Lots to do to reform education, not much time to do it

I’m on the House Government Operations and Military Affairs Committee. Friday, we had a joint meeting with the Senate Government Operations Committee. Deputy Secretary of State Lauren Hibbert and Elections Director Seán Sheehan were there, too, to talk to us about what needs to happen elections-wise if we were to implement Governor Scott’s education reform plan — specifically, what they need and what we need to do in order to create a voting system for the new school districts.

It was kind of wild. We were talking about forming voting districts, essentially, which would be the new school districts, but we don’t know how many there will be or where they’ll be. We talked about forming wards within those districts so we can vote for school board members, but we don’t know how many wards there will be and we don’t think they’ll be called school boards anymore. We also don’t know when we’ll be voting on school budgets, but we have to figure out before June how that voting will work.

It’s like someone asking you to create a menu for a gourmet dinner, but you have no idea what ingredients you’ll have. Or it’s like a twisted version of the Iron Chef, and the ingredients we have are cans of expired refried beans and boxes of Kraft Mac and Cheese.

As the governor and Interim Secretary of Education Zoie Saunders slowly roll out his plan to reform education and education funding in Vermont, one thing is clear: Slowly is too slow. We typically adjourn in mid-May, which means that three months from now, we need to have a concrete plan in place if we have any hope of implementing this in two years, which the governor said is his goal. 

We don’t even have the plan in bill form yet. Once there’s a bill, there will be committee hearings in both the House and Senate, both education committees, government operations in both chambers, Ways and Means in the House, Finance in the Senate, Appropriations in both chambers. Those hearings will involve testimony from dozens and dozens of experts on all kinds of topics relating to education outcomes, classroom size and school choice experts, budgeting and taxes, municipal elections, teachers and administrators and students and a lot of other important interested parties. 

I don’t see how it’s going to happen, but I guess it will. We don’t really have a choice. I do wish this plan was presented all at once in January, the first week we came back, so we could have the entire session to work on it. Letting us know in February that school choice is going to be a feature of this new plan was, in my opinion, not cool.

Here’s my problem with school choice: The governor’s plan allows each school district to designate a choice school that students from the entire district can then apply to by lottery. Private schools are eligible to be a choice school; they would then get money from the state for each student that gets in by lottery. If private schools start getting money that should be going toward supporting and bolstering our public school system, the public schools are going to suffer. And when the public schools don’t get adequate funding or participation from a diverse group of students, schools are going to start being perceived as “good” or “bad” and then inequity creeps in and eventually decimates public education. 

This seems dramatic, but I recently went to a conference with legislators from around the country and a state representative from Delaware told me, when I was discussing my fears that we were moving in this direction, that school choice destroyed public education in her state.

I want our students to be academically successful. I wish there were a way to provide better social services and mental health support to students using money from outside of the education fund so that we could use all our school budget money for education alone. But that’s not where we are right now.

As we draw the lines for new school districts and figure out how to create an election system for an education system that doesn’t exist yet, I’m keeping the students at the forefront of my mind. I went to Charlotte Central School and Champlain Valley Union High; my kids went to CCS and two are still at CVU. Many things have changed over the years, and we’re obviously getting a big shake-up in the years to come. I just hope we’re going to come out at the end with something that’s affordable and manageable but also does what we’re supposed to do: educate these kids.

If you have questions or concerns, I can be reached at 917-887-8231 or by email.