocally that voluntary consolidation efforts are largely beyond the abilities of Vermont’s very part-time local governing boards to manage.
Earlier failures of regionalization for emergency dispatch services, public safety, ambulance or other efforts show that without the strong incentives and penalties included in the earlier school consolidation Act 46, the idea that voluntary regionalization will solve our education challenges is simply a fantasy.
I credit Education Secretary Saunders for her outreach efforts, but it is clear that there is plenty more work to be done to gain the trust required for successful reform.
Vermont’s legislative libraries are littered with reports that are read by few and never implemented, and the redistricting task force report is, unfortunately, soon to be one of them.
The topic of closing schools is the third rail of local politics everywhere. Consolidation of support services as recommended by the redistricting task force is vital and valuable, but it should be done at the statewide level, under a reform- and partnership-minded Agency of Education (AOE).
AOE-managed functions could include essential services such as curriculum, HR, legal, transportation, food service, finance, health care — including behavioral health — and procurement. This could also include fast-growing special education services.
A cursory look at the location of schools independent of district lines points to many opportunities to fill increasingly underutilized schools while minimizing commuting distances.
We need a lot more courage to drive school consolidation independent of existing district lines, and the governor and legislative leaders need to be willing to expend political capital in the process.
The hallmark for successful reform efforts in states such as Massachusetts and Mississippi has been accountability for results, a responsibility jointly shared by educators, administrators, students and families. Vermonters need more bang for their buck in terms of measurable impacts of scarce tax dollars.
Local school boards are ill-equipped to negotiate educator contracts effectively, leading to very disparate wages poorly aligned with regional cost-of-living disparities. Having a single statewide contract indexed to the regional cost of living should make life easier for all parties.
Change desperately needs to happen, and we can do this the smart way — through a systematic assessment and implementation of where we can improve curriculum, consolidate schools and services where it makes sense.
Or we can continue with the infighting and highly fragmented local policymaking and results.
Vermonters of every stripe need us to summon the wisdom to choose the former.
