You know what’s a really great indicator of success? When a legislative body takes on a vital issue, and comes up with a “solution” that everybody seems to hate.
Well, that’s exactly what we’ve got with the state Senate’s education reform plan, which was approved last week by the Senate Finance Committee. Better still: the people who hate it the most are in the Democratic majority. Seriously, the only Senators who have anything good to say about this thing are Republicans.
And their words constitute the very definition of “damning with faint praise.”
Take, for instance, Sen. Randy Brock: “everybody… is coming away somewhat or entirely disappointed,” but “doing nothing is even a worse option.” Senate Majority Leader Scott Beck favors the bill, but warns that it could bring substantial tax increases to economically disadvantaged communities. Great!
Democrats, meanwhile, could barely conceal their contempt. “This bill will be devastating to our education system,” said Sen. Ruth Hardy. “I’m extremely uncomfortable with all of this,” said Sen. Martine Laroque Gulick, about whom more later. Senate Finance Committee chair Sen. Anne Cummings, who held her nose and voted yes, “can’t remember ever feeling as bad about a vote as I do on this one,” and she’s been in office since 1997, so she’s taken a few votes. Sen. Thomas Chittenden, who voted for the bill in committee, said he might well vote “No” on the Senate floor.
To judge by the published comments, it’s quite possible that when this bill gets to the full Senate, it will get more votes among minority Republicans than majority Democrats. Which is a remarkable development for one of the most significant bills of the entire session.
Our three major “print” outlets, VTDigger (the bill advanced “despite discomfort”), Seven Days (the bill advanced “with little enthusiasm”), and Vermont Public (“Education reform is on the brink of passage — or collapse”), each posted an original story on the bill’s latest move forward — which is a rare luxury indeed in these media-starved days.
And I’ll leave the details to them. I’m here to offer my congratulations to Senate majority leadership who, in case you (or they) need reminding, are Democrats at least in name. Because this weird, politically unpalatable outcome is a direct result of decisions made by leadership at the very beginning of this year.
Specifically, the curious case of the Senate Education Committee, which produced this bill that everybody hates. It’s the only committee in either chamber to have an equal number of Democrats and Republicans. That’s right, Democratic leadership willingly ceded their right to a majority on Senate Education, which would take up the most consequential issue of the 2025 session. Senate President Pro Term Phil Baruth’s explanation at the time was that Senate Ed would “put out bipartisan bills.” Sounds like the committee exceeded his expectations, to judge by the relative enthusiasm levels of the two caucuses.
Leadership also made a highly unusual, perhaps even unprecedented, move by installing a freshman, Sen. Seth Bongartz, as committee chair. In doing so they bypassed Sen. Gulick, who served as vice chair in the last biennium, is a public school librarian, and serves on the Burlington school board! Meanwhile, Bongartz’ chief education credential is his nearly two decades on the governing board of Burr and Burton Academy, one of the biggest “approved independent schools” in the state. (Gulick, who may well believe that she could have done better than Bongartz, described the bill as having been crafted in “a slipshod manner.” Huh, maybe installing a freshman as committee chair wasn’t such a hot idea after all.)
Let that all sink in. Public school employees in general, and teachers in particular, are a vital part of the Democratic Party base, and strong public schools are supposedly a core value of the party, And here we have Senate Democratic leadership putting a private school ally in a crucial position and relinquishing its right to a majority on the relevant committee. The predictable result: a Senate education reform bill that is definitely to the right of the House version, and seems to get most of its (reluctant, nose-holding) support from Republicans, not Democrats.
I don’t know why Senate leadership made the choices it did, but those choices have led directly to the situation we’re in now. Good job!
The Vermont Political Observer. 
All versions of the bill that have come through have been problematic, and I predict they won’t pass anything, taxes will be astronomical next year as we have to fill the $118 million gap that the governor bought down this year, and out of despair, we’ll throw up our hands and return to the governor’s mega-district plan, which isn’t supported by any data showing improved student outcomes or long-term property tax relief. And I’m starting to think this is all by design, given that the House had the opportunity to draft new legislation reforming the funding mechanism and instead took Phil Scott’s bait.
At the Addison County Public forum last week, Peter Conlon referred to the plan as “Act 46, but much bigger and with more state control.” In other words, just the latest in bad, rushed, and desperate education legislation.
And the Legislature abandoned its Commission on the Future of Higher Education for this. They could have had a well thought-out plan next January, but no.
I remain completely bemused that no journalist in the state picked up this report from the Commission in February.
i could not agree with you more. I have an oped at digger waiting to be printed on exactly the point that the buy down of taxes is a shell game and will lead to a huge increase next year. The Dems do not have to go along with the governor’s plan to destroy public education and raise taxes on working class people.
The legislature can put raise the income sensitivity thresholds to reflect inflation (which they have not done in over 10 years) to provide immediate relief to working class and middle class Vermonters. They can add a new category of second homes. To add a new revenue source to provide tax relief.
They can look to move human services costs in schools to the general fund or they can blend human services with education to reduce redundancy and save money. They can look to consolidate a few high schools to improve class options for high school students while working to preserve most elementary schools except in a very few locations where some town can and should work together to merge.
They need to be more creative and much better at communicating/messaging their ideas to the general public.
They also need to forcefully push back on the Governor’s tax plan that will hurt poor districts kids and hurt working people. Whole giving more tax relieve to the top income earlier in the state.
“Because this weird, politically unpalatable outcome is a direct result of decisions made by leadership at the very beginning of this year.”
I wonder if that was the purpose of those decisions made by a few.