State board shirks mission
Toolbox
By WILLIAM J. MATHIS - Published: February 4, 2009
Those were difficult times, too. The quality of teachers, curriculum and administrators was wretched. School houses were compared with pig sties. The cause of this malaise was a lethargic Legislature, where indolence cost less than mediocrity. Transformation was essential.
Consequently, in 1912, the statewide property tax was increased and the state Board of Education was created to remove politics from schools. The state Constitution says education is to encourage virtue and prevent vice. Virtue means preparing students to be effective participating citizens in a democratic society. Vice is working against the common good. Embracing this noble purpose, education was too important to be left to the fickle agendas of politicians.
The 1914 Carnegie Commission cautioned, "Equally necessary, is the condition that the educational administration ... which is to scrutinize, to assist, and to inspire shall be free of political entanglement." The report went on, "Freedom from political pressure must be had before the school can do its work with an eye single to the good of the people ...."
The new state board was given added powers. In a time when governors served only four years, state board members were appointed for nonrenewable terms of six years so that they could speak for the common good free of political pressures.
With this grand purpose, it is troubling that today's state board stepped so deeply into political waters in endorsing the governor's education cuts — specifically, to freeze student spending as well as funds directed to our neediest students. As the state board's charter, by law, requires them to be the independent watchdog of equal financial and educational opportunities, the contrast between their goals and actions is jarring.
The state board's duties should, instead, require them to sound the clarion call. They should have said the governor's plan to return to local property taxes would cause great fiscal unfairness. They should have pointed out the constitutional issues. They should have said that the governor's plan would place an inequitable burden on towns with declining enrollments. Most importantly, they should have noted that Vermont's achievement gap is defined by town and student wealth and the governor's plan works most harshly against those with the greatest need.
But they said none of these things.
If the state board wanted to address how education could help solve the state's economic woes, they could have spoken to the vital role of education and job training in economic health. They could have mentioned the fact that huge layoffs in the public sector (just like layoffs in the private sector) contribute to our economic meltdown. They could have noted that the governor's plan to transfer new burdens to our already creaky property tax system is both regressive and ineffective. They could have remarked that health care costs are a huge problem and a solution would relieve schools, businesses and the general society of one of our greatest burdens. They could have warned that sick children do not learn and that suddenly unemployed and destitute parents place new burdens on schools.
But they presented none of these things.
Attending to their own bailiwick, they could have said the new early education law is harming, rather than helping, needy children and is sinking in a confused bureaucratic quagmire. They could have addressed the fact that the state's special education system is so bureaucratic that as much as 25 percent of our resources are wasted. They could have commented about the appalling lack of state capacity to meet their legal obligations to assist schools in need.
But they were silent about these matters.
The board's expressed rationale for endorsing the governor's plan was "fairness." Presumably, this means that fairness is universal deprivation with extra harshness for our neediest.
The governor says we should heed the state board as "they are not a special interest."
To the contrary, the governor has appointed all of these people, and their political credentials are well known. History and law gives them a noble purpose. Yet it is an ideal higher than they have climbed.
The state board has put forward a transformation agenda for the schools. At the same time, they set aside our record as a world-class educational leader, avoid our greatest problems, and endorse a program of financial inequities. Perhaps the state board should first transform itself.
William J. Mathis is superintendent of schools for the Rutland Northeast Supervisory Union and teaches education finance at the University of Vermont.
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