Over the past ten years I have watched the theory of school webs manifest itself here in the White River valley. I live in Bethel, part of the ten-town White River Valley Supervisory Union. Four of our towns closed their small high schools: Bethel, Chelsea, Rochester and Royalton. Bethel became the middle school and Royalton the high school. It has been six years since this happened and things are going well, with the White River Valley middle and high schools becoming the schools of choice for the other eight towns. The smaller towns are focused on community- based elementary schools and some of them have consolidated.
This school web evolved much the way described here on A Vermont Design. Our ten-town web basically makes up the White River Watershed. Each of the four branches of the White River enjoys a state-maintained road that leads into the valley. Between the branches of the White River are mountains. This area basically makes up the hill towns of Central Vermont, where population clusters are driven by geography more than town lines.
A very appealing part of A Vermont Design is the way it cuts the number of administrative units in half, yet maintains local control. Far superior to the Governor’s proposal, the Vermont Design is also student-centered. Only educators and parents seem to appreciate that feature. However it is an essential ingredient. We in the White River Valley looks forward to sharing our progress with other similarly-situated rural areas of Vermont.
Vermont has imposed some kind of broad-based wealth tax since before it became a state. Our beloved constitution of 1777 put the burden of supporting public services squarely on the shoulders of every Vermonter:
every member of society hath a right to be protected in the enjoyment of life, liberty and property, and therefore, is bound to contribute his proportion towards the expense of the protection
Vermont Constitution
Sounds like, from each according to his abilities, and to each according to his needs. But that came later.
18th Century
The first statewide wealth tax came in 1781 when the legislature for the first time collected a tax of 10 shillings on each hundred acres of land — land at that time being the chief form of wealth. Its purpose was to raise the money necessary to pay Vermont’s debts from the Revolutionary War. The tax was uniform, and went directly into the coffers of the State. The result was that we were one of the first states to pay off our debt.
This statewide tax set the standard for taxation for the next 60 years. Land and personal property was assessed by state statute at set values: so much per acre, so much per animal, those two accounting for most of the wealth available at the time. This was based on the assumption that property created wealth in proportion to its size, and the government could legitimately claim a portion of that wealth. See the Constitution above.
19th Century
In 1841, the state wealth tax was expanded to include all categories of wealth, adding personal property and financial assets. The wealth tax was strengthened again after the Civil War, when the state required banks and other financial institutions to report each Vermonter’s assets to the state. This wealth tax was the state’s principal source of revenue from 1781 until 1882. It remained an important part of total state revenues until 1931, when the first income tax was adopted.
At one point, in 1825, some of the revenue from this statewide wealth tax was shunted off into a statewide Education Fund, which was distributed to the towns for the support of public schools. This was at the time when the first State Board of Education was established by the legislature.
In 1890 the State School Superintendent issued a damning report from on the inequitable education opportunities and tax burdens around Vermont:
The inequalities in taxation for school purposes are positively startling…there are towns in the state in which the average rate of taxation for school purposes amounts to only seventeen cents on the dollar of the grand list, there are others where it amounts to seventy-five cents, and one in which such average rate is one hundred and thirty cents…
I notice that in a town like Bennington, one district escapes with a tax of six cents on the dollar of the grand list, while another is subject to the burden of a tax ten times as great in its rate. … in one district the rate of school taxation is only seven percent, while in another it is two hundred and fifteen percent. …
A great wrong has been done to the poorer class of towns and the smaller districts in the failure to provide an adequate system for equalizing taxation for the maintenance of the common schools, … the wrong can never be remedied until we adopt the policy already adopted by at least nine-tenths of our sister states in levying a state tax for this specific purpose…
The education of the masses is absolutely essential to the safety of the state and the United States; that it is, indeed, a public necessity; the spirit of the Constitution, as well as its letter, requires that, inasmuch as society is protected in its enjoyment of life, liberty and property in a thousand fold greater degree by education than through its jails and prisons, every member is bound to contribute his proportion toward the expense of that protection…and yet the state has subjected a portion of its citizens, and those least able to bear it, to unjust hardship.
In response, in 1890 the state imposed tax of five cents on all property for the support of public schools. This money was then re-allocated to the towns on the basis of the number of students educated in the previous year. This tax was increased to eight cents two years later.
20th Century
Not everyone was happy with this rate of taxation. A candidate for governor complained in 1906 that total state expenditures had gone up 112% in the last 30 years while the population had grown less than 4%. He described this as “gross negligence and misconduct in the management of the monies of the state.” Have we not heard something similar quite recently?
Nonetheless, the statewide property tax for the equalization of education remained until the adoption of a state income tax in 1931. In the following years, revenue from a tax on real property was collected by the towns, who were expected to use it to maintain schools and roads. But the tax on other forms of wealth withered away, such that Vermont no longer collects a contribution from wealth held in stocks, bonds, bank accounts, trust funds, or business equity, even though those are the fastest-growing and most valuable assets among Vermonters today.
In the 1970’s a repeat of the 1890 damnation led the Governor and Legislature to attempt to equalize both school quality and tax burden by setting up yet another statewide Education Fund fed by income and sales taxes. Money from the fund was doled out to districts with less taxable real property than others, in an attempt equalize things. These payments were called State Aid to Education. But the vast and growing differences in taxable real property per child among Vermont school districts could not be overcome by this weak attempt at equalization.
21st Century
Spurred on by a court decision that declared educational inequities to be unconstitutional, the 21st century brought the realization that a statewide approach was necessary. A portion of town property tax revenues were put into a statewide pool, which was then redistributed to the towns, again based on taxable property and spending per student. This reduced inequity somewhat, by leveling up the spending in poorer districts, to such an extent that that the statewide portion of the real property tax rose rapidly.
At the same time, Vermont experienced an influx of well-off new residents, many of them retirees, with substantial wealth from investments, retirement funds, business equity, and financial assets. In fact by 2025 the number of WOOFs exceeded the number of students in school, and the value of Vermonters’ non-taxed assets exceeded the value of their taxable houses and land.
Perhaps now is the time to look back in history for better ways to allow
every member of society … to contribute his proportion towards the expense .
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a WOOF. WOOFs are Well Off Old Folks. We’re the fastest growing demographic group in Vermont. There are now more of us than there are students in school. Vermont attracts people like us. We have enough money to buy the expensive houses that working families can’t afford. We enjoy a decent income from Social Security, pensions, and distributions from our retirement accounts. And perhaps some business equity or an inheritance.
In fact, the average household income for us WOOFs is about 20% more than that of a working Vermont family. And a large proportion of us enjoy a net worth of over $1 million.
And yet we pay less in taxes than those wage-earning families that we are working so hard to attract. We pay no Social Security tax, very little income tax, and no tax at all on much of our wealth. My total tax bill this year is far less than that of the young family next door.
For them, life is just barely affordable. For me, it’s quite comfortable. Many of us WOOFs would be happy to contribute a fair share of our income and property to support our schools.
If I contributed 1% of my net wealth and 5% of my income each year, Vermont would get almost enough from me to support one student in school. Yes, I’d be paying more than I pay now in property and income tax. But the young family next door, contributing at the same rates, would pay considerably less than they do now.
Perhaps these are the ways and means to support quality education in Vermont.
Some would have us believe that if we just made our school districts larger, the cost of educating students would be less. But the facts do not support this speculation.
In fact, in Vermont today there is no connection between the size of a school district and how much is spent per student. Some of our least expensive districts are very small; some of the higher-spending are relatively large. And vice versa.
In fact, our largest districts: Champlain Valley with over 4000, and Essex and Burlington with over 3000 each, spend right at the average of all Vermont school districts.
In fact, in Vermont, there is no evidence that simply making districts larger will reduce the amount spent per student.
In fact, the correlation between school size district size and spending per pupil is -0.07, insignificant in statistical terms.
Our schools and our students are too important to be relegated to partisan political speculation as we redesign our system. Better to start with our students and with the facts on the ground, and build from there.
The most thorough review of the research on district size as it relates to cost and quality reminds us of the adage of the ancient Greeks: Παν μέτρον άριστον — Moderation in all things is best. Very large districts, as well as very small districts, cost more per student, and deliver poorer results. The best results and lowest costs occur in medium-sized districts.
Cost: Moderation in district and school size may provide the most efficient combination. Under some conditions, consolidation of very small rural districts may save money, as long as schools are kept a moderate size, and transportation times remain reasonable…Sizeable potential cost savings may exist by moving from a very small district (500 or less pupils) to a district with ca 2000–4000 pupils, both in instructional and administrative costs.
Quality: The results from estimates of returns to size at the school- level are more consistent. Generally, larger schools are associated with lower student performance holding school and non-school inputs constant. Decreasing returns to size may begin to emerge for high schools above 1000 students and elementary schools above 600 students… the high school size maximizing student performance gains is between 600 and 900 pupils
The sweet spot for cost in Vermont seems to be in the 1000-2000 student range. These districts spend on average $19,816, less than the statewide average of $20,468.
Remember the pizza they served in the school cafeteria? Roughly rectangular in shape, with ragged edges, and sliced into squares. That’s where our Vermont town and school-district lines originated.
First the Creator rolled out our dough of bedrock: sedimentary slate, metamorphic marble, and grainy granite. Then sifted on a sprinkling of soil. Then poured on rivers of water (much of which puddled into one corner.) Finally she poked in a topping of trees. Baked in the ovens of time, this masterpiece became our beloved State of Vermont.
A few Algonquins nibbled at the edges, but the dish was largely untouched until the arrival of Europeans in the18th century. Suddenly, the pie became valuable. Seeing an opportunity for a quick buck in 1749, the Governor of New Hampshire, Benning Wentworth, who had been gifted what is now Vermont by King George II, acted as the lunch lady. With his sharp, round pizza-cutter he sliced a blank Vermont map into squares of six miles each, paying no attention to mountains, rivers, forests, or lakes. At that time, nobody knew exactly where these were anyway.
Benning Wentworth slicing up his map of Vermont
Look at a town map of Vermont and you’ll see how the pizza slices.
Benning named the unvisited square slices after his favorite places in England, his friends, and himself, and sold them for 20 pounds each. So we have towns named Bennington, Ferdinand, Lewis, Burke, Dorset, and Tinmouth. Others must have been sold to French speakers from up north: Calais, Montpelier, Vergennes. He sold them sight unseen. Buyers, called Grantees, often wealthy Englishmen, then paid Ira Allen (brother of Ethan), Samuel Morey, or Joseph Fay to survey their slice and stake their claim.
As settlers began moving up along the river valleys from Massachusetts in the south, and down the rivers from Quebec in the north, the slices became more valuable. Grantees and surveyors hoped to fill their pockets. But the settlers paid little attention to where one slice ended and another began. Most of the lines had not been surveyed, and few were marked. So the first settlers farmed in the valleys, and established settlements in the places is best suited for human habitation. Many had no idea which town they were in or who owned it.
In fact, the governor of New York, George Clinton, also claimed a royal right to sell slices out of what had now become valuable land. This dispute caused much fussing among the grantees, the settlers, the surveyors, and the governors. But before Clinton could wield his own pizza cutter, the King reneged on his rights and supported the New Hampshire claims.
Let’s follow some early settlers up the Winooski River from Lake Champlain. The first ones grabbed the flat agricultural land that we now called the Champlain Valley. There they would clear the trees, pasture their animals, form their villages and grow their crops. Most had no idea whose slice they were living in. They paid no attention to the invisible lines. Only after they’d been there a while did someone come along and attempt to get them to pay for what they had settled on.
They did not know, when they built their house in what is now Waterbury, that the slice line for Duxbury went right through their living room. Farmers farther up the river valley only later discovered that their house was in Moretown, but their barn was in Middlesex. Shepherds in what is now East Dorset did not care if they could only get to West Dorset by following the river valleys through the slice called Manchester.
That’s why our settlement patterns, our transportation routes, and our economy developed according to our geography, not bound to the tracks of Benning Wentworth’s pizza cutter.
But somehow 250 years later, we are still using those arbitrary pizza-cutter tracks to define our educational system. Maybe it’s time to take a more organic approach, put the pizza cutter into the dishwasher, and set the educational table according to where the students live, where our schools are located, and where Vermonters form their communities. In this way education might be more closely tied to our people, cost less, and serve students better.
To explore ideas for a better approach to reorganizing, improving, and funding Vermont schools, today marks the launch of a new website where Vermonters may learn, suggest, and discuss ways to make our schools better, less costly, and more connected with their communities.
Leave a Reply