State education officials say governance, funding and accountability must move together to deliver Act 73 goals

State education officials told a legislative committee that proposed changes to implement Act 73 must align governance, funding and accountability or risk undermining efforts to close wide gaps in student opportunity.

"We know that our current system is unfair," said Zoe Sanders, who identified herself as Secretary of Education, opening the agency's presentation. Sanders and other agency leaders said Act 73's goals—promoting equity, consistent access to high-quality learning, and coherence across the system—require three coordinated policy levers: quality standards, a foundation funding formula, and governance changes to deliver services at scale.

Agency staff laid out evidence for the need to act: they cited wide disparities in per-pupil funding and teacher pay across towns, uneven access to advanced courses and career-technical education, a roughly 30-point proficiency gap for historically marginalized students, and a fragmented governance structure of 119 school districts nested under 52 supervisory unions or districts. "If we do not achieve scale," Sanders warned, "smaller districts will struggle to deliver on these quality objectives."

Officials criticized proposals that detach governance reform from funding and quality. Sanders characterized the House's 10-step merger process as unlikely to yield demographically equitable, financially sustainable larger districts and questioned how the CISA proposal would integrate with the foundation formula. "Detaching governance from Act 73 will compromise the two other levers," she said.

On teacher pay, the agency said leveling salaries is a strategic objective. Staff noted Vermont is among the highest-spending states overall but that average teacher pay (about $69,000, per the agency's presentation) masks significant regional variation; they argued a statewide benchmark is needed to reduce recruitment and retention gaps.

Agency staff also described a practical approach to preserving school choice within larger districts: four distinct choice types would continue (public interdistrict choice, intradistrict choice, student-specific hardship placements, and tuition arrangements for historically tuitioning towns), and staff recommended drawing district lines to reflect historic attendance and tuitioning patterns so that a foundation formula can "follow the student."

Representatives pressed the agency on exceptions and on the risk that some out-of-state receiving schools might demand higher payments than a foundation formula would provide. The agency replied that Act 73 contemplates regular evaluation (the agency referenced an evaluation roughly on a five-year cadence) and that any small number of exceptions would be analyzed and addressed rather than driving system design for the whole state.

Members also asked how independent schools that educate publicly funded students would fit into a shared accountability system. Representative Wall asked whether independent and public schools operating in the same district would face the same testing, data releases, and reporting. The agency said it is working to align multiple compliance streams (Education Quality Standards, the state plan, resource-allocation reviews and state board rules) into a coherent outcomes-focused accountability framework applied across settings.

On funding mechanics, agency staff said administrative efficiencies from larger districts could be redirected to teacher pay and program expansion, but acknowledged the state has not yet identified new school construction aid; capital decisions would be a subsequent step for districts that consolidate. The agency said it has modeled budgets to show how strategic choices could meet Act 73's stated goals.

The agency closed by offering revised district maps (including a "house version 4" and a hybrid map informed by the redistricting task force and school boards association) as starting points and invited committee members to provide local refinements. Committee leaders and agency staff agreed to follow up with data and additional materials in the coming week.

The committee returned to pending floor business without a vote on the briefing itself; agency staff said they would provide further analysis and refined maps to inform future deliberations.