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Educators and rural advocates raise concerns about governor's school governance and funding proposal
Summary
A series of witnesses told the Senate Education Committee that the governor’s rapid timetable and suggested governance and foundation-formula changes could produce diseconomies of scale, risk rural communities, and create financial and equity uncertainties.
Representatives of the Vermont Rural Education Collaborative, independent-school advocates and education consultants told the Senate Education Committee that the governor’s proposal to reorganize school governance and change the state’s funding formula raises unresolved questions about scale, local control, special education funding and costs.
"My first reaction to the governor's proposal around governance, and particularly the 5 districts, is entirely out of scale," said John Castle, executive representative for the Vermont Rural Education Collaborative. Castle argued that substantially larger districts risk weakening local democratic control and public trust, and in some cases would produce higher rather than lower costs because of coordination and transportation diseconomies.
Jess DeCarolis, an independent education consultant and former Agency of Education division director,…
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