Task force delivers education funding report

By Jim Sabataso
RUTLAND HERALD
A legislative task force charged with developing a more equitable way to distribute money to school districts across the state recently approved a draft report outlining a number of proposals that, if implemented, could bring massive changes to the state education-funding formula.

During the past six months, the “Task Force on the Implementation of the Pupil Weighting Factors Report,” met a dozen times and heard testimony from educational experts and members of the public.

While the 83-page report released last week details the panel’s findings and recommendations, it remains a draft and additional sections and edits are expected, according to task force members.

Sen. Ruth Hardy, D-Addision, one of the task force’s co-chairs, characterized the report as a starting point that she hopes will set the state on the path toward creating a more equitable system of school funding when the Legislature reconvenes next month.

Currently in Vermont, school budgets are developed at the local level by school boards and approved by voters. Funding, however, comes from the state Education Fund, which is funded in part by property taxes.

Those local tax rates are determined by spending per equalized pupil. A higher equalized per-pupil count means lower tax rates for a district.

To calculate per-pupil spending, the state applies a weighted formula that reflects the resources a district needs to educate students based on certain characteristics, including students living in rural areas, students from low-income backgrounds, students with different learning needs and students for whom English is not their primary language.

Yet a 2019 study commissioned by the Legislature found the existing formula to be “outdated,” with weights having “weak ties, if any, with evidence describing differences in the costs for educating students with disparate needs or operating schools in different contexts.”

The task force, then, used that study’s findings to help it develop a plan for updating the state’s funding formula.

The result is a pair of options presented in last week’s report.

The first would be to adopt updated school-level pupil weights proposed by the authors of the 2019 UVM study.

The second option would be to adopt a “cost-equity formula,” which would create an entirely new process under which education would be funded. Under that plan, each district would receive money from the Education Fund for “each student living in poverty; the number of students in a rural district; and the number in a small school, middle school, and high school.”

According to the report, “these State-delivered equity payments would reduce each district’s education spending, thus increasing tax capacity for local voters to make decisions on the remaining portion of the overall school budget.”

Hardy said the cost equity plan is a simpler, more transparent approach that eliminates the confusion of equalized pupils.

She pointed out that both options are derived from the same analysis of cost.

“There’s a cost behind the weights. They’re just applied differently. So the amounts that would be paid in the cost equity payments would be based on the weights,” she said.

Ted Plemenos, director of finance at Rutland City Public Schools, said that while he is pleased that adopting updated pupil weights is one option, he called the cost equity proposal “questionable” and “ill defined.”

RCPS is a member of the Coalition for Vermont Student Equity (CVTSE), which represents more than 20 underweighted school districts around the state.

Plemenos argued that the task force did not have sufficient time to complete the research, analysis and modeling necessary to recommend a completely different approach.

“I don’t think that the study delivered a very usable product,” he said.

Hardy addressed concerns by critics concerned the cost equity plan would tie the hands of local school districts when it came to spending decisions, explaining the funding would come as lump-sum payments that districts could then determine how to spend themselves.

“They would still, at the local level, determine their budget. They still, at the local level, would determine how to spend all the money,” she said.

However, she added another recommendation of the report is to create an evaluation mechanism to assess the impacts of either option on how school districts are allocating resources to improve student outcomes and equity for students with higher needs.

“So while we wouldn’t be telling school districts how to spend that money, it would be more explicit,” she said.

The report included several additional recommendations.

One was changing the measurement for determining students living in poverty, which is used to set school funding allocations. Currently, schools use the eligibility for the supplemental nutrition assistance program (SNAP). The report called for transitioning to eligibility for the federal free- and reduced-price lunch (FRL) program before eventually moving to a universal income declaration form.

Hardy added that changing the metric would capture a broader group of students living in poverty. The shift to the FRL metric, she said, would be an interim step on the way to the universal income form, which would be a simpler method for assessing poverty levels that didn’t carry with it any stigma.

Another recommendation called for eliminating the weight for English language learning (ELL) students from the funding formula in favor of a targeted “categorical aid,” or grant, program. The plan would provide school districts with ELL students a base payment as well as an additional per-pupil payment for each ELL student.

The proposal has drawn sharp criticism from student equity advocates, who contend that it unfairly discriminates against ELL students and the grant funding is unreliable.

Marc Schauber, executive director of CVTSE, called the current ELL proposal a “nonstarter.”

However, he said if Tammy Kolbe — one of the authors of the 2019 study — provides cost equivalencies for pupil weights under the cost equity plan as she is expected to do in the coming weeks, he would give it a second look.

“While we don’t believe that grants are the way to do this and pulling ELL students out and treating them differently than all other students is a huge problem, we do believe that if they use a cost equivalency provided by (Kolbe), then at least on a dollar figure, we are looking at an equitable distribution,” he said.

Hardy said the goal of the task force was to ensure ELL students were more equitably served.

She said the recommendation reflected the balancing act of more adequately addressing ELL student needs while acknowledging that those needs vary widely district to district.

“What we wanted to do was find a solution that worked for school districts that have 500 ELL students and school districts that have one ELL student,” she said.

Hardy noted that there is still a long way to go before any kind of plan is accepted, let alone implemented.

However, she saw potential for tackling smaller recommendations in the upcoming legislative session, such as the transition to the universal income form or creating an “Education Tax Advisory Committee” to oversee updates to the system.

While Schauber said the coalition appreciated the work the task force put in to the report and is pleased updated pupil weights are an option, he’s unsure if lawmakers truly heard the concerns that were raised.

“I think that their minds were made up and they just gave us a platform … but they clearly didn’t take anything that we or other members of the public said into consideration, because just look at the end result,” he said.

Schauber maintained that the coalition believed updating the weights was the best option, but stressed that the group is committed to working together with lawmakers and other stakeholders.

“The coalition is going to continue to fight. We’re going to be active participants and look forward to working with the Legislature to finalize a good solution for the entire state,” he said.

Speaking Thursday, Hardy also addressed a photo she recently posted on Instagram that showed task force members celebrating completion of the report with cake and champagne.

Fellow task force member Rep. Kathleen James, D-Manchester, posted a similar photo to her Facebook page.

Both posts have since been removed.

Hardy acknowledged the bad optics of the posts, and said she deleted it on her own and had not directly received any criticism over it.

“I think we were so excited that we were done and we were celebrating, and then I was like, ‘OK, maybe not everybody would want to see us celebrating,” she said.

Plemenos expressed disappointment in the post, calling it “self-indulgent and self-centered.”

“Well, sure, they have worked hard. … But I don’t think they’ve worked any harder than the rest of us. And you don’t see us stopping and congratulating ourselves. There’s a lot of serious work that needs to be done on behalf of our students and our families,” he said.

jim.sabataso @rutlandherald.com