Dive Brief:
- The Vermont Agency of Education and Gov. Peter Shumlin are backing away from a bill that asks school districts to consider merging with one another.
- The reform bill has received a lot of flack from schools around the state, so the Shumlin administration is re-thinking how it should be implemented. For example, a prior version suggested that districts that did not merge would be penalized, but now it is thinking that it makes more sense to give tax incentives to districts that merge.
- While the Shumlin administration is shying away from its initial stance that mandatory mergers are a good thing, it is sticking to one consolidation plan: nonoperating school districts, which have boards and some staff but no schools, are being asked to merge with larger regional nonoperating districts.
Dive Insight:
This, of course, will appease many districts worried about the potential mergers. The proposed plan also empowers districts to make their own choice, swapping the stick for the carrot. The idea of consolidating districts is part of an effort to even out budgets. Small districts without many students can be costly since they still require many of the same resources, but maybe not as many, as bigger schools. Bigger, centralized districts are also considered by some to be more efficient.