Category: News

We read with interest that citizens in North Country, Rutland, the Capital area, Barre, the Mad River Valley, and Windsor county have taken it upon themselves to discuss various forms of redistricting and sharing of administrative services. They anticipate, perhaps, that change is coming, and they want to get out in front of it. Their conversations include several topics that may be important for the improvement of public education in Vermont:

Educational Entities
They realize that the number of overlapping educational entities in their area: Towns, Villages, School Boards, Supervisory Unions, Supervisory Districts, and CTE Centers, may be not necessary and might be ripe for reduction.

K-12 community cohesion
No matter what happens at the state level, they want to preserve the K-12 curriculum cohesion and democratic community control that they have worked so hard to nourish.

Shared services
They realize that some services such as transportation, special education, accounting, purchasing, payroll, technical education, insurance, and health services are more efficiently handled not by each district alone, by some kind of cooperative arrangement among them, such as Boards of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES).

Focus on students
They want to be sure that whatever is done focuses first on the improvement of a student’s educational journey, and isn’t distracted by all the talk of tax policy, consolidation, private school tuitions, and state control.

State officials involved in the current committees and task forces surrounding educational reform might be wise to keep an ear to the ground and take cognizance of these grass-roots discussions.

Here is the charge to the Redistricting Task Force from Act 73. Is it humanly possible to concoct a plan that meets all these criteria?

Three options
In consultation with the Commission on the Future of Public Education, the Task Force shall study and consider different configurations for school district consolidation and propose not more than three options for new school district boundaries.

Restrictions

At least one boundary proposal recommendation shall consider the use of supervisory unions and supervisory districts, allow for the continuation of a tuitioning system that provides continued access to independent schools that have served geographic areas that do not operate public schools for the grades served by the independent schools, and to the extent practical, not separate geographic areas that contain nonoperating school districts as such districts exist on July 1, 2025.

Proposed new school districts or supervisory unions and supervisory
districts shall:

•   have, to the extent practical, an average daily membership of not fewer than approximately 4,000 and not more than 8,000 prekindergarten through grade 12 students.
•   be, to the greatest extent possible, grand list and pupil-count balanced, demographically equitable, logistically feasible, and create the least amount of disruption to students as possible.

In creating the proposed districts, the Task Force shall consider the following:

•   current school district and town boundaries and other historic and current community connections, including access to regional services for students, such as designated agencies;
•   geographic barriers, including mountains and rivers;
•   population distribution;
•   location, capacity, and the facility condition index score of current school buildings;
•   transportation and employment patterns and practices;
•   grand list values accounting for the homestead exemption and current education spending;
•   student demographics;
•   the debt, liabilities, and assets of current school districts;
•   staffing levels and salary scales;
•   opportunities to support local elementary schools, central middle schools, and regional high schools, with the least disruption to students;
•   access to career and technical education (CTE) for all eligible students;
•   the maximization of cost efficiencies;
•   the location of schools and CTE centers; and
•   any other factors the Task Force deems relevant.

It is perhaps interesting that no mention is made of improving the quality of education for students.

The Redistricting Task Force created by Act 73 met in Waterbury on the morning of August 1. Here is a summary of the meeting.

08:30 Elected Sen. Martine Gulick and Rep. Edye Graning as co-chairs.
Members introduced themselves.

08:45 Legislative Counsel reviewed Act 73 and the charge of the task force.

09:10 Members articulated their goals:

What problem are we trying to solve?

• Judge David Wolk: Aim at creating better education for students regardless of zip code.
• Sen. Scott Beck: Governance and excellence that makes sense and offers options.
• Jay Badams: Consider declining enrollment and increasing costs.
• Rep. Beth Quinby: Reduce upheaval and chaos in education policy
• Chris Locarno: Preserve local schools.
• Sen. Harrison: Keep local schools; coordinate better with CTE; don’t hurt what’s working well.
• Sen. Gulick: Equitable services to all .
• Rep Graning: Make data-driven decisions.
• Judge Wolk: Identify the drivers of high costs.
• Kim Gleason: Focus on the journey of a student Pre-K 12, align schools to that journey.
• Jen Botzojorns : Gather local information.
• Rep.Holcomb: Design something practical and achievable? Not more unimplementable ideas.

What do we hope to achieve?
– Create three maps.
– Identify cost drivers.
– Identify best practices. Build on what we are doing well.
– Identify success from collective action among districts.
– Design cohesive PreK-12 experiences for students.
– How will we define success? Low taxes? Educational opportunity? Outcomes?
– Avoid going beyond our mission. Focus on our assigned tasks.
– Put together maps that are practical and passable.
– Does consolidation save money?
– Our task will require some hard choices and sacrifices, and so we must involve the public.
– Our task will require perhaps more time than has been allocated.
– Identify what legislation will need to be changed.

What data do we need?
– Vermont demographic trends for future student population. And where.
– How many school districts is enough?
– We want maps with overlays. Where kids live, and where they go to school.
– We need access to all the existing data on school buildings.
– Data on the capacity of the Agency of Education, and what support will be needed in the future.
– Projections of optimized school locations.
– CTE sending patterns. List of approved private schools.
– Teacher and principal turnover data.
– Clarity on educational outcomes: how do we measure benefit to students?
– What is an adequate number of educational entities?
– Data on BOCES-type shared services.

09:51 Secretary Saunders explains process of filling AOE positions.

09:55 Discussion of Task Force’s connection with the Commission on the Future of Education.
What questions should they be asking the public?
– What is important to preserve in our schools?
– What are their hopes for the future?
– School boards want to tell us what they think — we should create a – communication channel(s).
– What do you value in our current system? (Not structures but values.)
– What specific aspects of local control are most important to you?

General comments
– We need to summarize our work without jargon, so we are transparent.
– We now have an official Task Force email: ADM.Redistricting@vermont.gov
– And a website: https://aoa.vermont.gov/school-district-redistricting-task-force
– We are acting for the entire state, not just our town or school.

10:05 Break

Hiring a Facilitator
10:12 Secretary of Administration Clark explains process of hiring a facilitator(s).
10:21 Task force suggests a simplified bid process. Authorizes chairs to work with Secretary Clark to develop a bid.
Discusses scope of work for facilitator:
– Summaries of meetings.
– Plans outreach.
– Writes the final report.
– Develops a work plan and calendar, working backward from the final report.
– Gets materials to members well in advance.
Make sure the facilitator has extensive experience in Vermont public education.

Data Tools
10:30 Sec of Digital services Hughes and GIS chief John Allen introduce “District Builder” data tool.
10:41 Discussion of the data tools.

Future meetings
10:43 Discussion of future meetings.
Agree on sIx-hour meetings, starting at 09:30, In different locations. Will coordinate calendars.

Public comments

• Sue Ceglowski, VSBA exec. Commit to fairness, equity, transparency, public involvement. Recognize your flexibility. Preserve community engagement. Don’t add disruption.
• Cheryl Charles, Westminster school board, and Rural School Alliance. Supports supervisory unions and preservation of rural schools.
• April Palmer, South Hero parent, advocates not closing schools.
• Jen Lyon-Horne, parent and school counselor, South Hero, questions the speed of this process.
• Shantee Parchment, parent in South Hero, promotes safety.
• Rachel Sweeney, South Burlington, advocates smaller classes.
• Dylan Degree, South Hero, advocates keeping small schools open.
• Julie Mach, Pawlet, consider cost analysis of SU vs. SD, advocates tuitioning.

11:04 adjourn

The Friends of Vermont Public Education have accused Senators Seth Bongartz of Bennington County, and Scott Beck of Caledonia, of violating Vermont’s ethics laws in their work on the education reform bill. Bongartz is closely connected with the Burr & Burton Seminary of Manchester, and Beck is an employee of the St. Johnsbury Academy, both private schools that will benefit mightily from the amendments that the two Senators attached to the bill in its final hours.

What is a conflict of interest?
Under Vermont law, a conflict of interest means “a direct or indirect interest of a public servant … in the outcome of a particular matter pending before the public servant…”

When faced with a possible conflict of interest…
The ethics law states, “In the public servant’s official capacity, the public servant shall avoid any conflict of interest or the appearance of a conflict of interest…public servants faced with a conflict, or the appearance of a conflict, shall publicly recuse themselves from the matter in question.”

Did Senators Bongartz and Beck recuse themselves?
No. They did the opposite, requesting seats on the Committee of Conference for H.454, the education reform bill, that contained several provisions for sending public taxpayer money to private schools such as theirs. Both actively participated in altering the language of the bill so as to benefit private schools in general, and their two private schools in particular.

How is the ethics law enforced?
By the State Ethics Commission, which “shall accept complaints from any source regarding governmental ethics in any of the three branches of State government…” In this case, “If the complaint is in regard to conduct committed by a State Senator, the Executive Director shall refer the complaint to the Senate Ethics Panel and shall request a report back from the Panel regarding the final disposition of the complaint.”

The Senate Ethics Panel shall “receive and investigate allegations of ethical violations of senators…and…recommend to the Senate any disciplinary action against a senator for an ethical or discriminatory violation…”

What’s the punishment?
The Ethics Commission “may issue warnings, reprimands, and recommended actions… if it finds that, by a preponderance of the evidence, the public servant committed unethical conduct.”

Many Vermonters will be watching closely as the complaint from the Friends of Vermont Public Education works its way through the State Ethics Commission and the Senate Ethics Panel.

Charles, David, and Bill Koch fought long and hard over their father’s massive inheritance of hundreds of billions of dollars. Their private fortune would be enough to pay for all of public education in Vermont for 72 years. David is dead now, but his spirit lives on in its posthumous quest for rich folks to pay less in taxes, and at the same time for them to be able to use public funds to send their kids to private schools where they need not mingle with the riff-raff. His ghost and family money are embodied now in Americans for Prosperity, a lobbying group and PAC funded with their legacies.

What do they have to do with the recent flare-up of education reform in Vermont? Plenty.

Here’s a timeline of recent events and facts that might paint the picture for you.

April 10, 2024

Governor Scott nominates Zoie Saunders, from the CharterSchoolsUSA company of Florida, a for-profit private school operator closely connected with the Koch Brothers, to be Vermont’s Secretary of Education. She is not confirmed by the Senate, but he keeps her on anyway.

May 20, 2024

Governor Scott appoints Jason Maulucci, formerly head of the Young Republicans at UVM, to be his campaign manager. While Jason was heading up the Young Republicans, Ross Connolly served as New England Field Director of Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity.

June 7, 2024 

Americans For Prosperity (AFP) Regional Director Ross Connolly speaks at a campaign meeting in Barre hosted by the Vermont Young Republicans, and meets with Governor Scott’s staff.

Summer 2024

Vermont hires Picus, Odden, and Augenblick, an out-of-state consulting firm, to identify adequate spending levels for Vermont schools. It’s not clear who paid for this study.

September 10, 2024 

VTDigger reports that “Americans for Prosperity has been ramping up its activity in Vermont over the past year, and the group’s multi-thousand dollar ad campaign against the Legislature’s clean heat standard is just one of its efforts in the state. The group — founded by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch — has deep ties to the oil and gas industry.”

Fall 2024

Virginia-based Americans for Prosperity spends $68,000 on campaigns and lobbying in Vermont, according to the Secretary of State’s Office.

September 11, 2024

Governor Scott appoints Jason Maulucci as his Director of Policy Development and legislative affairs.

September 15, 2024

Picus, Odden, and Augenblick deliver a report to the state, saying that Vermont needs only $12,000 per student per year for an adequate education. At that point our average spending was $20,000.

Fall 2024

Governor Scott , Saunders, and Maulucci prepare, in secret, his education reform plan. With whose help it is not known.

Fall 2024

Americans for Prosperity reviews the Governor’s (secret) plan.

January 25, 2025

Picus and Odden testify to the Vermont House Ways and Means committee that Vermont’s public school funding should be cut by at least 25%.

January 27, 2025

AFP issues a press release lauding the Governor’s (still secret) education plan because it lowers taxes and allows public funds for private schools. “We thank Governor Scott for his approach to education funding and his commitment to streamlining school governance…a positive step toward achieving education freedom in the Green Mountain State… We know education freedom is within reach.” See https://americansforprosperity.org/press-release/afp-applauds-governor-scotts-education-proposal-as-a-building-block-for-education-freedom/

January 28, 2025

The Governor and Secretary of Education show slides of his (surprise!) education plan to some members of the General Assembly.

February 6, 2025

The House Education Committee receives a written version of the Governor’s plan.

February 2025

The Governor’s plan falls like a lead balloon into the General Assembly and the minds of many Legislators and Vermonters.

January-April 2025

AFP hires five (5) lobbyists and spends more than $25,000 lobbying the Vermont General Assembly.

March 5, 2025

AFP’s Ross Connolly reports to the Vermont Chronicle that “It’s disappointing that the legislative majority in Montpelier is refusing to address the very real problems Vermonters face today.”

April 9, 2025

AFP’s newsletter states that “Vermont is unaffordable and they want real solutions, not mandates and tax hikes. Governor Phil Scott and Republicans in the Legislature put forth many thoughtful solutions to Vermont’s most pressing problems. The Progressive majority failed to prioritize these real solutions.”

April 26, 2025 

Right-wing financier Myers Mermel buys WDEV in Waterbury. Ross Connolly, Regional Director of Americans for Prosperity, a conservative libertarian advocacy group, is hired as host of WDEV’s show, Vermont Viewpoint.

June 2, 2025

AFP’s newsletter “commends Governor Scott for his steady commitment to improving the lives of Vermonters, despite the legislature’s failure to act. We remain committed to working on behalf of taxpayers to reduce government spending, [and] deliver education freedom…”

June 16, 2025

The General Assembly passes an education reform bill that reduces education support, lowers taxes, and sends more public money to private schools. In fact, the bill as passed would allow all of the schools in the for-profit Koch brothers’ Charter Schools USA network in Florida, for instance, to claim public tuition payments from Vermont. Governor Scott says he’ll sign it.

David must be smiling in his grave. Charles likely jumps with joy. Bill is probably out on his sailboat.

I have just finished reading the 154-page education reform bill as it emerged from the conference committee on Friday afternoon. In style, it combines the stream-of-consciousness of James Joyce with the non-sequiturs of Lewis Carroll. But not as much fun to read. It doesn’t do much to improve education. Instead it:

• sets up eight boards and commissions and task forces, 
• sets minimum class sizes, 
• proposes we reduce spending to $15,000 per student,
• calls for districts of 4000 to 8000 students each,
• expands the privileges of private schools,
• encourages over-identification of special ed students, 
• spends over $4 million to administer its implementation.

Eight new boards and commissions

The bill creates a plethora of boards, commissions, task forces, advisory groups, working groups, and steering groups, with overlapping tasks.

Commission on the Future of Public Education in Vermont

“There is hereby created the Commission on the Future of Public Education in Vermont…The Commission shall cease to exist on December 31, 2025.” Now this commission already exists, yet it is re-created in this bill, reduced in scope, and given another six months to live. During its short lifetime, it was denied information and support from the Agency of Education, ignored by the Governor, and frustrated by the politicization of its mission. Why are we creating it again?

Commission Steering group

“On or before July 1, 2024, the Speaker of the House shall appoint two members of the Commission, the Committee on Committees shall appoint two members of the Commission, and the Governor shall appoint two members of the Commission to serve as members of a steering group.” The bill calls for something to happen in the past, for a commission that seems no longer serve any purpose. Why is this in the bill?

School District Redistricting Task Force

“There is created the School District Redistricting Task Force to recommend new school district boundaries and configurations to the General Assembly…On or before December 1, 2025, the Task Force shall submit a written report …The Task Force shall cease to exist on June 30, 2026.”  How does this task force not duplicate the work of the Commission mentioned above?  $120,000 is allocated to support their work.

School District Voting Ward Working Group  

“There is created the School District Voting Ward Working Group to create voting district wards within the new school districts…The Task Force shall cease to exist on June 30, 2026.“ So how can we create voting wards within the new districts before we have defined the new districts? How many new entities will this add to our already bloated school governance system?  $215,000 is allocated to support their work.

The State Board of Education

The bill re-establishes the already-existing State Board, with new membership and powers, and directs it to “initiate rulemaking to amend the Education Quality Standards.” Standards which do not exist at the moment. $200,000 is allocated for this re-establishment. And how is the work of the Board different from that of the Commission, the Steering Group, the Task Force, the Advisory Committees, the Agency, and the Working Group?

State Aid for School Construction Advisory Board

“There is hereby created the State Aid for School Construction Advisory Board, which shall advise the Agency on the implementation of the State Aid for School Construction Program.” School construction aid has not existed for 20 years, but it might be a good idea to allocate some funds for this purpose before setting up yet another board to administer it.

Education Fund Advisory Committee 

“There is created the Education Fund Advisory Committee to monitor Vermont’s education financing system.” Already the legislative committees on Education, Ways and Means, and Finance; and the Agency of Education; and the Department of Taxes, are charged with this task. Perhaps adding another set of eyes will increase efficiency here.

Regional Assessment District Stakeholder Working Group

This has nothing to do with educational assessment, rather it’s a new set of agencies, one in each region, to coordinate listers’ property assessments across the state. It seems like they forgot to appropriate money for this new group. 

It looks like we’re going to see lots of cooks in the Education Reform kitchen. Including one just to hold the stakes. What are the chances they’ll win a Michelin star?

Education quality

The bill mentions the importance of “Education Quality Standards” nine times, but the only specific standard listed is the minimum class size requirement grade by grade. Yet there is no research that suggests larger class sizes increase educational quality. In fact the opposite is true. Is the setting of class sizes best done by the legislature? This important policy has long been the prerogative of local school boards. I can find nothing else in the bill that would increase the quality of our schools.

Education funding

After a four-year phase in, the bill allows districts to spend up to $15,000 per student, but no more than that. For 99.9% of our students, this represents a considerable reduction from current levels. Today spending averages $20,000 per student. Only one district, Morgan, with 40 students, spends less than $15,000. The bill thus reduces public support for education by 25%. How can this approach improve educational quality? And for those of you interested in evidence-based legislation, know that spending is highly correlated with educational quality.

Large districts

The bill mandates districts of 4000 to 8000 students each. None of our districts in Vermont is this big. And the national research says that the highest quality (and lowest costs) are associated with districts of 2000 to 4000 students. A 5000-student district in the Northeast Kingdom, for instance, would stretch from Jay to Canaan to Lyndonville and take 3.5 hours to drive around. There is no evidence, nationally or in Vermont, that larger districts are less costly than smaller ones. To meet this mandate, every existing district in Vermont, even those that produce excellent results at reasonable costs, would need to be dismantled and rebuilt.

Private schools

Because the private school lobby spent lots of money at the State House this session, and because two of the six members of the Conference Committee work at private schools, the bill showers them with gifts. It’s bad enough that we currently send $60 million of taxpayer dollars each year in tuition payments to private schools, including religious schools, with no accountability; the reform bill would open the floodgates further. It would allow more taxpayer money to go to more private schools — just about any private school, anywhere, including, in the language of the bill:

• an approved independent school; 
• an independent school meeting education quality standards; 
• a tutorial program approved by the State Board; 
• an approved education program;  
• a public school located in another state; 
• a therapeutic approved independent school located in Vermont or another state or country;

In addition, it would allow these schools a bonus of $750 per student over what’s provided to public schools. And two of the private schools — St. Johnsbury Academy and Burr & Burton — would be able to charge as much as they wanted in tuition. Which at current levels exceeds the state’s per-student allocation by $10,000. I wonder why these two private schools are singled out for special treatment? See The Academies. See Vermont Ethics Code, section 1203 on conflicts of interest.

Why are we doing this? How does this strengthen our public schools?

Special education

While the bill calls for the development of a strategic plan to overhaul special education — the second largest driver of increased costs — it at the same time incentivizes the over-identification of students. It calls for each student in special ed Category C to get $37,350 per year, and expands the category to include not only blind and deaf students but also anyone on the “autism spectrum.” This offers a clear financial incentive for a district to include as many students as possible in this category. And since the diagnosis of autism is fraught with inconsistencies, we have seen a tripling of identifications in the last decade. In some Vermont districts, almost a third of the students are so identified, far above the national averages. Lead us not into temptation.

Administrative costs

The bill proposes a six-year timeline for its implementation, and in the first year calls for an appropriation of over $4 million to pay for the administrative costs of the various boards, commissions, advisory groups, consultants, studies, and clerks.( But no money for school improvement.) Here is the list of expenditures:

• Adds $2.8 million to AOE budget for 2026 for administrative expenses. Five new positions.
• Spends  $150,000 for a strategic plan for special ed.
• Spends $400,000 for consultants to determine the per-student payment.
• Spends $150,000 for a study of the income sensitivity of the property tax.
• Spends $200,000 to update the State Board’s rules.
• Spends $170,000 to support the Redistricting Task Force.

Taxation

The bill further complicates the already unpredictable statewide and local property tax system by adding new categories to the homestead exemption and income sensitivity. Why are we setting forth a tax system before we know where the districts will be? And the bill does nothing to expand the tax base so as to focus on ability to pay.

Conclusion

This bill will reduce educational quality in Vermont by cutting spending by 25%, adding more task forces and boards to an already confused governance model, increasing class size, and creating large districts that don’t fit Vermont’s communities. It’s also very difficult to read. And expensive.

Many organizations are involved in the operation, governance, and funding of Vermont public schools today. Hundreds of them. We enjoy:

• 153 school districts, many (but not all of which) operate schools.
• 50 union school districts that combine towns or districts to operate schools.
• 53 supervisory unions that provide administrative services to some districts.
• 251 towns, that collect the property taxes that form the bulk of school funding.
• 2 interstate school districts.
• 4 private academies that serve as public schools.
• 1 Agency of Education
• 1 State Board of Education
• 2 Legislative Education Committees

That’s 517 entities, one for every 162 students. Most of these entities elect a board, and most overlap in their responsibilities. No where else in the world are so many entities needed to provide public education to so few.

We used to have a lot more. In 1860, we enjoyed 239 towns and 2,591 school districts, educating 75,000 students. That’s one entity for every 29 students. We’ve come a long way.

Recent legislative attempts to improve the situation have only created more and overlapping organizations. These efforts have increased the inequalities among schools, added unnecessary complexity, made school governance and financing almost impossible for citizens to understand, and raised costs.

It’s time to reduce our education entities to a reasonable number, based on where students live and where our schools are located. That will be a good first step in improving quality, ensuring equity, reducing costs, and enhancing community control.

In reality, our children today are educated in about 50 K-12 school webs. By that we mean a set of sending elementary and middle schools and a high school. Regardless of administrative entities, what students experience is a 13 to 15 year educational journey from preschool through graduation. It’s the quality of this journey that matters.

We’d solve many problems if we simply made each of these K-12 school webs into a school district. For 90% of our students, this would mean no change. For a few, especially those in very small high schools or with limited middle school opportunities, we’d want to combine with nearby schools to increase quality. Our school webs reflect organic patterns of population, economic activity, and community. Vermont has about 32 of these K-12 educational communities, some concentrated, some spread out; some with a few as 1000 students, some with as many as 4000, and averaging 2500 each.

These should become our new educational entities, each with a board elected by the community, each running a complete set of public schools that guide students from Pre-K through high school graduation. That’s the way it’s done in most of the United States, and in most of the civilized world.

Once our schools are rationally organized, we can work on the next steps of providing equal funding, and improving educational quality.

Sources:

Equity and History: Vermont’s Education Revolution of the Early 1890s, Vermont Historical Society, https://vermonthistory.org/journal/76/VHS760101_1-18.pdf

Vermont School Webs, A Vermont Design for Education, https://vermontdesign.org/?page_id=26

In the days before Vermont provided public high schools, some of our communities set up “Academies” or “Seminaries” that educated students beyond the elementary grades. Often established by religious or charitable or philanthropic groups, the early 1800s witnessed academies  in Newbury, St. Johnsbury, Manchester, Fairfax, St. Albans. Thetford, McIndoes Falls, Corinth, Bradford, and elsewhere. They were governed by private boards of trustees, and students’ parents paid tuition to attend (for instance, $3 per term for a standard course; $3.50 with Greek and Latin). For decades these academies served as the sole source of high school education in many parts of Vermont. (In those days, few Vermonters went to high school, and even fewer completed it. Our graduation rate hovered at 5% at the end of the 19th century.)

Most of the academies merged with the local public school system when the state required towns to provide high school education. Larger towns established their own public high schools; forward-looking smaller towns combined to build union high schools; and a few very small towns paid tuition for their students to attend a nearby high school.

Four of the academies resisted the democratic trend and held on to their private status: Burr & Burton, St Johnsbury, Thetford, and Lyndon. Today these four private academies educate about 2% of our students. Burr & Burton and St. Johnsbury Academy are the two largest; Lyndon Institute and Thetford Academy the smaller. They are each governed by a self-perpetuating, unelected board of trustees; they own their land and buildings; their budgets and meetings are not open to the public. They are private schools.

Yet Vermont relies on these academies to educate some of its students. Their communities depend on them for secondary education. At the same time, the academies depend on Vermont taxpayers  to cover their costs. It’s a co-dependent relationship: without the academies, 2000 of our students would have no place to go; without public money, the academies would cease operations. 

Today the four academies are among the most expensive schools in the state. The academies receive over $50 million a year of Vermont taxpayers’ money in tuition and special education funds, forming 75% of their income. They charge tuition of $22,000 to $25,000 per student, far above the state average. Yet they are accountable neither to the local community nor to the state.

And because we allow some of our towns to pay tuition to the academies, we must also allow them to pay tuition to any private school, anywhere in the world. This costs our taxpayers an additional $25 million per year, including over $1 million paid to religious schools.*

Any education reform and funding plan needs to recognize Vermont’s co-dependent relationship with these academies, find a rational way to incorporate them into the public school system, and ensure that taxpayer money goes only to public schools.

• These payments of taxpayer money to religious schools seem to conflict with Article 3 of the Vermont Constitution, which states that no person ought to, or of right can be compelled to… erect or support any place of worship, or maintain any minister, contrary to the dictates of conscience,

We have good schools in Vermont, but they cost a lot. Our schools are close to their communities, they produce solid results, and they’re good places for our children to be. But they cost more per student than most other schools in the United States and in the world. 

From the research posted here on A Vermont Design, we’ve learned that simply closing small schools, or consolidating districts, won’t save much money, and will produce unintended negative consequences. So what can we do to maintain the quality of our schools, but lower the costs?

From examining school budgets across the state, and talking with many education professionals, we can identify three main drivers of increasing school costs: 

◦ expensive health insurance 

◦ over-identification of special education

◦ too many people in our schools.

Health insurance

Vermont schools pay more for the health insurance for their employees than almost anywhere else. Even in Massachusetts, which supports the most expensive medical care system in the world, the cost for a teacher’s health insurance plan is less than it is in Vermont. And consumes a far smaller proportion of their salary. Examining closely the budget of a typical Vermont elementary school, we see that health insurance costs amount to 47% of teacher salaries — $141,000 on top of salaries of $294,000. And it’s rising more than 10% per year. This is ludicrous and unprecedented and unsustainable.

Why is this cost so high? Because the UVM Health Network has turned itself from a public care-giving organization into a private monopoly that sucks resources from citizens, school districts and taxpayers to support 100 staff making over a half million dollars each, with the head guy taking more than $3 million from us each year. This while the average Vermonter earns $60,000. Their $260 million in “surplus” (profit) would be enough to educate 12,000 students for a year. This is ridiculous, but not a laughing matter.

The State has the power to control these obscene monopoly payments and profits, but has not done so.

Special Education

The same small school that spends $294,000 on teacher salaries for kindergarten through sixth grade spends $477,000 on special education services for these same students. That’s $5000 per student. Again, ludicrous. The cause of this is multifold, but far beyond the proportions of any other state or country. 

Another larger district in a different part of the state spends $8 million of its $24 million budget on its 700 K-8 students, another $8 million on its 300 high school students, and the remaining $8 million on special education. A third of its budget. 

Recent changes to the statewide funding scheme incentivize districts to over-identify students for special education. The state pays double for each student so identified. Lead us not into temptation…

And again, the State has the power to manage these costs, but has not done so.

Too Many People

While it’s comforting to have many caring adults in a school, there’s a point of diminishing returns when the staff to student ratio falls below 1 to 6. And yet the budgets and staffing of our two typical districts show perhaps too many adults, professional and otherwise, working in the school and drawing a salary. In fact, Vermont’s staff to student ratio is the lowest among the states. The elementary school in our example, with fewer than 100 students, employs 31 staff: six classroom teachers, six aides, a full time principal, a full-time physical education teacher, half-time music and art teachers, and part-time nurse, librarian, counselor, support staff, custodians, cafeteria workers, and bus drivers.

Walk through an elementary school parking lot and count the cars. Then divide the number of students in the school by the number of cars. Each car represents at least one adult, since we can assume than none of the students drove themselves to school. While some of the cars may belong to parent volunteers or delivery people, the bulk of them are likely to belong to school staff. This is one of Vermont’s cost drivers that local boards can partially control.

Tuitions

This is not as big a cost driver as the three listed above, but in both sample districts, tuition payments for high school form an overly large portion of the spending. In the larger district, one-third of the total budget is paid to private schools, at the rate of $24,000 per student, a total of $8 million for 320 students. This leaves the district with $8 million for its remaining 700 students in K-8, less than $12,000 each. 

In the smaller district, more than $800,000 is paid in tuition to public and private high schools at $20,000 per student. Tuitions plus special education costs amount to almost half the budget, leaving less than $12,000 for each K-8 student.

Conclusion

To rein in rising costs at Vermont schools, we need to control monopoly pricing for health insurance; manage special education spending; and take a close, hard look, school by school, at the staff to student ratio.

Sources: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d23/tables/dt23_213.50.asp

The amount we spend per student varies widely among Vermont schools, from a low of $12,000 at the Halifax Elementary school, to $30,000 at the Westminster Elementary School. At the high school level, spending ranges from $12,275 at Lamoille North to $27,412 at Randolph. (These data are sourced from the Announced Tuitions for 2026 published by the Vermont Agency of Education.) Per-student cost in elementary schools averages $19,436, and for high schools $21,560, an 11% difference.

As we design a new governance and funding scheme, we need to look closely at the whys and wherefores of this wide range. Such a range certainly raises questions of educational equity and quality; it also raises questions of relative efficiency.

High Schools

What explains the wide range of spending in our high schools? School size seems not to be a factor. Some of our largest schools, such as St. Johnsbury Academy and Union-32, are among the most expensive; while some smaller schools, such as Winooski and Blue Mountain, cost the least. In fact, there is no significant correlation between high school size and per-student cost in Vermont.

Ruralness may have some effect, but the opposite of what you might think. Some of our most rural high schools, such as Lamoille and Missisquoi, are the least costly. In fact, a very weak negative correlation of -0.18 exists between ruralness and cost. (Ruralness is estimated by the distance between K-12 sending and receiving schools.)

Here is a table of high school costs, size, and distances to its sending schools.

A complete understanding of the differences in costs among high schools would require a school-by-school analysis of budgets, staffing, and programming. Such an analysis should be part of any statewide school improvement plan.

Elementary Schools

Elementary school costs in Vermont range from $12,000 to $30,000 per student. Again, this wide range raises questions of equity, quality, and efficiency. What explains the wide range of spending? School size seems to be a minor factor. Some of our larger elementary schools, such as Charlotte and Newport City, are among the most expensive; while some smaller schools, such as Readsboro and Windham, cost the least. Yet there exists a weak correlation of -0.26 between elementary school size and per-student cost in Vermont. The largest third of our elementary schools cost on average $18,434 per student, while the medium-sized third cost $19,493, and the smallest third $20,339.

Here is a table of elementary school cost and average size.

A complete understanding of the differences in costs among elementary schools would require a school-by-school analysis of budgets, staffing, and programming. Such an analysis should be part of any statewide school improvement plan.