CALLING ALL DEMS: With the 2016 legislative session now underway, GOP lawmakers including state Rep. Job Tate, R-Mendon, (pictured) and House Minority Leader Don Turner, R-Milton, are calling on Democrats to help them save school choice.
Republican lawmakers back in session in Vermont say they want to save school choice, and are calling on the state’s majority party to help them do it.
School choice is headed for extinction in Vermont. After the State Board of Education ruled in September that choice can’t be offered in merged districts that operate public schools, two school choice towns have lost their educational freedom, and about 90 others are in danger of following suit.
As recent events in Westford and Elmore show, when school choice towns merge with non-choice towns, families can lose the opportunity to send children to whatever school they think best suits their educational needs.
RELATED: State Board of Education ruling threatens school choice in Vermont
But Republican lawmakers, now back at the Statehouse for the 2016 legislative session, want to clarify Act 46 and restore parents’ educational rights. They have only one problem: They need Democrats to join them.
“Any fix is going to have to be led by or allowed through by the party in power,” state Rep. Job Tate, R-Mendon, told Vermont Watchdog. “We can be the ones to vocalize and formalize it and be the cheerleaders on it, but the way Montpelier works right now is it’s going to have to come from the speaker if it’s to get to the floor for a vote.”
In Vermont, Democrats hold sizable majorities in both legislative chambers. One-party rule means any effort to clarify Act 46 must gain cooperation from the political left side of the aisle, especially from House Speaker Shap Smith.
“Shap’s a good guy, he’s a listener,” Tate said. “I tend to think if the Education Committee pushes for it, he’ll let it go to the floor.”
State Rep. Lawrence Cupoli, R-Rutland, who sits on the House Education Committee, isn’t sure Democrats will get on board to amend Act 46 and overturn the SBE ruling.
“I think there will be a great deal of discussion in committee this year regarding school choice,” Cupoli said. “But with 11 people on the committee, it will be a question of how everyone votes.”
While Cupoli wouldn’t guess which members of the committee might join the cause, he said any vote to clarify Act 46 needs a solid majority of the 11 members to ensure a vote on the House floor.
Of the 11 members on the House Committee on Education, seven are Democrats, hailing from the towns of Newfane, Bristol, White River Junction, Tunbridge, Essex Junction, Wilmington and Shaftsbury. Since more than 90 towns in Vermont stand to lose school choice in the Act 46 merger process, committee members can expect to hear not only from their own constituents, but from Vermonters in choice towns across the state.
“For the last month I haven’t heard anything from the Democrats about school choice,” Minority Leader Don Turner told Vermont Watchdog.
The Milton Republican said he strongly supports school choice and wants Democrats to work with him on the issue. He added that since many Democrats represent school choice towns, he’s optimistic a bipartisan coalition can be assembled.
Of the various options for saving school choice, one stands out as the simplest and most direct, according to Tate.
Since many Democrat and Republican lawmakers say they believed Act 46 protected school choice from being eliminated, an obvious solution is to clarify Section 4 on tuition payment and school operation. According to the current language, mergers involving tuitioning districts must preserve the tuitioning option if the district chooses:
Sec 4 (a) Tuition payment; protection. All governance transitions contemplated pursuant to this act shall preserve the ability of a district that, as of the effective date of this section, provides for the education of all resident students in one or more grades by paying tuition on the students’ behalf, to continue to provide education by paying tuition on behalf of all students in the grade or grades if it chooses to do so and shall not require the district to limit the options available to students if it ceases to exist as a discrete entity and realigns into a supervisory district or union school district.
By clarifying the language to say school choice and public schools can exist at the same grade levels in merged districts, lawmakers can rescue choice towns from merger-caused extinction. To avoid future legal battles over equity, the language could further specify that choice is available to all students in new supervisory districts.
“If we’re going to have success on that issue, that’s the most likely way it’s going to happen,” Tate said. “I say that because most everybody who voted for Act 46 thought that that’s what we were doing. … A lot of people were withholding their vote until they thought that was part of the fix, only to find out it wasn’t.”
While Turner said he supports the fix, he added that extending educational choice to all students could be a harder sell than preserving choice for Vermonters who already have it. State Rep. David Sharpe, the Democratic chair of the Education Committee, opposes offering school choice to all students.
“I think all students should have school choice,” Turner said, “but that hasn’t been the current law or practice in Vermont. But for the kids who have benefited from school choice, we’d like to see them continue (to benefit from it) in the future.”
Contact Bruce Parker at bparker@watchdog.org
