Education - 1/10/26

Happy New Year!

Well, the legislature is off to a running start! Our second day consisted mostly of the Governor’s State of the State address (text here: https://governor.vermont.gov/press-release/governor-phil-scott-delivers-2026-state-state-address ) which was dominated by his forceful support of Act 73, the education reform bill we passed at the end of last session, including a threat to veto the budget and any education bill that doesn’t conform to Act 73. Not the most collaborative and thoughtful approach to governing.

Governor Scott (who I have voted for multiple times) was elected in 2017. We might ask why he didn’t present an education plan until 2025? All the trends that got us to this crisis point were very evident years ago. And what he presented was not even a plan, it was a loose framework of ideas. The legislature did all the heavy lifting and ended up with Act 73, which would mandate redistricting, among many other things.

The next step was to come up with a map of Vermont with the new districts (and/or Supervisory Unions). A task force was appointed to tackle this in the off season; however, the task force dug into the data and said that the main premise of Act 73 – that forced consolidation will save money – was flawed. So, where do we go from here? This is our main job this session. Unfortunately, the data is not clear and examples from other states do not generate much confidence. Vermont This Week devoted most of their show to education this week and it is worth a listen if you want to get caught up. Link here: https://www.vermontpublic.org/show/vermont-this-week/.

There is an important element to all this that reporters aren’t talking about at all. Especially if we take the forced redistricting route, my primary concern is the lack of capacity at the Agency of Education to carry out the reforms. Implementation is where the rubber meets the road. We can pass all kinds of fancy laws, but if the people aren’t in place to implement the laws well, they will fail. Governor Scott has consistently starved the Agency of Education, with obvious results – we don’t have the number or quality of people necessary to carry out the routine functions of leading an excellent education system, let alone take on a wholesale reform of our entire education landscape. This is a crucial weakness that needs more explicit discussion and action.

We have a concrete example to point to. After the legislature passed Act 173 of 2018, which was Vermont's effort to improve instruction and better address the needs of struggling learners, the first thing the Scott administration did was to fire the person in charge of implementing it.  The administration then repurposed dollars put aside for improving teaching of struggling learners to other goals. All the bad outcomes in the recent report (https://legislature.vermont.gov/assets/Legislative-Reports/edu-act-73-special-education-report-2025.pdf) on delivery of special education in VT are what you would expect of failed implementation at the AOE. You can't improve teaching without focusing on improving teaching. AND, the huge rise in kids being identified for support, without the proper mechanisms to care for them, is one of the major cost drivers that has gotten us in this mess. Talk about penny wise and pound foolish.

I did not set out to bash the administration today, but facts are facts. We need to listen well to the people of Vermont, to educators, and to experts and we need to clarify the data so we can move forward well. Politics has already overridden deliberation, but we will deliberate nonetheless!

I will end by pointing out that there is much good work being done in the legislature each day, most of which never hits the press. From tweaking bail laws to better ensure public safety to ensuring there is money for decommissioning energy generation facilities when they reach the end of their useful life to revisiting the homelessness bill from last session (that was vetoed), the many committees are hard at work making Vermont better.

I am working to start a new caucus – the Caucus for Vermont’s Economy – which will meet for the first time next week. We are a non-partisan, non-ideological group of legislators looking to bring some systems thinking to a very siloed organization. There is plenty of opportunity to cut through old thinking with fresh approaches and openness to new ways. We want to bring more of a customer service mentality to state government. I hope this turns out to be a useful endeavor.

Please stay in touch,

Rep Chris Morrow

cmorrow@leg.state.vt.us