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PROOF POSITIVE
By
Peter Herman, VSBA President
In the last issue of From the Boardroom I wrote
about the “legends and fantasies” that are afflicted on public education by
those who have found it convenient to use public schools and school boards as
whipping boys (and girls) to serve their own political and ideological
ends. My analysis was based on solid
evidence gathered from a variety of sources, including the Legislative Joint
Fiscal Office (JFO), the State Department of Education, and State Department of
Taxes data. Since then, the independent
Public Assets Institute has put it all together in a consolidated report that
definitively says what school board members and other educational leaders have
known and reported for some time – that the current education finance system is
doing what it was intended to do, namely reducing the spending disparities
among Vermont towns and shifting resources toward those least able to pay. Specifically
the report, entitled School Budget Voters Are Minding Their Own Purse
Strings, verifies that:
1. Getting
more money from the Ed Fund than other towns does not correlate with increased
spending. Local voters evidently do not think that getting more state money is
some sort of free ride – they pay careful attention to how much is spent,
regardless of the source.
2. Acts
60 and 68 are working as they were intended to, with much less disparity
between property wealthy districts and those districts with much less wealth.
3. The
constant repetition that the world has changed and that increases in spending
in one town impact every other town in the state is a gross, misleading
exaggeration. The facts are that
increased spending falls almost entirely on the individual town with minimal
effect on the rest of the state.
If you haven’t yet read the
report, I encourage you check it out at the Public Assets webpage at www.publicassets.org
(click on Reports).
Besides the PAI report, other
evidence of cost control in education is emerging. A powerful graphic prepared by the VSBA,
along with the Vermont Superintendents Association and the JFO, shows that of
the major public expenditures in Vermont, school costs have increased the least
over the past four years – less than overall state general fund spending,
less than municipal budgets, less than healthcare, less than the state
Corrections budgets, and of course, far, far less than fuel oil. So whatever the contributors to the problems
of “affordability” that Vermont might have, school costs are the least of
them. This graphic was spotted hanging
above the door to House Speaker Gaye Symington’s statehouse office recently, and
we have reprinted it here.
Of course it is incumbent on
school boards and other education leaders to operate schools as efficiently as
possible while working to achieve outcomes that serve all Vermonters,
particularly our children. And I believe
that we are doing that pretty well. Can school costs be lowered or at least can
the rate of increase be slowed? The
answer is yes, in two ways. First, there
are certainly further efficiencies that can be realized without doing great
damage to school programs and results, but most of these will yield relatively
small amounts of money. (They do not, by
the way, include closing small schools or getting rid of local school boards
through consolidation). The second way, which will result in large
reductions in school costs, might be accomplished by:
1. Increasing
class size in our elementary schools to something over 30 kids per class
instead of the current, much praised level of something near 20.
2. Determining
that some kids just can’t learn and cutting them out of the education system.
This of course flies in the face of state and federal law as well as research
that demonstrates that all kids can benefit from a good education
3. Cutting
teacher salaries so that our best qualified educators will take other jobs that
pay a living wage. An equivalent measure
would be to drastically reduce or eliminate public support for health
insurance, effectively a salary cut.
4. Eliminating
fluff courses like foreign languages, music, art, and advanced math
5. Cutting out
positions like guidance counselors, nurses, and librarians that are criticized
by those who say “We didn’t have a librarian when I was in school”.
But you get the picture. Small schools, too many administrators,
inattention by school boards, or uncaring voters do not drive school costs.
They are driven by the things that make Vermont schools among the very best in
the country – good teachers, strong programs, relatively small classes, local
concern for our kids. These not only are
things that we can afford, these are things that we must afford.