Dear Editor,
Last night we concluded the 2025 legislative session with the passage of two consequential bills – systemic education reform, and limiting the use of cell phones in schools. Both are intended to further our commitment to our children to provide them with a sane, effective, and affordable education. It was a contentious end to the session in both houses, with passionate people speaking their minds about issues they care deeply about. I will concentrate on the education reform bill in this last update, as it has gotten most of the attention, although banning cell phones in schools, which I cosponsored and strongly supported, might end up being the more consequential bill.
H.454, “An act relating to transforming Vermont’s education governance, quality, and finance systems,” was a hard vote for nearly everybody. And that is as it should be. It passed the Seante with more Republican votes than Democratic votes, it was advocated for strongly by the governor, and it received bipartisan support in the House. That said, there were many, many legislators strongly opposed to this bill. Ironically, the two blocks of legislators most opposed were from rural, small-school areas; and from Chittenden County. Once again, the independent school issue received disproportionate attention relative to the number of enrolled students and the potential financial impact of changes to how we govern them.
While I voted “no” on this bill when it first came out of the House months ago, I voted “yes” last night. I felt the bill evolved just enough by providing some flexibility and protections to both our small, rural schools, and to our independent schools. That said, I have multiple concerns about the bill. The good news and the bad news is that this bill is just a first step in a multiyear process of education reform. Yes, it is a massive, sweeping change to our system. And there is so much left to figure out – both from this bill as studies, rulemaking, and further analyses are undertaken, but also in the coming years as we address major cost drivers that were not even touched in this bill; special education, and career and technical education (CTE) in particular.
So, what does H.454 do? The basics: It mandates consolidation of Vermont’s 119 school districts down to 10-20 districts, and, potentially, supervisory unions. The goal here is to create appropriate scale to support our steadily declining student population – down from more than 120,000 decades ago to close to 80,000 today. How these districts are drawn will be highly contentious and very important, especially for maintaining the ability of our independent schools to operate.
It changes how education is funded. Our current system of local school boards creating budgets and sending them to the state to fund – which allows for considerable inequity in educational opportunity across the state – will change to a so-called, “foundation formula,” meaning the state Agency of Education will set a dollar amount per pupil that is the same for all students across the state, with some adjustments for English as a second language learners and other categories. This is how 48 other states fund education. It allows for better planning, cost containment, and more consistency across the state.
Obviously, there are many other elements of the bill, including targets for class sizes, a change in homestead taxation to better support low- and moderate-income Vermonters, a statewide calendar and standards, and much more.
To go back to the beginning, we embarked on this challenge of systemic reform because property taxes had gotten too high. Vermont’s staff-to-pupil ratio is one of the highest in the nation, and our outcomes are middle of the pack. With our student population in rapid decline, there was an imperative for change.
Some of my questions and concerns: Unfortunately, it is hard to predict the effect of this bill on property taxes. It will take years to implement, and when fully operational it will likely only serve to reduce future tax burden increases rather than actually lowering taxes.
The governor pushed for a more rapid implementation of this bill, by a year. While I appreciate the urgency, change of this magnitude takes time to do well, and for our already overburdened educators to adapt to. I would prefer to go slow and get it right.
Health care costs are one of the primary cost drivers. While we enacted two good bills this session to help mitigate health care costs, there are few levers for us to pull at the state level. But we will work hard on this next session.
The Agency of Education, which is tasked with much of the work related to the coming transition, is not properly staffed or supported. It is absolutely essential that they increase capacity and improve quality in short order to support our schools during the tumult of systemwide change.
The federal government is reducing support for education in many ways. And, if the big bill in congress passes, our state budget will be a mess due to Medicaid cuts and other elements of the bill. Can we transform education while dealing with a budget crisis and a severe diminishment in social services to Vermonters, including SNAP and Dr. Dynasaur?
All in all, when I take a step back, I think to myself that there was a risk to doing nothing; there was a risk to taking more time, and pushing the process out another year; there was no guarantee that if we took more time the bill would get any better, given the political tensions and realities; we need to trust the process, as imperfect and fraught as it is, as a tremendous amount of study, testimony and financial analysis went into constructing this bill; it was a classic political compromise, so both chambers, all parties, and the executive branch have a vested interest in making this work for our kids and education community; and we all need to stay engaged in the coming years to improve and guide the process so we can achieve an equitable, excellent, and affordable education system.
It was an honor representing Andover, Londonderry, Weston, and Winhall this session. Thank you for your support. Please reach out with questions and comments and if I can help navigate state government for you.
Happy solstice,
Rep. Chris Morrow
Windham-Windsor-Bennington District