An Extensive Take On Act 46, Education and Community

Act 46 and the Quality of Education and Community

As far as I can see Act 46 is not going to have any measurable impact on the quality of education we provide to our children or, by extension, their lives thereafter.  

The driving force behind Act 46 is to hold down school taxes by reducing the per pupil cost of education.  This does not mean we will see lower education tax rates.  An expectation of a lower tax rate will only prove disappointing and frustrating. We will, however, be persuaded to agree that fewer buildings, higher teacher/pupil ratios and lower administrative costs must add up to more efficient operations. In the end we will sigh and shrug and accept that the Act ought to be beneficial because the cost after consolidation should logically be less than it would have been without consolidation.  If precedent holds there will never be any demonstrated evidence that our assumptions are correct.

The quality of education is unlikely to change. This is because there are no planned accompanying changes in the objectives, philosophy, curriculums or teaching practices within the system.  Perhaps there is no reason any of the aforementioned aspects should be changed.  I haven’t come across any evidence, hard or anecdotal, that kids that have gone through the Brattleboro public education system do any better or worse in life than kids from comparable public schools and communities elsewhere.  It’s true that Brattleboro has about the lowest average household income in the state but that’s more a function of weak municipal leadership than school failures.

If there is a sense, from observations of and experiences in our political system and in a slow but steady diminishing interest in voting (and even finding candidates!), that our democracy itself is weak and crumbling we might also note that for decades there has also been a diminishing interest and emphasis on teaching civics in our public schools.  In decades long gone by this disinterest would have been considered a failure of local education as good citizenship was typically the top priority in public schools.  This was as true in Brattleboro as it was around the country.  However since the World War that has been slowly abandoned and replaced with the idea that the purpose of public schools is to train or otherwise prepare a labor force for whatever major corporate or industrial needs are current.   “Our children need to be trained for today’s jobs.”  In other words contemporary thinking is that children need to be trained how to fit into the system rather than how to enrich and shape the vitality of our society and country.

It would be quite useful to include in the Agreement a set of measurements that would, over the years, indicate the effectiveness of consolidation.

Another reason that there isn’t going to be any qualitative change in education following consolidation is that administration for the consolidated district will change little or none.  Rearranging Einstein’s famous dictum:  doing things the same way will get the same results. Among other responsibilities the administration hires, observes and evaluates the teachers.  The consolidation agreement will have nothing to say about that process although the quality of education and will remain, as it always has been, an almost exact reflection of the quality of teachers.  That is, how well the teachers teach.  It has very little to do with programs and the multitude of bells and whistles that ‘money can buy.’  There are good teachers in the Brattleboro system now as there will be after consolidation, and some not so good.  There is nothing in Act 46 that will change that.  On the other hand there have been teachers  (like the renowned Claire Oglesby) in tiny rural schools whose students knew, as adults, that they had better lives for having been one of the children in her class.  Is that not closer to the purpose of education?  This suggests that development of a school culture that enables teachers to fully blossom is a far more important goal than expanding classroom size or adopting more complex computer programs.  Both studies and experience are pointing a damning finger at “teaching to the test” which at best is a misguided concept inhibiting the personal growth of teachers and students and at worst poisoning and undermining modern education.

Lastly, little or nothing will be changed by Act 46 because the draft agreement does not address the quality of the district school board.  Teachers may need a Masters degree in education and periodic refresher courses to stand at the head of a classroom but the people who choose the leadership for the entire district will be elected, as they always have been, largely for their prominence or amiability.  As in the other aspects enumerated here the quality of school boards, or leadership in general, is not germane to legislation aiming for fiscal efficiency.  Beside rubber stamping recommendations from the superintendent and justifying the budget to the public the only observable function of the school board is to oversee, on rare occasions,  that educational subject matter does not violate their perception of community standards.  A school board member is not expected to know of John Locke or John Dewey, Horace Mann, Paulo Freire, Montessori, Summerhill or how children are taught in Finland.  Although the consolidated school board membership will be weighted towards Brattleboro residents because of the Town’s voting power the effectiveness of the single new district-wide board will be about the same as the current numerous town boards.  If anything it is more apt to be somewhat less effective because its members will be more remote and thus less visible and accountable.   The reality is, when one looks at BUHS whose member towns are essentially the same as the future consolidated district, there hasn’t been much interest anyway in anything other than expenditures. Typical annual meetings draw about one percent or less of the voters.  Agendas are focussed, as would be expected, on questionable expenditures, dollar amounts, overall budgets and the tax rate.

It should be noted that the draft Agreement calls for the establishment in each school of an entity to be called a Leadership Council.  These are strictly “advisory” committees and have no actual leadership functions if leadership is to mean decision-making responsibilities or authority of any kind.  Each Council’s membership will include the school principal and one Board member.  If it is to have even the appearance of legitimate and useful parental and community involvement the principal and School Board member should not have a vote in what advice is to be forwarded up the line.

All this said, there is one silver lining that is not insignificant.  Consolidation is recognizing and accepting that it is too much of an economic burden to maintain a sprawling population.  The ultimate closing of small schools will convince at least a few families to abandon their rural homes, or not take one to begin with for the benefit and convenience of their children.  Over time the steady increase in the environmental and economic costs of transportation, whether the purpose is getting kids to schools, visiting friends, having heating oil delivered, getting to work, making an appointment or any of the myriad reasons that put us into cars will force ever greater residential consolidation just as it is now for schools.  The cost of maintaining roads, bridges and all else required for the automobile, will be crushing.  The use of fossil fuels to run motor vehicles will be sharply curtailed through higher prices and rationing.

In review,  Act 46 isn’t going to make noticeable changes.  A few kids will benefit from some programs and perhaps be a bit enriched from a little more diversity in their classrooms; a few kids will spend more time traveling to and from school; there will be a small decrease in employment opportunities and if the teachers union takes advantage of the situation it could make itself a little stronger.  Maybe the school tax rate will not rise as steeply as it would have.  A few rural places will suffer some weakening of their community with the closing of their school but the options will be there, as they always have been, for strengthening or rebuilding community in a myriad of other ways.  Schools are probably just the last vestige of community.  Historical documents suggest that communities were a lot stronger in the “olden” days through, among other things, the enjoyment of barn dances, fairs, suppers, churches, Granges, Main St and rewarding engagement in municipal affairs.  It might be surmised that if the school is mostly what is left of nourishment for community then most of the spirit we fear losing of may have, in fact,  drifted away long ago.

The loss of school choice is a galling piece of the Act for some, particularly Vernon.  A good guess, however, is that that aggravation will fade away.  The closing of Yankee will slowly restore Vernon to the town it was before Yankee.  The town’s economic status will normalize and the sense of resentment and indignation over the loss of the privilege permitted by its former extraordinary income will fade away.

There has also been a bit of irate expression about a lack of transparency and involvement of the public in the whole affair in general.  This may be true but it is quite in keeping with the usual level of transparency of officialdom and involvement of the public in the whole sector of civic affairs.  In any case the Act was imposed by the state and rather intentionally leaves minimal wiggle room.  The towns were informed of the destination and given permission only to make minor adjustments in their speed and route.

The vital question is whether our educational system is developing adults with the ability to make our world, our country or even our own community a better place than they found it and lead satisfying lives in the process.  A tall order. 

Spoon Agave                                      

October 26, 2016 (revised)