Joint committees hear national best practices on K-12 foundation formulas; experts urge evidence-based base and phased transition

Members of the House Ways & Means Committee and the House Education Committee held a joint hearing to gather expert advice on designing a K-12 foundation funding formula that would replace Vermont’s current system and inform related governance proposals. Education Commission of the States (ECS) staff, nonprofit policy experts and national researchers outlined national trends, technical tradeoffs and implementation steps but offered no specific legislative prescriptions.

The hearing opened with Joel Moore, director of state relations at the Education Commission of the States, who said ECS serves as a nonpartisan clearinghouse on state education policy and would provide materials from its 50-state comparisons. "We will never tell you what is the best approach for you and your state," Moore said, adding ECS’s role is to summarize how other states handle similar tradeoffs.

Chris Duncombe, a policy staffer with ECS, gave a national overview of K–12 funding models and recent changes. "The reason we've seen this transition towards student-based models is because it offers transparency, equity and greater local flexibility," Duncombe said, describing three common designs: student-based (used by 35 states and D.C.), resource- or input-based (about nine states) and hybrid systems (four states). He cited recent statewide transitions in Tennessee (Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement), Colorado and Mississippi as examples of states centralizing funding into a primary formula and consolidating numerous categorical grants into a single foundation allocation.

Duncombe described the core design choices for a student-based foundation: (1) the base funding amount (a guaranteed dollar per student), (2) whether the base is fixed or variable by…