[ftwelder]

I don't follow these issues closely but I do know that many business in the area go to NH where they have far fewer taxes. I also know that NH won't tax a business that has over a certain number of employees. I am not sure who takes up the slack or how it could be cheaper in NH but it's working for them now.

I do know that some areas discount rates up to 50% and that could end abruptly.

[Biker53]

The high property taxes in VT and high graduated income tax rate is due to how we run our schools. The State needs a high income tax rate to fund the State Payments that subsidize the property taxes for 2/3rds of the households. The high property taxes in turn is a result of VT having the lowest student-teacher ratio in the nation. That low student-teacher ratio is because we have at least twice as many schools open as we can possibly justify. Every town thinks their elementary school is the best there is and insists on keeping it open even with only 5 or 10 kids per grade. Every community or district thinks their high school is the best there is and insists on keeping it open even with only 20 or 25 or 50 kids per grade. The scale of the excess capacity in education is staggering, and it costs a lot of money to sustain. What makes it even worse is that at the high school level, the kids in those small high schools are seriously short changed on curriculum. You just can't offer a full array of courses and levels of courses with so few kids.

The saddest part of all is that the high cost of living in VT scares off some businesses, and in turn many of our kids then leave the State because there isn't enough job opportunity for them here. Schools are the elephant in the room that few choose to acknowledge.

[cgregor]

Still, the communities' regard for their schools results in Vermont having a very high reputation for educational excellence.

I think we still operate in the mood expressed when Arlington was faced with funding either new bridges or new schools back around 1914. "Let the bridges fall down!" said the Irish-American grocer. "Better to have informed citizens get their feet wet than idiots crossing the river dry shod!" Or words to that effect.

[Biker53]

Originally Posted by cgregor

Still, the communities' regard for their schools results in Vermont having a very high reputation for educational excellence.

I think we still operate in the mood expressed when Arlington was faced with funding either new bridges or new schools back around 1914. "Let the bridges fall down!" said the Irish-American grocer. "Better to have informed citizens get their feet wet than idiots crossing the river dry shod!" Or words to that effect.

Yes, VT is ranked high compared to most States, but I would venture a guess is that it comes as much from our demographics as it does our very high spending per pupil.

On your analogy, the current reality is that we are spending the money on that bridge rather than on educating the kids. The money is going towards keeping half empty buildings open and on redundant staff rather than on enriched curriculum.

[cgregor]

In discussing education, it helps to start with the desired result and work backward. Despite America's attention to standardized testing, privatization of education, etc., nationally we have disappointing results compared to Vermont and the rest of the world.

If we Vermonters are lucky, we will continue to emphasize an education system that makes it possible for every teacher to bring out in every student something each student never knew he/she had.

This might very well result in effects bean counters and suits find discomfiting, but sloppiness is inherent in nature-- for example, only 15% of our DNA actually operates to make us a functioning species. the other 85% is either "parasitic" or simply rubbish.

If "half-empty" schools and "redundant" staff produce superlatively-educated children, they are worth living with.

[jdhpa]

In my experience, how well a student does is mostly a matter of how their parents view / value / promote education.

We need to become cost effective about education. I don't mind spending money on education if it actually helps the students, but just spending more on education without feedback showing it's actually making a difference is a mistake. Like anything else, we should insist on getting good value for the money, and not take anything on faith.

[cgregor]

It's amazing how much trust Vermonters put into the system without examining the results. You're right about the parental input, but a lot of parents grew up without their parents valuing education, so it's normal for them to not give much thought to their own children's education progress. Plus there are the parents whose attempts to focus their children on education just backfire.

So, what we really need is teachers who can do what parents either can't or don't do. Which means we need school boards who know how to put children's education in balance with children's potentials. Then we should be able to focus on the money to make that happen.

[Biker53]

Originally Posted by cgregor

In discussing education, it helps to start with the desired result and work backward. Despite America's attention to standardized testing, privatization of education, etc., nationally we have disappointing results compared to Vermont and the rest of the world.

If we Vermonters are lucky, we will continue to emphasize an education system that makes it possible for every teacher to bring out in every student something each student never knew he/she had.

This might very well result in effects bean counters and suits find discomfiting, but sloppiness is inherent in nature-- for example, only 15% of our DNA actually operates to make us a functioning species. the other 85% is either "parasitic" or simply rubbish.

If "half-empty" schools and "redundant" staff produce superlatively-educated children, they are worth living with.

They are not superlatively educated. Not even close. I compared the curriculum of one of the local small high schools to the large suburban high school I attended in another State. Here is the comparative in just 2 subject areas. The small high school offers Spanish. The large one I went to offers Spanish, French, Chinese, Italian, German, and Latin, all of then also with an Honors level version. For science the small local school offers Earth Science, Biology, Chemistry, and Physiology/Forensics. The one I went to offers Biology, Eco-Biology, Marine Biology, Chemistry, Advanced Chemistry, Academic Physics, Conceptual Physics, Astronomy, Oceanography/Meteorology, Issues in Science, Medical Laboratory Technique, Environmental Science, Exercise Physiology, General Anatomy & Physiology, Medical Physiology, Engineering Technology, AP Biology, AP Chemistry, AP Physics, AP Environmental Science, and Honors Genetics.

We could offer the same for our kids here if we'd just consolidate the small schools so as to allow for a richer curriculum. Instead we value half empty buildings. This isn't 1950. It is the best and brightest that we do a disservice to. My wife works for a national scholarship organization. She has told me again and again that the kids coming out of these tiny high schools cannot compete against their counterparts in the large suburban districts, largely because they haven't taken Honors and AP level courses, and sometimes because they just didn't have pretty basic college prep stuff offered at their schools. How can a high school not even have Physics offered?

And to add insult to injury we spend more per kid per year than do places that offer far more.

[cgregor]

One of Springfield's best teachers came from Essex County, New Jersey, one of the wealthiest in the nation. His department's resource room (where they stored all the books teachers used in the curriculum) was larger than the entire library at Springfield's high school, where he taught. Every year in NJ his budget planning consisted of telling the head of the department what he wanted. He and all the other teachers in that high school got everything they asked for. He once asked, "If I ask for a car, can I get it?"

His father, on the other hand, had taught at one of those NYC public schools where the teachers had to be escorted by police when they left school. His father was also a very good teacher, but the school was terrible.

Anecdotally, any Vermont public school is not as good as the one you attended or that the Springfield teacher staffed, but statistically all Vermont schools are far better than almost all American schools.

If we concentrate on the dollars rather than the quality of the education, we will get poor education. We are seeing this already with such corporate-backed efforts as Democrats for Educational Reform and Facebook founder and future presidential candidate Mark Zuckerberg's failed $100,000,000 effort in New Jersey.

So, we simply have to start with understanding the relationship between the teacher and the student that inspires learning.

[Sporin]

Originally Posted by Biker53

We could offer the same for our kids here if we'd just consolidate the small schools so as to allow for a richer curriculum. Instead we value half empty buildings. This isn't 1950. It is the best and brightest that we do a disservice to.

I agree, but let me tell you as someone very involved in the local Act 46 process, getting the small towns to consolidate, to give up HS choice, has basically been a non-starter. These towns point to their traditions and such (and I don't blame them for that) and they won't give it up, period.

At some point, I expect the State to just force it. But the State is also quite blind to what happens outside of the upper-west corner of the state.