Updated at 4:13 p.m.
Gov. Phil Scott’s administration is discussing a dramatic restructuring of Vermont’s public schools. There is no specific proposal, but rather a planning memo that envisions sweeping change in the school system.
At this point, the memo is described as a thought experiment that may or may not lead to a specific reform proposal. Basic elements of it include a single statewide school district, statewide school choice including nonsectarian independent schools, a statewide teacher contract, an end to the Vermont Board of Education, the transfer of all public school property to the state and a thorough reform of the school funding system.
The memo promises to ensure “local participation” but would effectively end local control. School boards would be abolished in favor of four elected regional boards, each of which would hire a superintendent. Budgetary authority would flow from the superintendent to the education secretary; the regional boards would not have a say.
Parental input into their local schools would consist of Parent School Committees, which would be purely advisory in nature.
VTDigger.org first reported on the existence of the memo. Its story was based on an earlier version of the planning memo. Education Secretary Dan French provided Seven Days the latest version, which is much longer and more detailed. The full document can be viewed below.
The 32-page memo is described as a work in progress — a “wiki where additions and changes are developed through a collaborative authoring process.” But its fundamental principles shape the entire process in the direction of centralizing public school governance. The document springs from the single question, “To what extent would a Greatly Simplified School District (GSSD) model create opportunities for . . .” and then refers to a “‘single school district’ model developed by Secretary Daniel French as an example of the most extreme simplification possible.”
“Secretary French is leading a visioning process to reimagine the future structure of our education system,” Ted Fisher, an Agency of Education spokesperson, said in a written statement. “This is a strategic exercise within the Agency of Education designed to surface opportunities to create a more coherent and integrated approach to delivering education and related human services.”
The memo states that this process began in the fall of 2018 with the formation of an education policy design team consisting of top administration officials. The roster includes French as the sole education professional, three cabinet secretaries, one commissioner and “staff from the Governor’s office.”
The memo draws a distinction between two approaches to reform: representative strategies and design strategies. The former includes all stakeholders, while the latter is much more top-down. Key passage from the memo: “Membership on the design team is not necessarily representative, but rather determined by the ability of the chosen team members to rapidly produce a high-quality prototype … that can then be shared broadly among various stakeholder groups for feedback and reaction.”
In other words, a small group gets to develop “the essential design elements” and everybody else gets to chime in on the details.
In an interview Friday on Vermont Public Radio’s Vermont Edition, Scott distanced himself from the memo.
“I don’t think we’re ready for anything like that at this point,” the governor said of the single-district concept. “I give [French] great credit for at least bringing this up and talking about it because the way we’re doing it right now doesn’t work.”
Scott spokesperson Rebecca Kelley said in a written statement Friday that the governor had “called for creative thinking and innovative ideas to build the best education system for our kids.
“He appreciates the Secretary’s leadership to explore options for doing so, including work to engage stakeholders and partners in the process,” Kelley wrote. “We see this as part of a critically important conversation on education quality and equity, aimed at building consensus around shared goals and strategies to achieve them, but not as a proposal or legislation we’d put forward this year.”
The document itself acknowledges centralization as “a provocative idea, and politically a very challenging concept.” That’s putting it mildly. Act 46, the far more modest school consolidation law, has sparked community opposition across the state — not to mention lawsuits. The memo also acknowledges a high degree of “initiative fatigue” among educators, which makes this seem an inopportune time to reinvent the system. In addition, there’s the political reality that Scott’s Republican Party suffered significant losses in the November election, leaving him with a diminished base of support.
Some educators and lawmakers have expressed support for, or at least openness to, some of the “design elements,” such as a statewide teacher contract and a shift to larger school districts. But it seems unlikely that the entire package would attract much support. If this thought experiment ever departs the realm of the mind, it seems destined for a quick death in the unforgiving environment of the political process.
Read the full document below:
Correction, January 11, 2019: An earlier version of this story overstated Gov. Scott’s support for the concept outlined in the Agency of Education memo. Additionally, that version of the story included an error about what departments fall under the Agency of Commerce and Community Development.
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Best Idea Ever!
“It seems that education policy is too important to be left to educators.”
In 1995, then-Gov. Howard Dean hosted the National Governors Association annual meeting in Burlington. The conference highlighted education, and its keynote speaker was not an educator but a businessman, Louis Gerstner, then the CEO of IBM.
@Bruce Post
I would have thought Bill Clinton would have been the keynote speaker.
Discussion Subjects
Economic Development and Commerce (EDC) – government actions to reduce the costs of regulation on business; telecommunications: comments on state and federal legislative initiatives; and international trade and development: opportunities for state/federal partnerships
Human Resources (HR) – federal block grants and budget proposals: new challenges for states; and preparing for new responsibilities: examples of state initiatives
Natural Resources (NR) – new directions for environmental management
Other Governors’ Sessions – School-to-Work roundtable
1994-95 Chair Vermont Gov. Howard Dean’s Initiative – Governors’ Campaign for Children
Plenary Session Discussion Subjects – Addresses by President Bill Clinton and U.S. Senate leaders; education; children; welfare reform; and the federal budget
Personally, as a parent of school aged children, I feel that taking control of our children’s education away from the local community is a very bad idea, that would create a lot of problems. Different districts within the state have different population mixes and therefore different student needs. One district may have a large number of poor students from needy families that need a lot of extra support. Another district may have more children from affluent families, and may be more concerned about funding after school sports, than school lunches. Gone would be the local school board members knowing most of the local families and individual students would become just a number….. BAD IDEA.
Gov. Scott shows his GOP fangs at last . . . this “reform” is a ruse to break then privatize the school system in Vermont so it can be looted and starved by the private sector, plus break the teacher’s unions as a bonus to the Chamber of Commerce.
Yes, the schools system needs to be tightened up but, like Trump, Scott is trying to run the table to further a more depraved Right Wing agenda. Now we will see how much fight the Democrats/Proggies have in them.
Gee . . I wonder when Betsy DeVos is going to drop in for a visit, flying her Skull and Crossbones flag of “free markets”.
Phil Hoff / Phil Scott it now appears there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between them. Phil Hoff’s 1964 “Big Idea” to transform Vermont’s local schoolhouses into one statewide school system comprised of 14 regional school districts has morphed into a four district statewide school system controlled from Montpelier. Remember in 1964, the voters went to the polls and enacted a constitutional amendment to secure “local control” for the state’s future in response to Hoff’s attack on local governance.
Phil Hoff must be laughing from the grave as his idea that was roundly defeated in 1964 by conservative Republicans is no the faux Republican governor’s big thing. No local control, no parental input beyond the “window dressing” of Parent School Committees, “which would be purely advisory in nature” and the Regional Boards would not have a (real) say in the administration of the education in their schools.
The fifty year educational experiment of “bigger is better” has resulted in exploding education costs and plummeting student proficiency – the thing Vermont’s Legislators and State Administrators have proven is that “bigger is NOT better” it just creates a bigger mess.
This latest step toward the abyss should bring every true Vermonter to their feet demanding a return to real old-time local control and they may well be lead by the children being cheated out of their futures because of a crappy education.
H. Brooke Paige
Washington, Vermont
Many Vermonters struggling to pay our property taxes support Governor Scott and his courage in addressing this issue. From reviewing this comprehensive plan it’s obvious he has surrounded himself with bright people who have a strong grasp of a huge and growing problem.
It would be much easier for him to do nothing. The VT NEA has enough money and power to bully everyone so now our bloated education system is crushing taxpayers. In the name of ‘local control’, as if local is a magical panacea.
Thank you Governor Scott for taking on this powerful lobby and contentious issue on behalf of those of us too powerless and busy working to pay outrageously high property taxes, courtesy of the VT NEA.
Peggy, how do the poor districts pay for that necessary support? Their coffers are hardly overflowing. The skeleton of this policy has the potential to be more progressive than conservative.
The state of Hawaii with its multiple islands is one school district. It would be interesting for Seven Days to examine how it works and report its findings.
I suppose it was inevitable. These intransigent locals have been a thorn in the side of the VT SED, to my first-hand experience, ever since I first began working on school facilities needs studies back in the distant early 60’s.
Martin Harris ( now safely in Jonesborough, TN)
Consolidating power in the hands of bureaucrats, superintendents, and minions operating ever farther from the schools and classrooms they govern doesnt foster equity or quality. All it promotes is inappropriately uniform, one-size-fits-all regulations and policies. When are Vermonters going to realize that schools have become so expensive because of the mandates and initiatives forced on them from above? Yet these are the same administrative officials and state bureaucracies in whom consolidation would vest even more power..The last thing we should do is surrender more authority to remote officials who have proven the most inclined to inflate costs and the least competent to ensure the quality of our childrens education. Weathersfield schoolteacher Peter Berger (VTDigger 3/25/15)
Would Designing OUR Future be beneficial?
How might this benefit THEIR Future?
This is about the students and their future.
Other priorities should include: stricter background checks conducted on anyone working in this field, water testing, safety and security upgrades in the schools.
This would be the sad and unfortunate but inevitable result of Vermont Supreme Court’s seemingly well-intentioned but disastrous decision in Brigham in 1997. A case intentionally brought by ACLU and people allied with them to break the back of local control of schools. Vermont Democratic Party’s reaction was to create Act 60 and consolidate school funding control to Montpelier. Democratic Governor Howard Dean signed Act 60 into law.
School funding and property tax formula is so complicated that, as one state senator admitted to me, only a handful of people in entire state understand it. Even Dave Sharpe of Bristol, outgoing chair of House Committee on Education, did not fully understand it. He provided inaccurate advice to school districts at budget time when they were trying to formulate budgets in response to Act 60, Act 68, Act 46, etc. When property taxpayers receive bills, there’s zero transparency to explain how much of your taxes goes to fund your own school district; versus how much goes to Montpelier to be redistributed around state (or, in turn, zero transparency if your school district is “short” and thus receiving bonus from property taxpayers in other districts as subsidy).
While I understand Governor Scott’s hands are tied by disastrous Brigham decision and he is merely reacting to what Vermont Supreme Court and ACLU unleashed, wouldn’t better strategy be to try and overturn Brigham? Or for state legislature to pursue constitutional amendment to delete the provision of state constitution that Supreme Court relied on for Brigham? Legislature reportedly seeking other changes to state constitution, some of which have negligible real-world impact on Vermonters (unlike our insane school funding system). Why not deal with this and return school funding decisions and control back to where it belongs-local taxpayers? Like vast majority of other 49 states.
Sounds familiar- the Commissar at teh top and everybvody else on their knees before him.
Scott/Koch Brothers’ dream world.
There are 264 school districts in VT serving 90k students. Let’s say the average Superintendent makes $110,000/yr. That’s almost 30 million dollars, just on salary. Add another ten mill for benefits, we’re at 40mill. Reduce to 4 districts, we’re at $800,000/yr. Then factor in all the employees at these supervisory unions. The cost associated with this is astronomical. Hire CEO/business people as Superintendents instead of figureheads. You know, people who are experienced with working with millions of dollars. Budgeting would look a lot different. Instead of feel good, do nothing employees (some); we would have actual workers that are held accountable. This local control crap is ridiculous and costs a ton. For those crying about the cost of living in VT, this is a big part of the problem.
Building on Lucas’s point, the superintendent of schools in NYC makes about $300,000. The NYC district has about 10 times more kids than all of Vermont.
It seems pretty clear to me that Vermont is wasting HUGE amounts of money on school administration.
Having said that, however, it is still possible to continue to respect Vermont’s passionately held tradition of local control, by separating purely administrative tasks from those involving curriculum development, pedagogical choices, etc.
In other words, I see no a priori reason why Vermont can’t do both: continue to maintain local school board control of non-administrative questions and consolidate the administration into one district (why 4?).
Vast amounts of money could also be saved by consolidating the purchasing of school supplies. NH already does it. It is FAR cheaper to supply one buyer than 250, so huge savings should be available by doing so. There is absolutely no reason to buy paper by the case instead of the truckload, to cite just one example. When I was in the business years ago, the difference in price would have been right around 50%. That’s a LOT of money just being burned.
The only solution is to throw more money at it.
So what if we look at costs compared to test scores or employability. so what if we see that administration costs everywhere in the us has ballooned over the years.
The solution is just one more try, with a few extra million this time.
This time, it’ll work for sure!
The education system in the state is an over priced failure. The cost continues to increase while the test scores don’t show improvements. People of other towns and cities should not be paying for school districts that don’t want to consolidate. I say if they don’t want to consolidate then they should pay for the cost of the operations of their own school, not on my taxes to pay for a school 100 miles away.