Act 46, an education reform bill, was a response to calls for property tax relief and the curbing of growth in statewide education spending. While the law was well-intentioned, it missed the mark and will have the opposite effect.
Here are just some of the burdens local school boards, parents and taxpayers will face this Fall through Town Meeting Day due to Act 46.
Higher Property Taxes: Among schools districts that might pursue Act 46’s consolidation offer there will be a range of spending per pupil amounts. School spending per pupil among adjacent school districts typically ranges in the thousands of dollars. For example, for fiscal 2016 Calais spends $15,131 on average per each of its 133 students while neighboring East Montpelier spends on average $20,160 per each of its 205 students. It is wishful thinking to believe that East Montpelier will allow its spending level to be diminished or that Calais will not seek additional spending should they decide to merge. This is especially true given the temporary tax rate subsidies that will mask for a few years any spending increases of merged districts.
Given the statewide nature of the property tax system, school districts that decide to preserve their local school and are effectively managed and have no inherent need for consolidation will end up paying higher property taxes to support the higher spending and tax subsidies allowed under Act 46 for school districts that merge, whether or not these merged districts are effectively managed.
Inequitable Spending Caps: The temporary, two year spending caps are a mathematical derivative that is blind to actual school district needs. An historically high spending district may well absorb the restraints of the cap while a lower spending district may need more than the cap allows due to particularly local circumstances. Local school boards who best know local circumstances are better regulators of the ups and downs of local needs rather than an arbitrary, mathematically derived cap that allows different school districts access to educational resources independent of a child’s or districts educational needs.
Further the cap is derived from legislatively manufactured data. For example, “equalized pupils”, a legislatively created substitute for an actual student count, are used in the calculation of the cap. Yet, across Vermont’s school districts there is a wide variance of the relationship between equalized pupils to actual students. For example, the number of equalized pupils assigned to Lincoln and Moretown, equals 84 percent of the actual students in the district while the ratios for Rochester and Canaan are 125 percent and 128 percent respectively. Further, the system of “equalized pupils” is based upon confidential information at the Agency of Human Services such that the calculation of “equalized pupils” cannot be independently verified. Similar problems exist with the legislatively crafted term “education spending”, which on average only accounts for 78 percent of total school budgets.
Given the above, the caps are inequitable. Further, even if they were fair and effective spending controls, they will only exist for two years after which they sunset, returning taxpayers to the same failed, unfair and byzantine system that fosters the current education funding mess.
Bigger Isn’t Necessarily Better: The distribution of school districts by size is not a determinant of student academic outcomes. Certainly anecdotal examples of solid student outcomes at large districts can be acknowledged but so can’t examples of weak student outcomes at large school districts be highlighted. In the end, on an overall basis, school district size is not a determinant of student outcomes when viewed across the entire population of Vermont’s school districts. In comparing school district size to academic outcomes, as measured by test scores across all Vermont school districts and using Agency of Education data, Campaign for Vermont found the following:
“NECAP test scores appear unrelated to both school district ADM and Equalized Pupil counts except for a possible very slight relationship for 11th grade math. The Burlington school district with 3,944 students, for example, has test results similar to Royalton with 320 students. Again, this finding does not speak favorably to the concept that large consolidated school district’s offer students greater educational opportunity than smaller school districts.”
“NECAP test scores appear unrelated to levels of total spending per pupil, whether ADM or Equalized Pupils. Eden, for example, spends $20,074 per ADM with 3-8th grade math and reading proficiencies of 56.2% and 62.53% respectively. Pomfret spends about the same at $20,577 but achieves proficiencies of 89.5% for math and 100% for reading.”
Further, large school districts are not necessarily better managed. Just look at the largest consolidated school district in the state, the City of Burlington, to find an expensive per pupil district ($20,124 per pupil), running large operational deficits and unable to hire a new school superintendent because of poorly researched work visa requirements.
A Blow to Local Control and Local Democracy: Vermont’s constitution first gives direction to towns to maintain schools with the legislature provided with back-up authorities. Article 68 reads:
“and a competent number of schools ought to be maintained in each town unless the general assembly permits other provisions for the convenient instruction of youth”
Once size-fits- all school districts of no less than 900 students were not envisioned by Vermont’s founders. Vermont has certainly changed over time but there is no need for the state legislature to eviscerate local school districts, especially those that are competently run. Whenever possible, local parents and taxpayers should guide the availability of education resources and the associated tax burdens while assuring that this balance is within the requirements of the Brigham decision. Act 46 further separates parents and taxpayers from guiding their students’ education as originally anticipated in Vermont’s constitution. The Vermont legislature has engineered an almost complete take-over of Vermont’s education system and its $1.5 billion budget to the detriment of local parents and taxpayers.
School Choice Undermined: While school choice has been an option chosen by almost 90 Vermont school districts, Act 46 has muddied the water regarding this option and some might say intentionally so. School choice has been an area of controversy, opposed by some advocates of only a public school system. As this Vermont Digger article reveals along with its comments, school choice or parts thereof maybe on the chopping block, further undermining the options of parents and students as to where to attend school.
An example: http://vtdigger.org/2015/08/18/windsor-southeast-mulls-school-choice-options/
Conclusion: Act 46 is a destructive and detrimental piece of legislation founded upon the false premise that consolidation will yield more cost effective educational outcomes for students. In fact, Act 46 is structured to induce additional spending, increase property taxes, undermine local parent and taxpayer involvement in their school district and isolate and fiscally punish well managed small and medium sized school districts that choose not to merge.
Come February and March, state education administrators, and state law makers will come to the realization that Act 46 is detrimental to Vermont’s educational infrastructure, parents and taxpayers and overall not well received. Alternative options were presented to the Legislature but these fell by the wayside as so much else has at the State House in recent years.
Please join the campaign to repeal Act 46, and contribute to the Act 46 Challenge Fund.
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