State’s Education Transformation Proposal, including aschool choice lottery for all, is met with mixed reviews

By Polly Mikula

Gov. Phil Scott’s education proposal would allow every student to opt into a school choice lottery system within their regional school district. 

Testimony from Education Secretary Zoie Saunders in the House Education Committee, Thursday, Feb. 6, was the first public explanation of how school choice would work in Scott’s “transformation” plan.

“It’s very provocative,” Rep. Peter Conlon, D-Cornwall, the committee’s chair, said during the hearing, “and we need provocative.”

The new information on school choice and education governance is the latest aspect unveiled in the administration’s extensive proposal. Last week, Saunders released the details of the governor’s proposed foundation formula, a new way to pay for education (allocating a base rate of $13,200 per student plus the option for some local increases) that would spend about $180 million less than the state currently spends. 

Week by week, Scott and his team have added more specifics to their cornerstone policy proposal. Lawmakers had been eagerly awaiting more information on school choice, one of the plan’s biggest gaps in the first weeks of the legislative session.

In Vermont’s current system, many towns offer school choice if their local school district does not operate public schools for all or certain grades, sometimes offering specific options and other times allowing total choice.

In Scott’s proposed system, that would change and instead every student would be assigned to a public school K-12, according to Saunders, with limited exceptions. Each student could also apply for a lottery to attend a designated “school choice school,” within that regional district.

Choice options could be magnet public schools or private schools, and each school district would decide which and how many schools to designate, though every district would need to designate at least one school choice school. Officials did not indicate whether religious schools could receive public funding as they do in Vermont’s existing system. 

The designated schools would need to follow state guidelines related to “educational and financial standards,” according to the proposal, and certain requirements could be set such as a minimum number of school choice students that a private school would accept. 

Despite some state oversight, “select state academic and operational requirements would not apply” to school choice schools, according to the proposal — a major fault of the proposal, according to opponents.

In an attempt to account for existing school choice in the current system, the district lottery could provide “preference” for students in towns that have historically had school choice, Saunders said.

In the proposed system, state money would follow students, meaning school choice schools would be paid directly by the state for the weighted funding associated with choice students. 

Some Democratic members of the committee appeared concerned about providing access to school choice for all students — an expansion compared to the state’s existing system.

“Not surprisingly, this is a big issue,” Conlon said. “Does this open the door to folks coming in and creating an independent school in competition with the public school system?” 

Jill Briggs Campbell, interim deputy secretary of education, said school districts could decide not to allow a proliferation of “school choice schools” so as not to “drain” students from the public school system. Lawmakers could also set limits on creating new private schools. 

Thursday’s testimony from Saunders also provided more information on the five proposed regional school boards that would oversee all of the state’s public schools (down from the current 119 school districts). 

The plan recommends school boards with five members, with each member representing a regional “ward” within the district. Additionally, there would be a “school advisory committee,” composed of parents, students, teachers and community members. The committee, Saunders said, would play a role in offering budget feedback and could direct some limited amounts of discretionary spending.

Opposition: VSBA

The Vermont School Boards Association (VSBA) issued a statement Friday, Feb. 7, that it strongly opposes the Education Transformation Proposal. 

“Governor Scott has waited eight years to provide Vermonters with a vision for a more affordable and effective education system. The proposal unveiled this week does not achieve either goal — rather, it will increase costs and increase inequities,” VSBA stated.

Rather than support a system built on strong public schools, “the plan is a playbook to expanding school vouchers and defunding our public schools,” the statement read. “The governor is using Vermont’s education funding challenges as a pretense for this power grab which is supported by the Koch Brothers.”

Americans for Prosperity (AFP), a libertarian conservative political advocacy group in the U.S., which is affiliated with brothers Charles Koch and the late David Koch, directly praised Scott’s plan. On Jan. 27, AFP Northeast Regional Director Ross Connolly, linked it to the start of School Choice Week, stating: “We are calling on lawmakers to build on this momentum and expand educational opportunities so that every student has access to learning options that help them succeed regardless of zip code or tax bracket.”

The VSBA letter also refutes with the proposals main claim that it will save costs by multiplying the number of students eligible for vouchers. “In other states that have enacted such programs, education costs have skyrocketed, causing budget deficits and cuts to critical state programs like water infrastructure and highway repairs,” VSBA stated. 

The VSBA also noted that decreasing participation on local school boards — from 900 current volunteers across 119 districts to 25 members in just five districts — would politicize school boards and make them inaccessible to most. “These highly competitive races will introduce money into public education governance in a manner never before seen in Vermont. On top of that, this change will exclude those who don’t have the ability to survive on a part-time position, making school board service an opportunity reserved for the wealthy or retired,” VSBA stated.

Change to the state’s education funding is needed, the VSBA agreed, but challenges the governor “to support our public schools by funding them in a sustainable way. This will involve hard choices to achieve efficiency and scale. VSBA is ready to contribute constructively to make those choices in the Vermont context,” the letter stated. “The VSBA looks forward to working with policymakers on real solutions to our challenges that move Vermont’s public education system forward in a manner consistent with our shared values and Constitution,” VSBA concluded. 

Opposition: Student benefit?

Dave Bickford, school board chair for the Elmore-Morristown district, one of two that make up the Lamoille South Supervisory Union, said he sees the proposal as being more about the economy than good outcomes for students. 

“I can’t imagine how his plan really benefits kids,” Bickford said. “In addition to the academics, their needs are social and emotional and structural, and I don’t see the plan, as he has outlined it, being able to supply that kind of support.”

Bickford, who has 30 years of experience as a teacher, principal and school board chair, doesn’t see close cooperation between administrations and schools being able to exist within the new proposal.

“I worked in a school district in New Jersey where we had, Lord, maybe 20 schools,” he said. “The bigger you get, the more bureaucratic the organization becomes in order to manage and address needs, and the less personalized attention is given down to the level of the classroom.”

Lisa Rudd, superintendent of Grand Isle Supervisory Union, agreed that the connection between district consolidation and affordability for Vermonters is not readily apparent. 

“I think it’s misleading [to suggest that] the saving of money is somehow going to miraculously improve student outcomes,” Rudd said. “Putting it in the context of what’s happening nationally, it’s pretty disturbing.”

Keri Bristow, chair of the Mountain Views School District — serving students in Barnard, Bridgewater, Killington, Pittsfield, Plymouth, Pomfret, Reading and Woodstock ­— said what’s missing from the governor’s proposal is how exactly it aims to save money. 

“Just removing superintendents in every school district — you’re still going to have assistant superintendents to do the paperwork that’s required by the state to oversee the staff, make sure things are running the way they should and all of those things that they have to do now,” she said.

Bill Yates, board chair of Windham Southeast Supervisory Union, said that while he thinks the current supervisory union system is flawed — the supervisory unions are too small for full efficiency — Scott’s proposal puts forth a district configuration that swings too far in the other directions with the proposal for just five being much too broad.

“That geographic area is just way too large for any sort of reasonable governance,” Yates said. “It’s just not feasible to have 15 districts within an SU. It can’t work that way to supervise all the things that a supervisory union is legally required to do these days.”

One of those responsibilities is special education, Yates said. Under Scott’s proposal, a single special education director would be responsible for each supervisory union.

Yates sees an obvious solution to the supervisory union problem: school construction. 

“I think Gov. Scott, in this proposal, put the cart before the horse,” he said. “To have consolidation, you have to have construction.”

Within Windham County, Yates said there are multiple supervisory unions, districts and schools he thinks are close enough to provide a more efficient method of education. And building regional high schools could improve educational opportunities and avoid transportation discrepancies between students, he said. 

However, if some smaller schools close, it could mean students have to spend more time going to and from school every day. 

“Some of these elementary [students] already have an hour, and so if you start closing schools, you’re going to have these young kids on a bus for two or three hours [each day],” he said.

All in all, Yates and other school and district administrators, supports the idea of making the education system more efficient and economical — just not by the current approach.

“It’s such an unfunctional proposal, but I think reworking the SU structure right now is probably a good idea,” he said.

Scott defends plan

Gov. Scott released a statement the following day responding to the VSBA’s “inaccurate statements.”

“Defenders of the current system — which has declining test scores, massive annual property tax increases and pays teachers unequally — have misleadingly referred to this proposal as a ‘voucher system.’ They are wrong,” the governor stated, Saturday, Feb. 10.

Scott said the plan “eliminates the flow of public dollars to private schools outside of the state and country. The plan also assumes the General Assembly will maintain the current moratorium on new independent schools and proposes more accountability standards for independent and public schools.

“In addition, many have continually advocated for increased pay and resources for teachers. This plan does just that, by increasing and equalizing teacher pay, so teachers have the option of serving in any school, anywhere in the state, without sacrificing pay or benefits… This plan is designed to support stronger schools, stronger students, and more vibrant communities,” Gov. Scott concluded.

Ethan Weinstein/VTDigger and Noah Diedrich/Community News Service contributed to this reporting.