Senate Democrats have a deal on education reform 鈥� at least among themselves, and for now.
It looked like reform efforts might implode completely earlier in the week, when Senate president pro tempore Phil Baruth announced Tuesday that a majority of Democrats would not support the bill that his chamber鈥檚 leaders had crafted.
But Thursday morning, he gave members of his caucus an ultimatum. Set your differences aside to unite around an education reform bill that Democrats can generally get behind, Baruth told them, or I'll pass a bill that a majority of Republicans support instead.
"I don't want that to be a surprise to anyone, because I believe at the end of the day, we have to get a bill this session," the Democrat/Progressive from Chittenden County said at the time.
Senate Democrats heeded his warning, and after a substantial rewrite, countless closed-door meetings, caucuses, and committee hearings, they went to the floor on Friday evening to approve their intra-party compromise. The revised version of the Senate bill borrowed heavily from the House-passed version of the bill, most notably by adopting the lower chamber鈥檚 more generous funding formula and its longer timeline for implementation.
The Senate鈥檚 newest iteration of , however, is still a long way from becoming law, and is likely to see major revisions as soon as next week. The House and the Senate are expected to create a committee of conference to hash out differences between the two chambers.
Republicans and Gov. Phil Scott have been highly critical of both the House and Senate legislation, and Scott has made clear that he would veto either bill, as they currently stand. Scott has been particularly critical of the funding formula favored by Democrats, which he argues is too generous.
Without supermajorities, Democrats cannot override him. But Senate Minority Leader Scott Beck said Friday there鈥檚 still time to make a deal 鈥� if that conference committee also negotiates with Scott鈥檚 office.
鈥淚f we work with the governor I think we can make the bill into something the governor can support and both parties can support,鈥� the Caledonia County Republican said.
House and Senate leaders have indicated that鈥檚 precisely the intention, and Baruth said informal talks should begin over the weekend.
Hammering out a deal that can make it into law will be no small task. In principle, leaders in the House, the Senate, and the governor鈥檚 office are in agreement. They believe Vermont should move to a foundation formula for education 鈥� whereby the state, not local voters, decide on the bulk of school spending. And they also agree that many schools and districts need to consolidate.
But on basically all details of significance, they have major disagreements.
Republicans and Democrats have different visions for reform, of course. But the parties themselves are not internally unified. Some Republicans (and Democrats) have concerns about the concept of a foundation formula itself. Such a financing measure would equalize both school spending and tax rates across the state and therefore likely raise taxes in many of the currently lowest-spending 鈥� and tax-averse 鈥� communities in Vermont.
Senate Republicans were willing to advance the version of the Senate reform bill that Baruth scrapped earlier this week. But Beck acknowledged that many GOP lawmakers would have voted against the bill in the final stages.
鈥淚n the end, there would be big problems within Senate Republicans if those tax rates for lowest-spending districts still increased,鈥� he said. He offered an amendment on the floor Friday evening that would have allowed school districts to spend up to 15% less than their foundation grant and receive an equivalent tax break.
Democrats voted against the amendment, arguing it hadn鈥檛 been vetted.
鈥淭onight鈥檚 not the time to deal with it because we don鈥檛 have the foundational information to make the right decision,鈥� Washington County Democrat Ann Cummings said.
There are fissures in the Democratic caucus, meanwhile, on the subject of class-size minimums, which would almost certainly force the closure of some small schools. Class size minimums were included in the House-passed version of the bill, but omitted from the bill that was initially crafted by the Senate鈥檚 leaders. The legislation adopted by the Senate Friday included class size minimums, but they are less strict than the House's minimums. The bill would have also given the Secretary of Education the power to act 鈥� or not 鈥� if a school fell below the thresholds.
But perhaps the most important Democratic fault line centers on private schools who participate in the state鈥檚 tuitioning, or voucher, program. For years, if not decades, some Democrats have sought to impose much stricter rules on the independent schools that receive public money. But other Democrats 鈥� particularly those in districts where tuitioning is widespread 鈥� have argued the regulatory freedom afforded to these institutions works for their communities.
Both the House and Senate versions of the legislation would impose significant new restrictions on which private schools can participate in the state鈥檚 tuitioning program, although the House鈥檚 bill is the strictest. It would require any independent school that receives vouchers to have a student body where at least 51% of students are publicly-funded.
Disagreements over these schools nearly torpedoed late-stage negotiations between Senate Democrats. In the end, Sen. Ruth Hardy and Sen. Seth Bongartz struck a compromise. The Senate legislation now bars tuitioning districts in Vermont for paying for out-of-state private schools. It also prohibits private schools from receiving tuition dollars if they are located in a school district that operates public schools. The necessary threshold of publicly-funded students, however, has been lowered to 25%.
