IS
SCHOOL CENTRALIZATION BEST FOR OUR STUDENTS?
Herb Olson, Nancy Cornell, and Mike Fisher - July 16, 2016
We are
members of the Addison Northeast Supervisory Union Act 46 Study Committee. Mike was appointed by the Lincoln
School Board. Nancy and Herb were appointed by the Starksboro School Board. We volunteered
to participate on the Committee because we believe very strongly that our
students need a high quality education to succeed in an increasingly
challenging world. Because Act 46 was enacted with the promise to improve
quality and reduce costs, we are eager to help achieve those goals.
Although
we are members of the Act 46 Study Committee, we are not speaking on behalf of
the Committee. Rather, we are speaking as a minority of the Committee, and as
community members and taxpayers.
We want
to acknowledge the hard work of the Study Committee in producing the
draft Report, which will be discussed at a Community Forum and All Boards Meeting on
Monday, July 18
th at the Lincoln Elementary School. We urge as many
people as possible to attend and offer their perspectives on the proposal being
made by a Majority of the members of the Study Committee, which is that our
schools be centralized under the authority of a Superintendent with greater
powers and control over our schools.
We have no doubt as to the sincerity and good intentions of
the Study Committee Majority that produced the draft Report. With regret, at
this time we cannot support the draft Report. There is still time to change
direction, but to do so it will be helpful if community members request that an
alternative solution to school governance be seriously explored:
1.
Centralization will not have a significant
impact on taxes.
It would be wonderful if the solution
to high property taxes were as simple as centralizing our schools, as advocated
by some folks in Montpelier, and as proposed in the Study Committee’s draft Report.
Unfortunately, there is no silver bullet to remedy this difficult and
long-standing problem.
Act 46 offers 4 years of tax incentives
for districts that centralize, but the actual tax impact of those incentives
are minimal: for example, in Starksboro in FY 2019, Year 1 of centralization, assuming
a tax rate reduction of .08 cents in the first year, tax incentives will reduce
property taxes on a $200,000 homestead by $160 (before the application of any
income-sensitive tax rebates). The tax rates reductions are lowered to .06
cents, .04 cents, and .02 cents over the next 3 years. Not only are the tax
savings minimal, but at the end of four years the tax incentives will go away,
and unless real cost savings are achieved our property tax rates will go up to
their previous, pre-incentive levels.
The Report projects “real” cost
reductions of $137,237 per year, across all 5 Towns.
$137,237 is approximately 0.006% of the total educational budget of $24,109,882
for the elementary schools, the middle and high school, and the
Superintendent’s Office during FY 2017.
It seems quite clear that the draft Report’s estimated cost savings are not
enough to prevent a tax increase after State incentives disappear.
One size does not fit all schools. It
may be that in other districts, without ANESU’s history of collaboration and
consolidation of services, centralization would lead to greater efficiencies
and economies of scale such that significant cost savings could be achieved. As
the draft Report acknowledges on page7, however, the 5 Town Schools have
already consolidated many of the functions where economies of scale might lower
costs.
Act 46 also promises the continuation
of small schools grants, and “phantom students” grants for schools that
centralize. Those grants are supported by State taxes, however. They are not
“free”. They are simply paid by all of us through a different tax source, and
therefore should not be counted as a real savings for our towns.
Of course any reduction in taxes,
however temporary and limited, would be welcome. The immediate question is
whether the reduction is significant enough to outweigh some important concerns
about centralization (see below). The larger question is whether these
temporary reductions will become a distraction from the profound challenge, in
an environment of declining student population, of devising an education
funding system and funding levels that people can accept as worthwhile.
2.
Centralization is unlikely to have a
significant impact on education quality.
The Committee’s draft Report envisions
a high quality education for our students, but merely hoping for a better
future is not enough. The draft Report does little to show what it is about school
centralization that will achieve education quality and equity.
The draft Report talks about improving
equity and quality in education programs among the 5 elementary schools, but sense
our is that most families are not terribly concerned about whether Beeman
offers a significantly better education than Robinson School, or whether Bristol
Elementary offers a better education than Lincoln. Our sense also is that
families are generally satisfied with our teachers in terms of their expertise
and dedication.
The draft Report also does not
adequately acknowledge the important programs and activities underway right now
to improve the quality of education.
We firmly believe that our community
and educational leaders need to set appropriately high standards and
expectations if we are to make real progress in improving the quality of
education for our students. The equity and quality goal should be to offer the
best education we can, not merely to ensure that each elementary school offers
the same programs. Missing from the draft Report is any discussion of how our
schools compare to some of the best schools in the State,
and what should be done to raise the quality of education for our children to
this higher standard.
The draft Report raises an interesting point
with respect to education quality in noting that centralization will allow the
Superintendent to spend less time on school board meetings, and more time on
education programs and leadership. While we agree that our decision-making
process can be improved, we have several concerns with this line of thinking.
First, our recent experience has been that centralized control under a powerful
Superintendent is not such a great idea if we cannot trust the Superintendent
to act in students’ best interests. Second, this seems more of a management
problem than a governance structure problem. The draft Report estimates that
under our existing system the Superintendent spends 85% of his or her time on
local school board activities, with the hope that if our schools and boards are
centralized this can be reduced to 50% of the Superintendent’s time.
In our mind even 50% of the Superintendent’s time and compensation is too
valuable to allocate to only one of many other important educational and
administrative functions. Imagine the CEO of a large corporation spending 85%
or 50% of her or his time on the corporation’s Board of Directors activities –
a recipe for bankruptcy or a shareholder revolt! A change in management structure
might be far more productive for improving education quality than a change in
governance structure.
Providing
“substantial equity in the quality and variety of educational opportunities
statewide” is a critical goal of Act 46.
We applaud Act 46 for setting this goal by speaking of statewide equity and
quality as the appropriate reference point. This is not an easy problem, however.
We have seen numerous initiatives to improve the quality of education over the
years. Act 60 offered equity in school funding as the road to education
quality. The Common Standards were an excellent attempt to articulate very high
expectations for students and schools. As for the draft Report, the latest new
initiative, it is not enough to just say that if we give the Superintendent
more power and an easier board schedule our students will magically receive
“substantial equity in the quality and variety of educational opportunities
statewide”.
3.
Our students benefit from schools with strong
relationships to families and the community.
In the statewide discussions concerning
Act 46 and whether to centralize our schools, the proponents of centralization typically
talk about the virtues of a modern, centralized school system versus an archaic
system of “local control”. We see the issue rather as a question of what system
of school governance will be best for our students: (1) a larger, centralized
system conferring greater power and control to a Superintendent; or (2) the
current system where local boards have a direct and close relationship with the
community; or (3) an alternative governance structure that addresses areas that
need improvement without jettisoning what is good about the current system.
Our personal belief is that the local
community relationship with its school is a unique and extremely valuable
feature of the Vermont community that will be diminished if school
centralization were to happen. These strong community relationships support
schools and students and families at a personal level, and also support schools
when budgets are considered. But don’t take our word for it! Listen to our
neighbors who offered comments on the Committee’s Survey:
“I do not
believe in a "one size fits all" mentality and I think that centralization,
unification would likely lead to a lack of responsiveness to individual
students and communities.
“I am very much against taking school control
out of the local setting and putting it in the hands of people far removed from
our local community.”
“Act 46
threatens both our schools and the vitality of each ASESU community. To respond
to the goals of each student, each school has to design programs that fits the
purposes students discover through experience in their schools, not the general
aims adopted by a large district or agency that may not actually help any
individual move toward adult independence. Large-scale education policy, created
by people with no common vision, often overlooks the powerful resources within
the community, as well as the energetic drive that each of us feels when we are
developing skills and talents that take us where we want to go, not where some
administrative group tells us to go.”
“Larger
school and single board means less accountability and transparency and less
connection between schools and the community.”
“Not clear
to me that a simplified governance is a good thing. The governance model used
in the past led to disastrous results for the whole 5-town community.
“While I
understand there are potential benefits, I do not see many of them coming to
fruition in the ways our legislators want. I am much more concerned with the
losses on the local level than with any possible benefits.”
“I would be
concerned about the funds from all the schools being controlled by one Board
and making sure that each school gets the correct share and amounts needed to
support their school.”
“I used to
feel that people clamoring for local control were just unprogressive and afraid
of change. After watching the miasma that has developed in Montpelier in the
last 30 years, I have zero interest in giving them more control.”
“I'm not
only a District taxpayer, but also an employee of one of the town school
districts. My personal experience is that communication pathways suffer when
operations are "centralized." Decisions are made at the District
level, but are not clearly communicated to staff at the individual schools.
I've seen this happen in the areas of technology and special education.”
“Highest
concern is that the needs of the students will become even more lost.
Unification seems to serve the needs of the town, governing bodies, taxpayers,
and losses sight of the fact that children, more than ever before, need an enriching
and positive, calm and small family like community in which to learn and grow.”
“The
essential and historical character of Vermont is centered around each
individual Town, and it seems that there are ways to protect and cherish that
heritage and legacy, rather than trying to impose a "New York City"
perspective.”
“Given that
community ownership, pride and involvement in its local school is the most
important determining factor in a school’s success every effort should be made
to maintain that!”
“I
understand the need/desire to simplify decision making, but when this united
structure comes at a cost to person students' growth and education, it is
concerning.”
“I would
like to see a proposal that seriously addresses cost and equity issues, but
hopefully does retain some autonomy at the town level.”
“I'm not
convinced this move will actually be beneficial. Schools need to be accountable
for results. Moving authority further away from individual schools does not
give schools the decision making authority they need to execute policies that
are efficacious at the student teacher level.”
Of course, not all people feel this
way. Many people agree with the sentiments expressed in the Study Committee’s
draft Report, and feel that the potential benefits of centralization outweigh
the cost in terms of the loss of a strong community-school relationship. The
important point, however, as articulated in the above comments, is that we lose
something valuable with centralization, even if we might disagree as to how
valuable it is. Before we jump in we need to be sure that the trade-off is
worth it.
4.
We can do better: an alternative vision for
education in the 5 Towns.
Too often the Act 46 discussion is
compressed into a simplistic “either/or” choice. Either we decide to centralize
our schools, or we do nothing. We truly believe that an alternative governance
structure can be developed that addresses key concerns with the current system,
while retaining those features of the current system that are important and
valuable.
From listening to others, and based on our
own observations, right now decision-making seems to be more difficult and cumbersome
than it needs to be. We can envision transferring many decisions to the Central
Office where it has greater expertise and resources than the local board. We
can also envision clearly delineating roles and responsibilities between the
Superintendent and the local boards, so energy can be focused on implementing useful
policies and programs.
As to what should be retained at the
local level, there must be a meaningful role for the local community. Without a
meaningful role in governance the community-school relationship will be
significantly diminished. We want to hear from our friends and neighbors just
what that “meaningful role” should be. Perhaps the local community should have
a direct employment relationship with the elementary school Principal, both to
preserve communications and responsiveness to families and students, and as an
institutional check and balance with a more powerful Superintendent and district
board. Perhaps the local community should retain some voting role in
establishing the budget for the elementary school.
Other possibilities can be envisioned.
Some community members have suggested merger of our 5 Town schools with those
of neighboring, recently merged districts such as Addison Central or Champlain
Valley. The thought is that a merger with a larger district with lower costs
and higher quality (both assumptions would need to be carefully examined) might
be worth some diminishment of the local community-school relationship.
Unfortunately, thoughtful
consideration of an alternative governance structure for our schools was
short-circuited relatively early in the Study Committee process. We attribute
this to several factors: (i) our Committee Consultant was a strong advocate of
centralization, and an active opponent of alternative governance structures;
(ii) when guidance was sought from the Agency of Education, the responses
clearly favored the “preferred option” of centralization; and (iii) after Town Meeting
votes in March, when several neighboring districts agreed to centralize, many
Committee members felt that centralization was inevitable, and maybe the only
feasible option.
An alternative governance structure is
most certainly feasible. Act 46 acknowledges that centralization “may not be
possible or the best model to achieve Vermont’s education goals in all regions
of the State.”
As Representative David Sharpe made clear in his letter to the Act 46
Committee: “I have committed myself to
working with communities who propose governance structures that they believe
best supports their schools in meeting the goals of Act 46 even if those
proposals vary from the structure laid out in the law. I will do my best to
clear up inconsistencies in the law to support our community.”
We still
have time and the opportunity to develop a school governance structure that
works best for our students. We urge the community to make their voices heard
in this important conversation.
Herb Olson
401-829-1678
Nancy Cornell
802-453-2681
Mike Fisher
802-989-9806
