Educators urge caution on Vermont foundation-formula draft, cite missing numbers and special-education gaps

Testimony to the Ways & Means Committee on the draft foundation formula centered on one immediate concern: the bill does not specify the base education amount or the weights used to allocate additional funding, and that absence could materially change district funding.

Nicole Mace, a Winooski school board member and the VSBA representative to the Commission on the Future of Public Education, told the committee, "My first point I wanna raise is just that numbers matters." Mace said it is unclear whether the bill’s numbers would be set by a cost-based or evidence-based model and urged the committee to convene Vermont educators to ground any model in local realities. She cited a recent PICUS report that would reduce the multilingual-learner weight in her district from 2.49 to 0.44 — "an 82% reduction," she said — and warned that steep drops in the base amount and weights could amount to a "double hit" for districts such as Winooski.

The Vermont Principals Association and superintendents’ groups echoed the request for concrete modeling. Jay Nichols, executive…