Dear Members of the Vermont General Assembly,

We urge you to prioritize and refine the work of the Act 73 Task Force. Their start towards evidence-based education reform is the right direction for Vermont. The shift toward shared services and away from top down, state mandated mega districts is clearly the most effective plan to date, but it does not yet go far enough to meet the scale and urgency of our affordability crisis.

We share the strong public opposition to forced mergers and small school closures that the Task Force heard. The data does not support this type of consolidation and there is considerable risk of losing time, energy, and political capital implementing the wrong fix for our education challenges.

We also agree that learning happens in classrooms, not in the 52 central offices that exist today. To maximize cost-savings and minimize student disruptions, we need to look there.

Everyone wants answers about why property taxes are going up another 12% next year. Some blame small schools, some blame administrative overhead, some blame legislative inaction regarding our education funding system and school governance.

Sadly this news was inevitable. While the Legislature, the Governor, and local Vermonters negotiate over what the next iteration of public education looks like in our state, they bought down property taxes last year using one-time monies. The Governor and the Legislature were both in alignment on this, but these one-time funds[1] created a $98 million hole for property taxes to fill in FY2027 (which is the 2026/2027 school year) before schools even spent a dollar more.

Vermonters have always valued education as the cornerstone of our communities—places where children learn not just facts, but the grit that comes with rural life and the kindness to lend a hand to a neighbor. I remember my own school days: lessons in reading, arithmetic, as well as those that went beyond the textbooks. Vermont education has worked for generations because it was accountable—to parents, to townsfolk, to the shared stake we all hold in our kids' futures.

Today, that foundation feels unsteady. Our public schools remain vital to our towns, yet they're caught in a troubling bind: declining student outcomes amid escalating costs that strain budgets and drive families out of our state. Enrollment has dropped 20% over the past two decades, leaving echoing hallways and underutilized resources, while education spending tops $2.4 billion annually; more per pupil than nearly every other state. All the while, students are struggling to achieve the same outcomes they did just a decade ago.

Governor Scott says the Act 73 School Redistricting Task Force “failed” because it refused to deliver a mandatory consolidation map that would force Vermont into a handful of mega-districts. Respectfully, I disagree with this assessment.

PRESS RELEASE:

Campaign for Vermont Publishes Report on Savings Provided by Shared Education Services

Non-profit seeking to grow VT’s middle class finds education savings while expanding services for students.

MONTPELIER, VERMONT - This week, Campaign for Vermont Prosperity (CFV) published a report titled "Finding Savings Through Shared Services in Vermont Schools." The report focuses on leveraging Education Service Agencies (ESAs) to improve the efficiency of services being provided to students. A policy recommendation the organization put out in March recommended moving to this model, but the latest report put a number on the cost-savings potential. The Act 73 Task Force voted on Monday to advance a similar ESA model as their recommendation to the Legislature.

Education Agency Admits A Years-Long Failure As Student Performance Nosedives

Vermont elementary school students’ reading scores have fallen below the national average and show no sign of trending back upward. Mississippi on the other hand has ascended to a level above the national average after many years of serious under-performance.

We (Ben and I) attended an event last week hosted by Let's Build Homes. The room was full of different voices, including banks, local businesses, developers, chambers of commerce, statewide politicians, utility companies, local broadcasters, and nonprofits. It was a coalition of people and organizations that recognized the dire need for housing in our state. In a little under a year, this coalition has already changed the housing landscape in Vermont by passing the historic CHIP bill. But, there is more work to do. Regulatory changes are needed to guarantee predictability for developers and unlock private investment from out of state that is sorely needed in order to truly grow and modernize our housing stock. We also need to find innovative ways to bring down the cost of construction for "affordable" state subsidized housing units. We need to cut the $500 per square foot cost of construction in half. In our 2025 research priorities, we are looking at one way of pursuing that.

Ah, the eternal tug-of-war between "things were better back in my day" and "look how far we've come." Art Woolf's latest Substack dispatch, "Things Are Better Today, Really," offers a counterpoint to claims of wage stagnation since the 1970s by populists like Bernie Sanders. Woolf highlights a 34% real increase in median family income from $79,000 in 1969 to $105,800 in 2023 (adjusted dollars), and a 20% rise in median household income to $83,000 over that same period. He also emphasizes qualitative improvements — ­­such as advancements in consumer goods and medical technology —­ which inflation metrics often understate, that lead to an improved quality of life.

Rising health care costs in Vermont have emerged as a pressing economic and social challenge, with an outsized impact on working families across the state. As premiums and out-of-pocket expenses surge well above national averages, many households are grappling with financial strain that extends beyond medical bills to influence decisions on housing, education, and daily necessities.