Vermont:
A Defining Act

by Joetta L. Sack

As the financial ramifications of the plan kicked in last year, poor districts began to prepare for long-awaited funding increases, while wealthy towns directed angry protests toward the state and sought alternative funding sources to make up for lost revenues.

Vermont's controversial Act 60 targets not only school funding, but performance, too.

"What Act 60 did was not take us in a new direction, but look at reform initiatives that seemed to generate the greatest promise and made those statewide," says state Commissioner of Education Marc Hull. "We're starting down a road I think is a very important one."

Last year, Act 60 was most talked about for its reallocation of funding among districts. The new formula approved by the legislature was designed to go into effect gradually, with the changeover beginning this school year.

The law's most vocal opponents are the districts in well-to-do ski areas. Although their property taxes have risen sharply under Act 60, those actually stand to see less money for their schools. Instead, some of their local tax revenues will be sent to the state and then redistributed to other, poorer districts.

"The funding changes are going to be gradual. Schools aren't going to be swamped with cash this year," says Tom Bisson, a spokesman for the state education department. "I don't think there's going to be instant improvement."

For some districts, though, those gradual changes are still going to hurt. Dorset, one of Vermont's most affluent villages, will see its property taxes rise 35 percent in 1999 and at least 30 percent again next year, says Greg Scieszka, the superintendent of the 2,000-student Bennington-Rutland Supervisory Union District, which includes Dorset.

At the same time, with less state revenue coming its way, services will drop. Scieszka says the town's 250-student elementary school lost one of its 30 full-time staff members this school year and had to cut several positions to part time. Its budget for professional development and supplies was also sharply cut for school year 1998-99.

But administrators in the towns that will reap the benefits of Act 60 are beginning to plan for future funding increases. For instance, Superintendent David Wolk of the 2,800-student Rutland district notes that his district will see about a 7 percent budget boost in the current fiscal year. Schools there have bought new textbooks and computers, and other nearby districts, he adds, are hiring new teachers and modernizing their curricula.

Holden Waterman, the superintendent of the 1,200-student Windham Central Unified District, says that nine of the 10 towns in his district will see their property taxes increase significantly.

But the schools are making changes to adjust to the new law; one even followed up on previous proposals and reorganized as a private school. The change will allow the school to accept local students and the related "tuition" revenue from the state while also raising private money that does not have to be filtered through the state funding formula. Such private school reorganizations are not unusual in small-town Vermont.

Waterman says schools are happy with the new accountability measures. "I don't think anyone can argue against that," he says.

Meanwhile, officials at the state education department, well aware of the controversy surrounding the law, assert that it ultimately will help settle years of funding disparities and raise academic achievement.

"What Act 60 does is make the resources of our state available to all communities," Hull says. But "there's definitely going to be a period of adjustment."

The centerpiece of Act 60's emphasis on improving achievement, according to Hull, is a requirement that districts draw up "action plans" to enhance students' academic performance.

Under the state's guidance, each school will coordinate an "action team," consisting of administrators, school board members, teachers, parents, other community members, and, in some cases, students.

The teams will meet regularly and discuss ways to improve a school's environment and academic results while also devising long-term strategies, based on the school's results on the state assessments.

The education department ran weeklong training sessions last summer to help schools institute their action teams.

"As we were getting into the quality side of property-tax reform, we wanted to ensure we had a meaningful accountability system," Hull explains. "We felt it was important to take it one step further, and make sure the school uses the information and data to craft an action plan."

The plan for the action teams builds on another prime requirement of Act 60: For the first time, every public school will be required to participate in the state's assessments in English/language arts, mathematics, and science. A new social studies assessment is scheduled to be in place later this year.

And, the education department last spring completed an extensive survey of teachers, administrators, and students on conditions and learning opportunities in the schools--data the department hopes will be useful to the action teams.

One of the law's provisions was a requirement that the state board of education rewrite and implement standards for school quality, building on previous school improvement initiatives.

Student achievement will be the primary factor in the state's judgment of the quality of a school. The interim accountability system--in effect this year and next--will focus on collecting extensive data and research on student assessments.

Schools that do not meet the benchmarks will receive assistance from the state. The data will then be used to write new standards for school quality to be released in September 2000.

The accountability provisions are "the most positive outcome of Act 60," says Wolk of the Rutland district, which reported success with its preliminary action-team planning last summer. "The students will be winners as a result of more attention focused on student achievement."

"The irony is that some opponents of Act 60 are upset at the loss of local control, and their perception of a more centralized education system. But Act 60 mandates more local control, particularly in the area of accountability," Wolk says.

The Vermont affiliate of the National Education Association is also happy with the accountability provisions, although the group's president, Angelo J. Dorta, notes that his members had some concerns about fitting action-planning meetings into their already busy schedules.

"It's positive that teachers are being invited into the decisionmaking process," he says. "The problem is, are we going to ensure there's enough time, training, and resources available?"

© 1999 Editorial Projects in Education

Vol. 18, number 17, page 179