Educators and rural advocates raise concerns about governor's school governance and funding proposal

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, warned that broad, rapid expansion of school choice and statewide lotteries would create a system with voucher-like characteristics and could increase costs. "When you start to bring in private entities ... that also causes increased costs," DeCarolis said, and she urged the committee to slow the timeline to allow detailed study.

Speakers also debated finance details included in the proposals. Witnesses cited competing cost estimates and different figures for a base funding amount under the proposed foundation formula: committee materials and witnesses referenced figures in the vicinity of $13,200 per pupil (the administration’s number in testimony materials) compared with a higher, state-board–linked estimate of roughly $15,500 per pupil suggested by other analysts. Witnesses said assumptions, weightings and treatment of independent-school tuition and special-education funding materially affect any cost calculus.

Oliver Olson of the Vermont Independent Schools Association stressed the role independent schools play in sparsely populated areas and said that, as a matter of law, no new approved independent schools may be added without following existing statutory approval processes. "Independent schools that are approved for public tuition in Vermont are nonprofit entities," Olson said, adding that many independent schools operate on tight budgets and some nonoperating public districts rely on independent schools to provide local access.

Several witnesses pointed to long-run capital needs and potential unintended consequences. John Castle cited a recent example in which consolidating bus transportation bids increased costs; other witnesses referenced a statewide deferred-maintenance backlog for public-school facilities estimated in testimony at roughly $6 billion. Jeff Fannin (identified in the transcript as an executive director) urged caution with the two-year timeline for major governance changes and said Vermont’s system performs well on multiple national indicators, though he supported examining finance changes carefully.

Committee members pressed witnesses on details including how a foundation formula would handle inflation (an "inflator" mechanism), the special-education block-grant versus reimbursement models, and how increased choice might interact with independent-school tuition levels. Witnesses asked for more time for analysis and recommended that the committee call additional experts and stakeholders before advancing any bill.

No bill text implementing the governor’s proposal was offered for committee consideration in the hearing recorded in this transcript; witnesses testified from policy documents and analyses provided to the committee.