Local Control, R.I.P.

Act 60, the much debated "Equal Educational Opportunity Act of 1997", will preserve and expand local control of public education. Who says so? A chorus of the Act's defenders led by Gov. Howard Dean.

In an August letter to the Dorset school board, Gov. Dean confronted the critics head on: " I would argue that there is more local control in this law than exists today." Rep. Martha Heath (D-Westford), a member of the conference committee on Act 60, says "the school board that I serve on will have more local control as a result of the Act than we've had in many years." Senate Majority Leader Dick McCormack (D-Windsor), never one to waste time rebutting a foolish argument, simply declares : "Fallacy 13. 'Act 60 undermines local control.' No, it doesn't."

Are they right?

For years "local control" of public education has steadily eroded, especially since Education Commissioner Stephen Kaagan persuaded the apparently uncomprehending (Republican-controlled) legislature of 1982 to give the Board of Education broad rule making power over local schools. Act 60 indeed repeals the most infamous exercise of that power, the much-criticized Public School Approval Standards (but only, of course, after the PSA process has been completed in 1998.).

The question is, whatever the amount of local control surviving at the beginning of 1997, will there be more local control or less local control as a result of Act 60?

Bear in mind that Act 60 enthusiastically echoes the Supreme Court in requiring "educational opportunities which are substantially equal" throughout the state - notwithstanding the fact that neither the ACLU lawyers, nor the five Supreme Legislators, nor the legislature, was willing to define "educational opportunities". Whenever a local school board strikes out on its own, it can plausibly be argued that it will be departing from the state-set "equal educational opportunity" standard . So the whole thrust of Act 60 is to fit every school district within a matrix of goals, rules and standards that prevents any significant deviation from the Montpelier Vision.

Act 60 imposes new state school quality standards, presumably built on the state board's current "Common Core of Knowledge" (e.g., "asks meaningful questions", "makes healthy choices", "expresses self with power and purpose", etc.). Local school boards will have to create a "comprehensive action plan" to meet the new standards. They will have to comply with the state board's standards regarding "conditions, practices and resources". They will have to provide for "needs-based professional development" directly connected to "standards for student performance established by the state board and any other educational performance goals established by the state board" any time in the future.

If the commissioner determines that the locals are not playing ball, he or she will tell the locals what they must do. If the school fails to shape up within two years, the commissioner may recommend that the board assume administrative control of the schools, or close the schools and make the local school board tuition the students elsewhere.

Now if the state can set "school quality standards", sit in judgment of mandated "comprehensive action plans", and take over or shut down schools when it is not obeyed, the only "local control" left will be over things the state doesn't have the time or inclination to prescribe.

On the financing side, towns can no longer raise tax dollars to finance school budgets above their state basic grant, without subjecting themselves to forced tax sharing based on an unknown formula by which the state will announce what school property tax rate the town must levy. The town also has to collect the state tax on nonresidential property, conform to the state's listing requirements, collect the state's data, stop taxing machinery and inventory for education, and not enter into any new education tax stabilization agreements for business and industry.

As Act 60 unfolds, Vermonters are likely to find that all that is left of "local control" is control over lunch menus, bus routes, and initial hires. The other decisions will be made pursuant to Act 60's "statewide strategic education plan".

There are only two proximate outcomes of this mandated equality approach, neither of which permits any meaningful "local control". The most straightforward one is a state public school system, run by state-employed regional education managers, staffed by state-employed teachers in one statewide bargaining unit (one of Gov. Dean's favorite ideas), and paid for by state taxes. That would give Vermont one big school district the size of Boston's .

Act 60 takes the other path. Since local school boards and superintendents are too powerful politically to allow themselves to be abolished , they will survive to run local public schools in accordance with an increasingly complex and demanding array of state goals, mandates, plans, standards, and penalties. The potential builders, creators , and innovators among them - especially the ones who really care about what our children are learning, instead of stability, compliance and job security - will probably seek other outlets for their talents.

Parents who care about their children should ask: does such a system promise a better education for my child? Or will I soon be looking for ways to help my child escape from an overgrown, centrally controlled system that will increasingly exist for the benefit of the bureaucrats and providers who author and enforce all these standards and plans, but know and care little of what is good for our town and my child?

October 1997