1. Bi-monthly schedule for the VER
  2.  Friedman Dinner – July 31st at the Windjammer
  3.  Is Your Local School Board Representative a VTNEA Member?
  4.  The Culture Gap
  5.  An Independent Look at K-12 Education in Vermont
  6.  Commentary: Vermont's New 15-year School System

Schedule Note

The VER will be going to a bi-monthly schedule for the rest of the summer.

Friedman Dinner – July 31st at the Windjammer

Don’t forget to RSVP for the Friedman Dinner by July 28th, 2007. Social hour starts at 6:00 PM, Dinner at 7:00 PM. Please reserve your seat by calling or emailing the Ethan Allen Institute, 695 1448 or eai@ethanallen.org. The price is $30, and may be paid in advance or at the door. (The Windjammer is at the Best Western Hotel 200 yards east of I-89 Exit 14E on Williston Road.)

Is Your Local School Board Representative a VTNEA Member?
By Curtis Hier

Of the roughly 1400 school board members in Vermont, a large percentage is or has been employed by a school system. Although Vermont law precludes teachers (or any school employees) from serving on the board that employs them, many school board members are currently teachers in other districts. And many of them are members of VTNEA.

Is there an unhealthy conflict for these teacher/school board members? Just the fact that VTNEA embraces the phenomenon ought to concern us. VTNEA president Angelo Dorta was recently quoted in the Burlington Free Press as saying, “We think it's always good to have people who know education on school boards and certainly for these folks they know education from the inside as well as from the outside in."

For these people, undoubtedly there is a conflict between allegiance to taxpayers and allegiance to fellow teachers. VNTEA encourages solidarity among Vermont’s teachers. Beyond that, it is helpful for a teacher if teachers in neighboring schools have lucrative contracts. Since contract negotiations inevitably involve comparisons with other districts, it’s in a teacher’s interest to have teachers in nearby districts earning high salaries.

A disturbing trend currently in Vermont is the number of school districts that are having “agency fees” negotiated into their contracts. An agency fee is an amount that a union local can assess non-members for taking advantage of their salary negotiating efforts. Since 2005, it’s been legal in Vermont for agency fees to be negotiated. Our NEA-dominated legislature pushed that through last biennium.

NEA claims that 63 percent of its dues are used for collective bargaining. That percentage seems intuitively high, and indeed a Pennsylvania court found that the union only used about 25 percent of its dues revenue for collective bargaining. Nevertheless, union locals throughout Vermont are commonly charging 80 percent of their dues for agency fees!

Regardless of what the union claims, a large percentage of this money goes to liberal political causes and soft money for liberal candidates. This practice is unconscionable. Over two centuries ago, Thomas Jefferson declared: “To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”

So why would a school board agree to an agency fee provision? It is VTNEA members on school boards that are largely responsible for the agency fees finding their way into the contracts of Vermont teachers.

I would encourage citizens to contact their local school board representatives to urge them to reject agency fees and adopt policies which preclude teachers from serving on negotiating committees for school boards. Additionally, voters should find out what school board members are VTNEA members and recruit alternative candidates to run against them.

We may never take back our Legislature from the VTNEA. But we can make sure they don’t get control of our local school boards.

Curtis Hier is a high school teacher in Fair Haven and chairman of First Class Education for Vermont.

The Culture Gap
By Brink Lindsey
Wall Street Journal
July 9, 2007; Page A15

“Cut through all the statistical squid ink surrounding the issue of economic inequality, and you'll find a phenomenon that genuinely deserves public concern.

“Over the past quarter-century or so, the return on human capital has risen significantly. Or to put it another way, the opportunity cost of failing to develop human capital is now much higher than it used to be. The wage premium associated with a college degree has jumped to around 70% in recent years from around 30% in 1980; the graduate degree premium has soared to over 100% from 50%. Meanwhile, dropping out of high school now all but guarantees socioeconomic failure.

“In part this development is cause for celebration. Rising demand for analytical and interpersonal skills has been driving the change, and surely it is good news that economic signals now so strongly encourage the development of human talent. Yet -- and here is the cause for concern -- the supply of skilled people is responding sluggishly to the increased demand.

<snip>

“Alas, there is no silver bullet for closing the culture gap. But the public institutions most directly responsible for human capital formation are the nation's schools, and it seems beyond serious dispute that in many cases they are failing to discharge their responsibilities adequately. Those interested in reducing meaningful economic inequality would thus be well advised to focus on education reform. And forget about adding new layers of bureaucracy and top-down controls. Real improvements will come from challenging the moribund state-school monopoly with greater competition.”

Visit this link to read the whole commentary.

An Independent Look at K-12 Education in Vermont

Hugh Kemper of Londonderry, Vermont, worked for J.P. Morgan for 31 years. Because of his financial background, people in his town asked him to run for a seat on the school board at Town Meeting in 2005. He reluctantly agreed to do so. Thus began a research project that Kemper had not set out to do. He has taken his research and put it down on paper in an organized manner so that you and I can read what he discovered. His analysis of K-12 Education in Vermont was published in June of 2007.
 
His analysis is not just about the student to teacher ratio and the associated cost drivers. It also talks about performance and how test scores are compared with scores from around the nation. Vermont comes in 2nd when the fourth grade reading scores of ‘all students’ in Vermont are compared with the fourth grade reading scores of ‘all students’ from other states. Then Kemper compares Vermont’s white/non-Hispanic scores with other states’ white/non-Hispanic test scores and Vermont is 21st in the country in fourth grade reading scores.
 
Below are the Key Findings of Kemper’s work. The entire analysis is online at VermontTiger.com. The Executive Summary describes the analytical focus, key findings, and accountability or need for change with in the educational system. You can also view Kemper’s Power Point Presentation and his End Notes which contain much of the data he used.
 
Key Findings:
 
(1) CONTEXT:  Between 1990 & 1997 the 2.2% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of Vermont PPS was marginally lower than that for the U.S. (3.4%) and other New England states (3.5%). Between 1998 and 2002, however, Vermont PPS grew at an accelerated annualized rate of 8.5%, i.e. at a materially faster pace than in the U.S (5.4%) and in other NE states (6.1%).  For the 1998-2006 period, Vermont PPS grew at a 7.7% annualized rate. 
 
(2) AFFORDABILITY: Between 1990 & 1997 the 2.2% CAGR of Vermont PPS 2.2% was lower than that of the U.S. Consumer Price Index (3.0%) and the growth of Vermont Per Capita Personal Income (3.7%). Between 1998 and 2006, however, Vermont PPS’ 7.7% annualized growth was 2.8x the CPI (2.7%) and 1.8x Vermont Per Capita Personal Income (4.2%).
 
(3) PRIMARY COST DRIVER: The primary driver behind the dramatic acceleration of Vermont PPS is staff related costs which account for approximately 85% of current education expenditures. Notwithstanding Vermont’s already comparatively low 13.8: 1 Pupil/Teacher and 6.8:1 Pupil/Staff ratios in 1996, by 2005/06 staffing had increased by 22.6% (or by 3,514) while enrollment declined by 9.1% (or by 9,706) resulting in P/T and P/S ratios of 10.9:1 and 5.1:1 respectively.
 
(4) PERFORMANCE: While Vermont public education is generally well regarded based on student performance on national tests, a very different impression emerges when comparing performance on an ‘apples to apples’ basis. Vermont is 95% ‘white/non-Hispanic’. Comparing the performance (4th grade reading) of Vermont ‘white/non-Hispanic’ students with those of other states drops Vermont’s national ranking from 2nd to 21st with a score marginally below the comparable national average. Vermont’s return on education spending (ROES) ranks 46th nationally.
 
(5) COST STRUCTURE: Due to extraordinarily high staffing levels Vermont’s cost structure compares unfavorably with those of many other states whose students are performing as well as or better than Vermont students. This difference cannot be attributed to either ‘economies of scale’ or special education.  The application to Vermont of P/T and P/S ratios of other ‘small’ comparably or better performing states suggests that Vermont is 30.6% overstaffed. Reductions of 2005/06 staffing levels are achievable via 646 fewer teachers (-7.3%) and 5,185 fewer ‘other’ staff (-50.7%). Vermont’s failure to reduce staffing as enrollment declined from its 1996 peak has cost Vermont taxpayers dearly.  For example, had Vermont continued to ‘invest’ in education at a PPS rate of inflation + 2% since 1997 while adjusting for the annual decline in enrollment,  PPS for 2006/07 would have equaled $9,497 or 30.5% less than actual PPS of $13,664. This policy would have reduced Vermont current education expenditures during 1997/08-2006/07 by 19.6% or by approximately $2.0 billion.

Commentary: Vermont's New 15-year School System
By John McClaughry
 
In his state of the state message in January 2006, Gov. Jim Douglas observed that the 2005 legislature "added a provision into the final budget bill that I fear will lead to an unacceptable outcome: adding two more pre-kindergarten grades to the already stressed K-12 education system and putting taxpayers on the hook to fund it." He asked the legislature "to reconsider the decision to further increase the cost of education and the growing tax bills that accompany those costs."

On June 1 Gov. Douglas signed H.534, Strangely, this bill will add two more pre-kindergarten grades to the already stressed K-12 education system, and put taxpayers on the hook to fund it. Welcome to the new 15-year public education system!

The 2007 preschool bill was the product of four years of intense advocacy by persons and organizations that stand to benefit from the expansion of the public school system.  It was of no concern to them that the thorough ten-year study of Georgia's pioneering universal preschool program showed zero educational benefits.

Since 1987 school districts have been authorized to operate preschools, and a few did, at local expense. But the Brigham decision and Act 60 ended the era of "local expense". Post-Act 60, it became necessary to get the Education Fund to pay for local preschools. For the past four years the legislature proved to be unable to make the statutory change to make this legal. Nonetheless, the Department of Education aggressively encouraged districts to start new preschools, legal or not, until by this month some 130 had done so.

The new bill makes tapping the Education Fund to pay for preschools legal. It also pretends to "cap" preschool spending by allowing districts to charge the cost of approximately half of its eligible 3- and 4- year olds to the Education Fund. This provided the fig leaf that apparently won the Governor's signature. Let's look at how this "cap" will work. Say that a school district, using the three-part formula in the bill, arrives at 100 preschool students chargeable to the Education Fund. Ten of them are EEE-qualified, and thus automatically chargeable. But there are 150 kids who want the remaining 90 slots. Who gets them?

The district can't pay for the extra 60 with its "own money". Since Brigham, school districts no longer have their "own money." Perhaps it can raise private funds to pay the extra quarter-million dollars needed each year. Most likely not.

Perhaps (the law is not clear) the district could take the Education Fund money for 90 kids and spread it over all 150, requiring the parents of all 150 to pay the difference in tuition. This also seems unlikely.

So the district will have to run a lottery: 150 kids for 90 slots. And somewhere the bank president's son will win and the quickstop clerk's daughter will lose. Unfair! By 2010, when the Department is charged to report on this question, there will be irresistible pressure to scrap the "cap". That's the point where Vermont will have its 15-year public school system.

The new bill allows independent preschools to collaborate with school districts to offer early education programs. But the government will determine who is "qualified" to supervise the independent programs, and the school district holds the purse strings. Since the Vermont-NEA and the school district will prefer to have kids in (unionized) public preschools rather than having to deal with (non-union) independent schools, the independent preschools will either be swallowed up in the public school system, or left to try to stay in business serving 1- and 2-year olds.

The advocates claim the bill will "control costs".  Without the "cap" in this bill, they say, every district could offer preschool to their 3- and 4-year olds, and that would cause a much larger drain on the Education Fund. They estimate that the bill will cost an additional $14 million a year. This is a far larger cost than the $9 million a year that the legislature guesstimates will be saved by its feeble "Think Twice" split-vote plan due in 2010.

But all that begs the question. There is no statutory authorization now for the Education Fund to pay any preschool bills. This bill now provides it. And it's very hard to see how the vaunted "cap" can possibly survive past 2010.

Cost control? The legislature gave school districts the key to the cash register, and egged on by the advocates and the Department, you can bet they'll use it. The likely result will be no identifiable educational benefits, universal taxpayer-funded day care, severe pressure on independent day care and early education providers, and no true parental choice. That's certainly not a victory for anybody's Agenda of Affordability.

John McClaughry is President of the Ethan Allen Institute

We do!  Please consider a gift to Vermonters for Better Education, the publisher of the weekly Vermont Education Report, Vermont's ONLY continual source of education news. Send donations to: VBE, PO Box 72, Woodbury, VT 05681. VBE is a nonprofit organization and contributions are tax-deductible.

The VERMONT EDUCATION REPORT is published by Vermonters for Better Education PO Box 72 Woodbury, VT 05681 - 802-472-5491. The Vermont Education Report may be reprinted with the editor's permission. For more information contact: VBE@comcast.net or visit us on the web: http://www.schoolreport.com

VERMONTERS FOR BETTER EDUCATION is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization whose mission is to enlist parents and the public at large in achieving quality educational opportunities for all the children of Vermont by monitoring the state of education in Vermont; promoting the value of educational freedoms for all parents; and giving parents the evaluative tools with which to identify excellence.

Retta Dunlap, executive director
VBE@comcast.net