(02/15/05) How’s our education spending in Vermont? Can we afford the continually rising property taxes to pay for our schools? Can we afford not to? We need a highly educated labor force to compete in an increasingly competitive, global economy. As such, we must do what it takes to get results in our classrooms.

So, how are our schools shaping up, in terms of spending and achievement?

According to a Report Card on American Education published by the American Legislative Exchange Council, in the 2001-2002 school year Vermont taxpayers provided around $1 billion to K-12th grade education through state and local funding sources.

With enrollment reported to be around 101,000 students this level of education spending constitutes a per pupil state and local tax burden of $9,675. This translates to $193,500 state and local funds per classroom of 20 students. Compared to neighboring Maine and New Hampshire, Vermont’s per pupil tax is the highest, 11% above the three state average. North and South Dakota are rural states with a population and student enrollment similar to Vermont, yet their education taxpayers’ burden is about 50% lower than ours.

In terms of achievement, however, North Dakota, South Dakota and Vermont rank about the same. New Hampshire, who spends less than Vermont, has higher SAT scores. Maine, which also spends less than Vermont, has lower test scores. These statistics strongly support Charles Freeland’s study in The Indiana Policy Review, that there is little evidence that additional expenditures on education do much to improve learning outcomes. Vermont is clearly not getting a good bang for our bucks.

One of the reasons why Vermont’s spending is so high is the number of educators we employ. The number of full time equivalent (FTE) educators (K-12) per 10,000 ranks number one in the country, 50% above the U.S. average. That’s why salaries/benefits account for about 80-85% of school budgets and we have the lowest student to teacher ratio in the country. It’s also a reflection of the powerful teachers’ union influence in our state.

The Vermont Economic Newsletter concluded if Vermont’s level of FTE equaled the national average we would save $171 million. If Vermont’s K-12 education spending was at the mean average of the Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire samples, Vermont taxpayers could save over $100 million. That’s a savings of 20 cents a year from our statewide property tax rate or an average savings of $200 per $100,000 assessment value on a homestead.

But, as long as parents and school boards accept the myth that “more money equals better outcomes,” making sensible and effective changes to our education policy will be difficult to impossible. We will continue doing what we’ve been doing: putting more resources into education in a wasteful fashion, and delaying making the kinds of genuine reforms to the system that can both improve the quality of our schools and ease the burden on taxpayers.

We really have to look at the K-12 education structure and curriculum, not the funding level, if we want to create the change needed to improve our education quality. At a time when our education budget needs reigning in, the kind of unproductive structure that exists in our educations system seems like a smart and obvious place to begin.

My dad was a barber and he could be counted on to ask “How are things going?” Is our education heading in the right or wrong direction? It’s time for the discussion to begin.

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Frank Mazur is a small business owner and formerly served in the Vermont House for five terms. He can be reached at 658-3975 (home) or via e-mail.

Frank Mazur
South Burlington