Campaign for Vermont (Rep. Scheuermann Proposal)

Since the passage of Act 68 six years ago, education property taxes in Vermont have increased by over 43% or 6.2% per year to $918 million - and that is merely two thirds of what Vermonters actually spend on K-12 education. Vermont now spends over $1.3 billion on education, an increase of $250 million since 2005. During this same time period, the number of students has dropped by over 7,400 or 7.4%. Vermont's spending per pupil is near the top in the United States and well above the average; and the United States average is among the highest in the world. This combination of rapidly rising costs, unbearable tax burdens and school enrollment decline underscores the lack of sustainability of the current structure and financing our public schools.

Simultaneously, Vermonters increasingly ask if our schools are able to provide the highest quality education for a knowledge-based global economy that requires more, not less, in terms of educational opportunities and resources. In a recent study published in The Atlantic American (see link below) student achievement in math ranked well behind other developed and emerging nations, though Massachusetts has developed new approaches with measurable positive results. Doing better with fewer resources requires that we use our educational dollars more wisely, facilitate the sharing of resources between schools more effectively, and re-think our educational delivery system. We are not alone in this quest as schools and colleges across the United States are being forced to rethink their models and re-envision new approaches.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/12/your-child-left-behind/8310/

The time is now for an Educational Transformation in Vermont - a transformation of our delivery system to expand opportunities for our children and improve outcomes, all while ensuring the system is one Vermonters can afford. It is clear the current system fails in both.

In 1997, the Vermont Supreme Court ruled in favor of Amanda Brigham and made clear that Vermont must provide "substantially equal educational opportunity" to all Vermont students. As a result, the Legislature passed Act 60. A controversial piece of legislation at the time - which remains controversial - Act 60's principal goal of ensuring the equalization of funding has been realized. Communities that were not able to afford certain tools, programs, and services prior to Act 60 now are able to provide them.

With this goal accomplished, we can be proud of our achievement. The equalization of funding is no longer a primary issue. The question now is how we can provide a first rate and affordable education to students across the state so that they are able to compete successfully in the knowledge-based global economy of the 21st Century.

School districts and supervisory unions throughout Vermont already collaborate well in a number of areas. For example, services provided by speech pathologists and psychologists could provide for one of those opportunities. This is done in an effort to eliminate duplication and to save costs, and has been a positive development over the years.

It is now time to build on that collaboration and cooperation and develop a new model for serving our students in Vermont.

A model that brings together our educational communities in order to expand educational program and service opportunities for all of our children and do so in a cost effective way is needed. This model must reduce the need to eliminate needed classroom teachers or programs like middle school athletics and high school band by offering flexibility that allows schools to collaborate and cooperate with one another. We need a model that offers flexibility and collaboration when two or three students with special needs arrive at the school, causing costs to rise. Our new model must reside on a funding system that does not pit neighbors against neighbors, towns against towns, and school districts against school districts.

Here's one outline of such a model.

Comprehensive Education Transformation Proposal

1. Eliminate Supervisory Unions and replace them with "Educational Districts," with boundaries similar to the current Regional Technical Centers (This has been proposed by many people throughout the years, but most recently by the State Board of Education)
2. Educational Districts would be responsible for the following:
   • All aspects of Special Education, including hiring of special educators, assignment of their services to schools within ED, development of IEPs in consultation with local special education instructors and administrators
   
   Special Education Note: EDs will complete inventory of Special Education services provided and who provides them, and send information to State Department of Education. State DOE will then create and maintain a Management Information Service to track expenditures, develop reference costs of IEPs for all disabilities, and develop criteria and guidelines for EDs to deliver special education services
   
   
   • Purchase and distribution of supplies to all ED schools
   • Financial and student data management of all schools within ED
   • Transportation services
   • Hiring of all educators, administrators, and staff employed within ED, with contracts negotiated and executed at ED level
3. Students would have the option to attend any elementary or secondary school within their ED and would incorporate broader school choice by allowing the tuitioning of students to schools outside of the EDs
4. Each ED would have a District Board with representation from each participating community

Local School Boards would focus on academic policy and educational quality and not be burdened by budgeting, but would be the voice to ensure the allocation of the global budgets meets program needs.

To fund such a model, we also need a new model that respects the gains Vermont has made in funding equity since Act 60 while also emphasizing local control at the Educational District and School District levels.

Comprehensive Education Transformation Funding Proposal

• ED would develop ED-wide budgets and be empowered to assess a property tax within the ED to fund the budget. Funds raised through this system would remain in, and be distributed by, the ED.
• Non-property-tax funds would continue to go into the Education Fund to be used for categorical aid and to ensure "substantially equal educational opportunity"
• The state would guarantee funding equity among Educational Districts through the leveraging of existing state resources assigned to the education fund.
• Eliminate Common Level of Appraisal and replace it with rolling reappraisals within the ED

In a nutshell, it is time to listen to the pleas of our educational community as well as taxpayers and reform the system. It is time to be bold, and to create a system that returns local control, expands opportunities for our children, and improves the quality of our education so that our children are prepared for the knowledge-based global economy that our world has become.

Legislation Introduced by Rep. Scheuermann and Others: H-133.pdf