State should apply economic development principles to education funding

To the Editor:
The plan to build a regional arts and culture economy in the southern Vermont region seems to hold promise as an economic development piece for the three towns currently in active discussions. Current policy makers in Vermont, debating the abject failure of Act 60 and 30 years of statewide funding for education in Vermont, might just want to consider applying those beneficial, regional economic principles being noted for developing regional arts. Any business offering goods or services to a needy customer base in an area, where those are not currently being offered, understands how that can be a recipe for entrepreneurial success. Given the chance, these very principles could be applied to Vermont’s future approach to funding education.
For example, pre-Act 60, under the long-standing funding methods in Vermont whereby each town had its own school district, a town could decide to offer and fund exceptional curriculum offerings by choice. And in so doing become an attractive place for families to raise school age children.
Under Act 60 however, that can never happen because funding is governed by state wide policies and not by smaller, more efficient, town school districts desires. Instead, today only larger towns such as Brattleboro, Burlington, and Rutland, to name a few, can afford to offer curriculum such as advanced placement courses in science, math, career placement, business education, and so on - curriculum choices that small districts like Wilmington can only dream of offering because of today’s Act 60 reality and crushing property taxes.
Yet, policymakers in Vermont continue to believe it is fair for smaller communities to help pay for wonderful curriculum programs in larger communities. Current statewide funding principles make it impossible for small Vermont communities to offer exciting and unique curriculum opportunities thereby attracting families with children, which in turn becomes an economic development engine for them.
This will never change until we conclude statewide funding of education is a failure in Vermont. Transitioning back to education funding pre-Act 60 will take considerable time. In the meantime, however, changes in what we choose to pay for with the broken Act 60 funding mechanisms in place today can be implemented, thereby reducing property taxes as a whole.
Statewide funding must be directed to only pay for core curriculum offerings such as, reading, writing, math, science, general physical education and foreign language. Period! All other curriculum offerings schools wish to offer their students, are to be decided and paid for by each local school district. To continue to ask small towns in Vermont to pay for what I will call extra, and in some cases expensive, curriculum activities offered only to students of larger communities is highly unfair. This change in what we choose to use statewide property taxes for to fund education would offer immediate tax relief to the majority of rural and over-taxed towns in our state.
Cliff Duncan
Wilmington