Rutland Herald
Opinion Letter
April 25,2015
It has come to my attention that the Vermont
Agency of Education data I quoted in a commentary on April 23 [see below] in the
Rutland Herald, are not accurate. For this, I apologize.
Looking at the Vermont Agency of Education table called, “Per Pupil Spending by District Type,” (this can be found by that name by simply typing it into a search engine), for 2014 the table states clearly that the Sherburne Elementary School in the town of Killington has 58.64 equalized pupils and a budget of $26,642 per equalized pupil. What the table neglects to state is that Sherburne Elementary School also has tuition pupils from neighboring towns to bring the school pupil population up to around 95. This then means that the Sherburne budget is around $17,800 per pupil. Certainty a much more reasonable number. The Sherburne school is to be commended for voluntarily doing what the Legislature is trying to force on us.
I appreciate that a reader from Killington brought this inaccuracy to my attention and that he agrees with the rest of the commentary. One has to wonder that since the Agency of Education can’t get the numbers right, how will anyone, including the Legislature, ever be able to improve our school system. The more I think about it, the more I hope the Legislature does nothing this year.
PAUL STONE
Looking at the Vermont Agency of Education table called, “Per Pupil Spending by District Type,” (this can be found by that name by simply typing it into a search engine), for 2014 the table states clearly that the Sherburne Elementary School in the town of Killington has 58.64 equalized pupils and a budget of $26,642 per equalized pupil. What the table neglects to state is that Sherburne Elementary School also has tuition pupils from neighboring towns to bring the school pupil population up to around 95. This then means that the Sherburne budget is around $17,800 per pupil. Certainty a much more reasonable number. The Sherburne school is to be commended for voluntarily doing what the Legislature is trying to force on us.
I appreciate that a reader from Killington brought this inaccuracy to my attention and that he agrees with the rest of the commentary. One has to wonder that since the Agency of Education can’t get the numbers right, how will anyone, including the Legislature, ever be able to improve our school system. The more I think about it, the more I hope the Legislature does nothing this year.
PAUL STONE
Thanks Mr. Stone for the correction. The person who alerted Mr. Stone to this error is none other than our own inimitable former Selectman Jim Haff who is now on the School Board and well versed in Vermont education financing. I spoke to Jim after noticing Mr. Stone's original letter (below) and he confirmed the error and said he would contact Mr. Stone.
Vito
Closing schools, getting rid of boards
Rutland Herald
Opinion Commentary
April 23,2015
Make no mistake about it, the goal of H.361
passed by the Vermont House and now being considered by the Senate is
about closing elementary schools and getting rid of elementary school
boards. About reducing citizen and parent participation in the education
of their children; about removing those pesky and annoying things,
citizens and parents, from the bureaucrat’s otherwise tranquil life.
About giving over to the bureaucrats of the state more power, more
control, more money.
This is not about good education. It’s about centralized control. Moving parents out and far away from their responsibility and rights toward the education of their children.
No wonder the superintendents of supervisory unions are for it. They get to keep their profitable jobs and get more power and control, the dream of every bureaucrat.
Some lawmakers, including the governor, made a big deal last election about the high cost of education and that property taxes were supposedly going up out of sight. The news media gladly went along always looking for a juicy story to sell. There has been a lot of hype about the supposed high cost of education, but this spring 237 school budgets passed and only 20 failed.
Vermonters take the education of their children seriously and have historically been willing to finance good local education. Just because a school is small doesn’t mean it is providing inferior education. And it definitely does not mean that costs are more.
Advocates of H.361 claim that larger school districts will reduce costs due to efficiencies achieved in larger numbers of pupils.
However, the Vermont Agency of Education website in a table of figures titled “Per Pupil Spending by District Type” for fiscal 2014 for the whole state, both the voted school budgets per pupil and what the agency calls the spending cost of education per pupil increased as the size of school districts increased from less than 100 students to those over 1,000. Please check this out to assure yourself of the facts.
For 2014, the figures above, there is no savings for the 16 Vermont school districts over 1,000 students compared to all the rest of the districts, 92 of which are under 100 students.
Voters vote school budgets and not spending per pupil. The discussion about school costs currently raging, according to lawmakers and the media, is the high cost per pupil. Citizens are thinking about the budgets they pass, but lawmakers are talking about spending per pupil. There is a big difference. School spending per pupil as defined by the Agency of Education is much less because they subtract from the budget the following: 1) a possible budget deficit or surplus from prior year; 2) grants, such as small school grant; 3) federal dollars; and 4) privately donated dollars.
This calculation by the education agency makes no sense because the cost of education is actually the budgeted amount passed by voters. That is the amount of money really spent, not the so-called school spending per pupil as stated by the education agency.
This boils down to if your school district is good at obtaining any of these four sources of revenues your school budget may be high but your school spending will be much lower because, apparently, these four sources of income for your district for some reason don’t count toward the overall cost of education, according to the education agency.
Take for example the town of Killington, 59 students in elementary school, with a 2014 school budget of $26,642 per student and school spending of $13,538. One can presume that because Killington is a well-off town that there is a lot of private money or money from somewhere coming into the system to support the budget.
Wherever the money comes from the budget for the Killington Elementary School budget in Killington of $26,642 is twice the budget of the town of Orwell at $13,035. This imbalance surely seems to circumnavigate efforts by the Legislature and courts to ensure a more fair and equitable education funding amongst towns in Vermont.
This ability of well-off towns to find and spend money puts other towns at a great disadvantage when a spending cap is imposed because a well-off town can find other money to make up reduced spending required by the cap where most towns don’t have the resources, i.e. some industry or business providing property wealth. The questions about school costs are important and should be studied from the point of why are costs so uneven in the state? Why do some schools cost so much? Not about some wholesale forced reorganizing of districts where individual schools have no choice.
Other questions should be why do some schools do better than others? Is it money available or location or what is it? My feeling is the difference in school and student performance is reflected in the makeup of the community. I think an inescapable truth is that the education achievements of students is dependent on parents’ educational level and their accumulated wealth — that is investments, home ownership and other measures of wealth. The real question in this educational debate should be how to level out that inequality.
Paul Stone operates Stonewood Farm in Orwell. He is a former Vermont commissioner of agriculture.
This is not about good education. It’s about centralized control. Moving parents out and far away from their responsibility and rights toward the education of their children.
No wonder the superintendents of supervisory unions are for it. They get to keep their profitable jobs and get more power and control, the dream of every bureaucrat.
Some lawmakers, including the governor, made a big deal last election about the high cost of education and that property taxes were supposedly going up out of sight. The news media gladly went along always looking for a juicy story to sell. There has been a lot of hype about the supposed high cost of education, but this spring 237 school budgets passed and only 20 failed.
Vermonters take the education of their children seriously and have historically been willing to finance good local education. Just because a school is small doesn’t mean it is providing inferior education. And it definitely does not mean that costs are more.
Advocates of H.361 claim that larger school districts will reduce costs due to efficiencies achieved in larger numbers of pupils.
However, the Vermont Agency of Education website in a table of figures titled “Per Pupil Spending by District Type” for fiscal 2014 for the whole state, both the voted school budgets per pupil and what the agency calls the spending cost of education per pupil increased as the size of school districts increased from less than 100 students to those over 1,000. Please check this out to assure yourself of the facts.
For 2014, the figures above, there is no savings for the 16 Vermont school districts over 1,000 students compared to all the rest of the districts, 92 of which are under 100 students.
Voters vote school budgets and not spending per pupil. The discussion about school costs currently raging, according to lawmakers and the media, is the high cost per pupil. Citizens are thinking about the budgets they pass, but lawmakers are talking about spending per pupil. There is a big difference. School spending per pupil as defined by the Agency of Education is much less because they subtract from the budget the following: 1) a possible budget deficit or surplus from prior year; 2) grants, such as small school grant; 3) federal dollars; and 4) privately donated dollars.
This calculation by the education agency makes no sense because the cost of education is actually the budgeted amount passed by voters. That is the amount of money really spent, not the so-called school spending per pupil as stated by the education agency.
This boils down to if your school district is good at obtaining any of these four sources of revenues your school budget may be high but your school spending will be much lower because, apparently, these four sources of income for your district for some reason don’t count toward the overall cost of education, according to the education agency.
Take for example the town of Killington, 59 students in elementary school, with a 2014 school budget of $26,642 per student and school spending of $13,538. One can presume that because Killington is a well-off town that there is a lot of private money or money from somewhere coming into the system to support the budget.
Wherever the money comes from the budget for the Killington Elementary School budget in Killington of $26,642 is twice the budget of the town of Orwell at $13,035. This imbalance surely seems to circumnavigate efforts by the Legislature and courts to ensure a more fair and equitable education funding amongst towns in Vermont.
This ability of well-off towns to find and spend money puts other towns at a great disadvantage when a spending cap is imposed because a well-off town can find other money to make up reduced spending required by the cap where most towns don’t have the resources, i.e. some industry or business providing property wealth. The questions about school costs are important and should be studied from the point of why are costs so uneven in the state? Why do some schools cost so much? Not about some wholesale forced reorganizing of districts where individual schools have no choice.
Other questions should be why do some schools do better than others? Is it money available or location or what is it? My feeling is the difference in school and student performance is reflected in the makeup of the community. I think an inescapable truth is that the education achievements of students is dependent on parents’ educational level and their accumulated wealth — that is investments, home ownership and other measures of wealth. The real question in this educational debate should be how to level out that inequality.
Paul Stone operates Stonewood Farm in Orwell. He is a former Vermont commissioner of agriculture.
No comments:
Post a Comment