House Speaker Shap Smith surprised us all today when he announced that he will be leaving the campaign to support his wife Melissa during treatment for cancer. Many of us knew that a family health issue had kept Shap on a lighter campaign schedule, but his announcement today was still a big shock.

While Shap may have been seen as too moderate for some of my fellow GMD bloggers, I came to respect and admire his ability to build consensus and cut through the muck when I served a term in the House. It always seemed like Shap was keeping the ship on an even keel, even though the waters were often choppy.

Sue Minter and Matt Dunne are both incredible candidates for the Democratic nomination. I’m sure we are all in for a strong primary campaign as Sue puts up her experience with Irene Recovery and the Agency of Transportation against Matt Dunne’s business credentials at Google and ‘outsider’ status in recent years.

Shap has an incredible moral compass, and I bet he’s made the right choice for his family. I’m sorry he won’t be running for Governor in 2016, but I doubt his years of service to the state are totally over. He did announce that he would complete this term as Speaker, but would not seek re-election in 2016.

Last night there were some protesters outside of the Autumn Harvest fundraiser at the Old Labor Hall in Barre, an annual event for Vermont Democrats. I get it. A lot of them live around the proposed Swanton Wind project on Rocky Ridge. I sympathize with them, and the project has come under some legitimate fire lately from Democrats, Republicans and many locals in between.

Their messaging and tactics were pretty off-putting though. There was a large bass drum that was continually pounded for much of the program, including speeches by Peter Welch and Patrick Leahy. Every time someone went outside and opened the doors of the Hall, the bass drum over-powered the speaker. Annoying, but not a terrible tactic if your point is about (alleged) noise-pollution from wind turbines.

On my way past the protesters, I stopped for a moment and said “How are you all doing?” I expected one of the organizers to say something to me, or come over and give me their plea for some policy change at the PSB re: Wind Siting. Instead a woman shouted at me that I was destroying our state and then a guy said, “You’re both young,” to me and my wife, “you’re going to have a family someday!” We already have a young daughter thanks a bunch, and I think renewables make the world a safer place for my family, but my wife will be flattered that you think we look young.

I don’t understand why they would treat everyone going to a Dems’ event as hostile to their cause. Plenty of folks in there are opposed to ridgeline wind projects, or at least open to a dialogue about siting standards. Gov. Shumlin (a pretty prominent Dem, no?) came out last week as being opposed to the Swanton Wind proposal. Makes me a little suspicious about who organized the protest.

The one thing that really got under my skin about the protest was a woman bellowing “VERMONT LIVES MAAAAAATTERRRR!” over and over. Trying to co-opt the Black Lives Matter messaging when you’re a white person who is primarily concerned about the aesthetics of a renewable energy project hurting your property value? Yuck.

Political parties are so often the “bad guy”, but last night my appreciation for people who come together to support candidates with shared values was renewed. I stepped aside from being the Chair of the Franklin County Democrats after four years, handing the gavel off to my dear friend, Ed Ballantyne.

Parties are about so much more than hand-wringing and gridlock. They provide the opportunity for a few small voices to come together and be amplified to change the world. In a democracy, we can accomplish so little alone. Together we are mighty.

Parties are the places where activists and advocates become candidates. When the time is right, and an opportunity to serve is undeniable- parties provide the people power to knock on doors, make phone calls, throw events and all of the other functions that a campaign needs to turn a passionate citizen into a leader. This is especially true of Vermont House and Senate races, where an Independent candidate would have to build so much from scratch, that it is nearly impossible to mount successful campaigns.

I’m a Democrat, and I’m proud of it. No party is perfect, but this party cares about working people, supporting families and protecting those who are most vulnerable. We advocate for the needs of others and help smaller voices be heard over those that are more powerful in our political process. Democrats care about the planet,  support Main Street businesses over Wall Street and protect civil rights and freedoms for everyone.

Even though I won’t be chairing a County Committee, I’ll continue to work to help get Democrats elected in Vermont and to help our candidates be better legislators and leaders. Before you think about resorting to bashing political parties, just remember that democracy is a team sport- none of us can do it alone.

It’s no surprise that schools and property taxes are on the minds of Vermont voters. Act 46, with it’s school budget spending caps, mandatory consolidation timelines and new, larger districts is only the latest in a long line of controversial laws that seek to steer Vermont’s rural schools toward higher quality at a lower cost. The call for “something” to be done about property taxes during the  2014 campaign season was nearly universal- especially with declining enrollments in the last decade now putting Vermont’s number of students in K-12 schools below 90,000.

Vermont’s self-appointed savior, Bruce Lisman, was quick to trash Act 46 on VPR’s Vermont Edition and at last night’s first meeting of all five declared gubernatorial candidates. “They asked for change and got a bill that hurts them” he was quoted as saying in Terri Hallenback’s coverage of the event. Voters certainly wanted change, but I think Act 46’s impact on taxpayers and schools varies widely. If you’re a small school like Fairfield Center School, worried about the big impact from a change of one or two students- Act 46’s consolidation can be a boon and smooth out the year over year equalized pupil impacts on tax rates of the current system. If you’re a relatively high-spending school like Saint Albans’ Bellows Free Academy then the spending caps like 1.7% can seem unfair- especially in the face of 8% increases in staff health care costs.

Democrats Matt Dunne and Sue Minter were more nuanced in their criticism of the education reform legislation than Lisman, but clearly would change the spending caps and potentially delay school district merger deadlines. House Speaker Shap Smith defended the law, while leaving room open for tweaks after House Education hears from local Boards and administrators. Lt. Governor Phil Scott supported changing the bill in the new legislative session as well.

This generation’s struggle with efforts to reform the state’s education system began with the Brigham decision and Act 60. “The Equal Educational Opportunity Act” of 1997 sought to equalize school spending across the state, making it possible for schools across the state- especially schools in poor districts- to afford the kinds of opportunities that so-called “Gold Towns” could more easily afford.

The moral imperative to give equal opportunity to every student in Vermont traces its routes back to the state’s Constitution. Section 68 of the Vermont Constitution states “… a competent number of schools ought to be maintained in each town unless the general assembly permits other provisions for the convenient instruction of youth.” 

Clearly, we have a responsibility to provide quality educational opportunities for every Vermont student- even if that may not be at all convenient. The Brigham decision established that those opportunities need to be equal and since 1997 we’ve understood that equality as a kind of spending equity from district to district, town to town. Setting up a statewide financing mechanism so that poor towns can now spend more like rich towns satisfied Brigham’s call for “equality”. As the nearly 20 years since Act 60 have passed, we haven’t come to terms with the idea that equality in spending may not be as closely tied to equality of opportunity to learn and succeed as we had hoped. Act 46 does take real measures to address the disparity of actual learning opportunities- AP classes, languages, music and art that larger school populations can afford and small districts can’t or won’t be able to provide on their own.

When I was in the Legislature in the 2013-2014 session we constantly talked about trying to divorce the financing conversation from the quality side. A Republican Senator once said to me something like “We talk all of the time about property taxes, but the thing we Republicans don’t want to admit most of the time is that our schools are actually pretty good.” There is the rub- we want schools to be cheaper without sacrificing quality. There are some big challenges (and opportunities) here:

1. The Illusion of local control: Every Vermont school has its own Board and moving to bigger districts would erode a long tradition of local control. Unfortunately federal mandates, like special education requirements and testing, have a lot more control over school budgets than local board members. The percentage of school budgets that really are discretionary at the local level is small. Having a statewide financing mechanism makes this even worse- making the decisions by local school budgets largely disconnected from local property tax rates. Act 46 is an attempt to call a spade a spade on this one.
2. Income Sensitivity: Most of us don’t pay the full freight of property taxes. Those who own non-residential properties, especially second homes pay the full published penny-rate on those properties but fully two-thirds of Vermonters pay based on income. Someone else pays for the increases when we vote YES on school budgets. The spending caps in Act 46 will make the “pain” of budget increases felt at the district level but it’s unclear to me that this will really act as a deterrent or incentive for voters (See Item 1.).
3. Small is Beautiful: It really can be- small class sizes are way better for students, and some smaller schools spend less per pupil and perform better than others. Still we have a student to staff ratio that is starting to get laughably small in Vermont. Those very small schools with low per pupil costs typically have favorable demographics (i.e. less families who qualify for free or reduced lunch, parents who are involved in their students’ education). I heard Shap Smith make the case last week that small schools who merge into a district can share teachers, and that will be a cost-savings. I think that’s the biggest thing Act 46 does have going for it.
4. Healthcare (and other) Cost-Shifting: If Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements were up then we wouldn’t be seeing the 8% increases in private carrier premiums that schools and anyone else who is insured by private carriers is seeing. One of the best cases (that never was made effectively) for Single Payer was that we would stop using property taxes to fill the holes in our healthcare financing system left by lack of support for our publicly-financed payers. There are a ton of non-education expenses built into per pupil costs, and the schools who really get punished are trying to provide services (counseling, health services) that go far beyond the original scope of K-12 spending. Cynthia Browning would probably be surprised to read this but I agree with her repeated lament that we should put non-education costs in the General Fund and get them out of the Ed Fund. Act 46 doesn’t really address this. How could it?
5. School Choice: Many districts tuition their students to neighboring schools, giving families in those towns school choice. Consolidation may end this practice for many towns/districts, although there are attempts being made to craft hybrid districts that still have tuition options. Act 46 seems to have self-contradicting elements that require some clarification on this issue. Perhaps this lack of clarity belies a muddled legislative intent?

Like Mr. Lisman said on VPR today “It’s complicated.” Vermont’s gubernatorial candidates would do well to stay out of the weeds on this one and talk about their values and the principles that will guide them as the great education debate marches on. Shap came the closest to talking about why he supports Act 46 at the value/principle level, citing his support for equal educational opportunity and real examples of disparities between Vermont schools. People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it. The conversation about how best to school our children and pay for it didn’t end with Act 60 and it sure as heck isn’t going to stop with Act 46.