Democratic hopefuls for governor debate education

By Terri Hallenbeck,Free Press Staff Writer

To an audience of about 100 at the University of Vermont, the field of candidates generally defended Act 60, the state’s education funding law, argued that outgoing Gov. Jim Douglas has spent too much time berating the state’s schools and spoke in favor of the long-term gains early education offers.

Republican Brian Dubie did not attend. He has said he will decline invitations to forums until after the Democratic primary.

With 10 minutes each to speak on what they consider the most important way of ensuring quality education in Vermont, the candidates also offered a few differences. For example:

Former State Sen. Matt Dunne, D-Windsor, proposed some specific education ideas, including the expectation that all high school students spend a semester abroad.

Sen. Susan Bartlett, D-Lamoille, argued that mainstreaming special education students may have gone too far to the point where it is not helpful for the special education student, the other students or the budget.

Secretary of State Deb Markowitz, talked about how schools have one adult for every five children and suggested that consolidation of schools through collaboration had merit.

Sen. Doug Racine, D-Chittenden, argued that consolidation would likely not save money but that schools could do more to share services and administration.

Senate President Pro Tempore Peter Shumlin, D-Windham, talked about health care costs as a contributor to education funding troubles. “We will create a Green Mountain Health Care Plan,” becoming the first state where health coverage is separate from employment.

The candidates contended that Act 60, a complex funding system that aims to make the state’s schools more equitable, works well despite common complaints about it.

“I will defend it,” Shumlin said, calling the system the most progressive in the nation.

Bartlett said disparities in schools in Lamoille County are what prompted her to run for the Legislature years ago and Act 60 has helped alleviate those disparities. “The quality of education in this state has increased significantly,” she said, noting that students are no longer sharing 15-year-old math books.

Racine said Act 60 allowed schools like Randolph to build a much-needed new building.

Markowitz said in traveling to schools across the state she has seen schools become more equitable with one another. “When I first started visiting there was a tremendous difference,” she said.

Candidates also called for greater public support of pre-kindergarten education.

“The No. 1 best investment is early education,” Dunne said.
After the candidates had each spoken, audience member Lucy Ramsey asked what she termed the “elephant in the room.” How would they pay for early education, she asked.

Dunne said he would turn to a solution he used while running AmeriCorps in the 1990s: partnering with foundations to provide funding and make Vermont a model for showing that early education can save other costs.

Markowitz disagreed, saying early education needed a more sustainable funding source than that. “We’re going to take a closer look at how we run our schools,” she said.

Racine said too many social services expenses have been shifted to schools and are paid through the Education Fund. “I would like to say the state’s going to pay for its responsibilities,” he said.

Shumlin said he wants Vermont to snare a slice of the renewable energy boom he sees ahead, which will raise revenues coming into the state and to take 250 of Vermont’s non-violent offenders out of prison and into community-based programs and shift the expense of incarcerating them into early education.

Bartlett said schools are going to have to do with less for the near future and should take advantage of a bubble of retiring teachers coming to shift expenses.

This article appeared in the Burlington Free Press