________________________________________  THE VERMONT EDUCATION REPORT February 14, 2005 - Vol. 5, No. 07 ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯  Covering education news in Vermont and beyond... Informative, provocative, unique... Published by Vermonters for Better Education  VBE is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization whose mission is to enlist parents and the public at large in achieving quality educational opportunities for all the children of Vermont by monitoring the state of education in Vermont; promoting the value of educational freedoms for all parents; and giving parents the evaluative tools with which to identify excellence. Libby Sternberg, executive director: VTBetterEd@aol.com NEWS & ANALYSIS... DID THE COMMISSIONER INTEND TO “ENACT” FAILED S166 THROUGH THE RULES PROCESS? As pointed out previously, the early education rules presented to the State Board of Education at their January meeting by the Vermont Department of Education bore a strong resemblance to S.166, the early education bill passed by the Senate last year but stalled in the House. This might not have been coincidence, according to information obtained by the VER. According to Sen. James Condos (D-Chittenden), this is what happened: Commissioner of Education Richard Cate met with Sen. Condos prior to the start of this year’s session. In that meeting, the Commissioner told the senator to hold off on re-introducing S.166 because the Commissioner was going to see how much of S.166 he could implement by rule. Then, Sen. Condos could clean up by introducing legislation that would fill in any gaps left by the rules. When contacted over the weekend about this alleged conversation, Commissioner Cate did not confirm or deny Sen. Condos’s claim. But he did say he'd “talked with several legislators about aspects of S.166,” telling them not everything in it required legislation. “I have told several people – legislators and others – that there were goals of S.166 that could be implemented in the rules,” Cate said in a Sunday interview. “My goal is to accomplish things in the least onerous way.” But did the State Board of Education – Cate’s boss – direct him to implement S.166 in this way? “I had discussed aspects of it with them,” he said. “They had an interest in the uniform start date to kindergarten. And I had explained to them some of the things that would be helpful (in an early education program).” But, he said, constructing the early ed rules to achieve S.166 was not “a command directive” from the SBOE. VDOE STAFFER SYMPATHETIC TO S.166 ARCHITECT Another member of the Vermont Department of Education was also chummy enough with Sen. Condos, S.166’s champion and former chairman of Senate Education, to exchange a sympathetic email with the senator during the current brouhaha over the rules. The mail intended for Sen. Condos, however, was accidentally sent to Libby Sternberg last Thursday by Jim Squires, the Early Childhood Programs coordinator. In it, Squires wrote: "Richard is having a meeting today with some of the rules detractors (Libby, Child Care Fund board members, others). Should be fun. Funny how a handful of folks from Addison and Rutland can carry so much power within the state." The meeting with Commissioner Richard Cate didn't take place due to the snowstorm. It has been rescheduled for Monday, February 14. And the reference to Addison County is unclear. Libby Sternberg, executive director of Vermonters for Better Education (the publisher of this newsletter), works from a home office in Rutland. When Squires realized his error in sending the email, he immediately called Sternberg to apologize for his "lapse in judgment." While it isn't unusual -– nor undesirable -– for VDOE staff to have collegial, even friendly relationships with legislators, the possible use of the rule-making process to enact a failed piece of legislation raises some concerns, especially if the SBOE wasn't directing the Commissioner or the VDOE to chart this course.  COMMISSION ON WOMEN WEIGHS IN S.166, the bill that is so similar to the current proposed early ed rules, enjoyed bipartisan support and easily passed the Senate last year. But concerns about it surfaced in the House, making even political colleagues of Sen. Condos balk. Those concerns centered on the lack of appropriate protection for private providers. In other words, once early education/childcare became free through the public schools, would private providers lose clients? Although the bill contained provisions for “collaborative” efforts among public and private providers, those collaborations were dependent on the open-mindedness of individual superintendents and school boards, not on the direction of parents. Some superintendents in the state almost make it their life’s work to block inclusion of private providers in any publicly-subsidized education program. Therefore, there was no guarantee that public preschool would include any private providers whatsoever, except at the whim of the local supervisory union. Recognizing these legitimate concerns, the House Education committee failed to vote the bill out of committee.  Unfortunately, the early education rules don't fix any of S.166’s problems. Because of this, a variety of groups representing diverse ideologies have weighed in to urge the SBOE to table the rules. These groups include VBE (publisher of this newsletter), the Ethan Allen Institute, the Child Care Fund of Vermont, and – just last week – the Vermont Commission on Women. The VCW echoed concerns raised by the Child Care Fund – about quality standards and lack of flexibility for parents – while the Ethan Allen Institute had similar concerns to those raised by VBE.  COMMISSIONER ALSO HAD CONCERNS? If Commissioner Cate gave Sen. Condos the impression he was pressing ahead with S.166 in rule-form, he might be sending a different message to the State Board itself now. In a note to SBOE members last week, Commissioner Cate wrote that “I made it very clear to the administration last June that I was convinced that people would have concerns about rules of this nature.” The rules themselves were needed, say some public officials, because public schools are already drawing down Education Funds for pre-school programs and these funds need to be regulated or restricted in some way. Although this is true, the rules themselves would have encouraged all public schools to set up pre-school programs in a way that would have been detrimental to private providers. The State Board of Education will vote at its Tuesday, February 15 meeting whether or not to begin the process of considering these early education rules. If they vote in the affirmative, the rule-making process is usually tilted in favor of the agency proposing the rules, making it difficult to affect them in any substantive way.  *   *   * COMMENTARY... THE COMMISSIONER’S BOSS by Libby Sternberg On Tuesday, February 15, the State Board of Education will consider whether to begin the process of considering new rules related to early education in Vermont. Vermonters for Better Education, the publisher of this newsletter, believes there are many reasons why this process should not move forward. And as of this writing, the Commissioner of Education himself appears to be urging the SBOE to table the rules because of all the concerns raised about them. In this and previous newsletters, we have already discussed the many legitimate concerns about these rules. But one of them has nothing to do with the substance of the rules themselves, but rather with how they were represented to the board and to the public. When the commissioner of education, Richard Cate, presented the rules to the State Board, they appeared as one of the packets of information at the January SBOE meeting. The last page of this packet was a “list of partners,” the inclusion of which strongly implied that everyone on the list supported the rules as written and had a hand in constructing them. Nearly two dozen individuals’ names were listed with their organization affiliation, further adding to the impression that the rules were put together after a diverse group of people gave their input. Most of the names on the partners list were familiar. They make up the ubiquitous education lobby, the representatives of which are regularly present in the legislature and at SBOE meetings. But among these “regulars” were a few surprises – two people whose affiliations were listed as the Vermont Business Roundtable. Their inclusion in the effort sent a strong and clear message that this effort was different from the echo chamber atmosphere of usual education discussion, where education lobby representatives affirm each other’s approaches – more money, less accountability, and for Pete’s sake, no school choice.  Those two names gave the rules credibility. According to one public official, that list with those names on it could have been enough to lead to easy passage by the SBOE. The board is made up of citizen volunteers, after all, who are busy individuals often inundated with complex and lengthy education documents. The board members would have taken one look at that list, says this official, and probably decided it was okay to vote yes on this particular issue. And yet, that list turned out to be – to put it bluntly – a fraud. Not only were those individuals not participating in the rules process as representatives of the Roundtable, they didn't even AGREE with the rules as they were written. In short, they were used to give the appearance of broad consensus. Whether this mistake occurred due to a deliberate effort to mislead or simply because of an overzealous attempt to promote the rules as written is almost immaterial. But this small but significant error raises red flags and important questions: What else was “fudged” in these rules to make them look good and “easy” to sell? If the education lobby was the dominant voice in putting these rules together, what are the various stakes they have in the process? For example, does the VT-NEA hope to increase its membership through the quality standards which require a licensed educator for each group of pre-K children? Does the Superintendents Association hope to have its members control larger sums of education dollars by keeping out parental choice? And, should the rule-making process be used at all to enact legislation that failed to pass for LEGITIMATE reasons? Ironically, while the VDOE falsely gave the impression that diverse groups backed the rules, in reality diverse groups oppose them. When a free-market think tank, a women’s commission, a child care organization, and a school choice group ALL find something wrong with the rules, that is true consensus. The proposed early education rules represent an overreach by the Commissioner and the VDOE in both substance and style. The rules themselves appear to have been produced at least in part in order to enact a failed bill. And the way they were promoted to the SBOE seemed designed to create an impression of consensus when there was none. Ultimately, the only people who can even attempt to hold the VDOE and Commissioner accountable for this gaffe are the members of the State Board. They hire the Commissioner and are thus his “boss.” If they are troubled with how this process was handled, they should have a lot of questions for the Commissioner. And this incident should put them on notice that they can't accept on trust anything the VDOE sends their way.  *   *   * WHO COVERS EDUCATION IN VERMONT? WE DO! The VERMONT EDUCATION REPORT is a weekly e-newsletter produced by the organization Vermonters for Better Education. We are a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization primarily dedicated to promoting school choice and other education reforms. And we can always use your help! Send your donations to: VBE, 170 Church Street, Rutland, VT 05701  The VERMONT EDUCATION REPORT is published by Vermonters for Better Education 170 Church Street, Rutland, VT 05701, 802.773.5240 Contact VTBetterEd@aol.com for more information.   Subscribe Here SubscribeRemove

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