________________________________________  THE VERMONT EDUCATION REPORT November 29, 2004 Vol. 4, No. 42 ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯  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... TRANSPORTATION ISSUES AND SCHOOL CHOICE - A RED HERRING? When the State Board of Education workgroup on public school choice issued its draft report at a recent SBOE meeting, the issue of transportation was part of the discussion. How would kids get to the schools of their choosing? Would the poor be disproportionately affected by a lack of an adequate transportation system? After last week's VER story on the draft of the working group, however, one reader wrote in to say that attaching transportation costs to any school choice plan is the "kiss of death," because it will be so expensive, thus allowing "opponents to scream about how much choice will cost." This reader has a point. Costs could balloon quickly if transportation became a component of a school choice plan from the very beginning. High costs could erode support for any reform, no matter how worthwhile. At the very least, high costs due to transportation expenses would hand opponents a convenient weapon. So how to solve the transportation problem? First, acknowledge that it isn't really solvable at all until you find out where kids want to go to school. At the outset of any school choice plan, no one can look into a crystal ball and determine where the shifts will occur for sure. In fact, every year the numbers might change depending on population shifts themselves. Placing a ready-made statewide transportation system on top of such wild unknowns is folly. In fact, Vermonters for Better Education has argued that transportation mandates themselves are folly, especially if they are to be used as a reason not to proceed with choice. To use a transportation metaphor, it is putting the cart before the horse to argue that transportation concerns must be addressed before devising a school choice plan. We don't inquire whether folks who need food stamps can get to the store before we give them food stamps. Similarly, we shouldn't insist on taking care of student transport before we know where to transport the kids. Even if the transportation worriers had a point, the way to attack the problem is to study how transportation is handled now - in tuition towns and in non-tuition towns. For example, in non-tuition towns, how many buses are used and what percentage of students use them? What are the other modes of transport - cars, walking - and what percentage of kids employ those? In tuition towns, how do local school boards handle the transportation challenge? For this question, VBE has some answers. When the House Education Committee was considering a public school choice bill earlier this year, we surveyed tuition towns asking town clerks how the transportation challenges were met. Twelve clerks responded. While not a definitive sample by any means, the information from these clerks is still useful: RESULTS OF 2004 EMAIL SURVEY OF TOWN CLERKS Bakersfield: Town does not provide transportation for high school students but the town of Enosburg will bus Walden students for free if they choose that school. (Note: the town clerk said at one time Bakersfield considered busing kids to Bellows Free Academy. That was when Enosburg came up with their free busing plan.) Coventry: North Country Union transports students to their school. Otherwise parents are responsible. Dover: The town buses secondary and middle school students to Wilmington, Townshend and Brattleboro. Grand Isle: South Burlington sends a bus at their cost. Town pays for kids who go to Essex, and parents car pool. Granby: Town reimburses each family $2.00 per day to transport their children. Montgomery: Three public schools provide their own buses to their schools, two of which share a bus from Montgomery to Berkshire where students transfer to either the Enosburg or Richford buses. North Country provides one bus for transportation from Montgomery in the morning and two choices for afternoon to accommodate students involved in athletics. Norton: The town hires an independent bus company to bus students to Canaan. Orange: Transportation is left to parents. Stockbridge: Town provides a bus for students going to Bethel. The town of Rochester sends a bus to Stockbridge to pick up students who choose Rochester. Thetford: Thetford designates Thetford Academy as its school and the school provides bus service. Roxbury: Town provides bus service to Northfield High School. Walden: The town does not provide transportation but several schools do - Danville and Cabot. Three years before this email survey, the editor of this newsletter conducted a phone survey of town clerks looking for the same information. In this case, the editor only surveyed the 18 tuition towns that had no school whatsoever - neither elementary nor high school. Here are the results of this 2001 phone survey: RESULTS OF 2001 PHONE SURVEY OF TOWN CLERKS Baltimore: Parents are responsible for transportation Bloomfield: The town furnishes bus transportation for one public school; in all other cases, parents are responsible for transportation. Brunswick: The town buses students to a public school in North Stratford, New Hampshire; parents are responsible for transportation to all other schools. Elmore: The town buses students to Morrisville public school; in all other cases, parents are responsible for transportation. Hancock: Most parents meet their own transportation needs but the town pays for a bus to Rochester middle and high schools. Kirby: Buses are available for most nearby schools. Lemington: One bus takes students to most nearby schools. Maidstone: A bus takes children to public schools in Guildhall, Vermont, and Northumberland, New Hampshire. Pittsfield: Two buses cover the towns of Sherburne (now Killington), Stockbridge, Bethel, and Woodstock. St. George: The town pays two nearby public schools for busing students to school. Sandgate: The town pays for a bus to Arlington public school. Searsburg: The town pays for one bus. Stratton: The town reimburses parents to get children to nearest bus stop. If there is no bus stop nearby, the town pays the entire cost of transportation. Winhall: The town pays for transportation, including private transportation, to Manchester schools. What do these results tell us? First, they tell us that choice (tuition) towns handle transportation in a variety of creative ways. Some deem it necessary to take a comprehensive approach by reimbursing all parents for transportation costs. Some decide a minimalist approach is best, leaving transportation to parents. Some towns do a mixture of both. And, perhaps of most value, we learn that some schools decide it is worth their while to be proactive and provide transportation to their schools, not leaving it to local boards. In other words, the schools themselves are so eager to attract students that they consider it worth their while to provide transportation. Marketplace pressures and incentives - some of the benefits of a school choice program - therefore are at work. If the State Board's working group wants to tackle the transportation issue at the statewide level, however, we have a suggestion - become a clearinghouse of "best practices." In other words, gather information on transportation approaches from around the state and across the nation. Keep it in an easy-to-access place (perhaps on the department's web site) and be available with sound advice to help schools and towns that opt for a transportation component of a school choice plan.  *   *   * ELSEWHERE  FROM THE U.S. FREEDOM FOUNDATION On the web at: http://www.freedomfoundation.us A CONTRARIAN VIEW OF HORACE MANN by David W. Kirkpatrick, Senior Education Fellow Horace Mann (1796-1859) has been termed "the father of the American common school." His efforts are generally praised. From New England to California schools are named after him (and an insurance company.) If his influence is not debatable, the basis for the praise is. History is written by the winners and most of the compliments come from public educators who, of course, benefit from his efforts. In addition there is the sheer repetition of favorable comments. As Mann himself once said, "If an idiot were to tell you the same story for a year, you would end by believing it." In 1837 he was chosen the first Secretary to a new Commission that became the Massachusetts Board of Education, a post he held for the next dozen years. He had little real power but was very persuasive. His twelve annual reports to the legislature were widely distributed, including to foreign nations, and they are remembered and cited to this day. Although there were many charity schools, during his years as Secretary he created an emerging public school system. It is forgotten now but his efforts faced strong opposition. The general public did not succumb easily to growing government power. Most citizens refused to attend his schools. As late at the 1880s, long after his death, Barnstable children were forced to school by the Massachusetts militia. Perhaps because he had been a state legislator, Mann promoted his cause the way public officials often do, by overpromising and underdelivering, and telling different groups what they wanted to hear. To businessmen he argued schools would promote a stable work force. To workers he said they would promote equality. To the religious he said using the Scriptures in schools would promote moral values. One of his most famous arguments was that "Jails and prisons are the complement of schools; so many less as you have of the latter, so many more must you have of the former." Today we have some 90,000 public schools yet jails and prisons have not disappeared. In many jurisdictions the costs of prisons are growing at a more rapid rate than those of the schools.  In his 12th and final annual report he wrote: "Education ... does better than to disarm the poor of their hostility towards the rich; it prevents being poor." There may be some truth to that for "education" but he really meant "schools," and his statement is at least debatable. Current expenditures of more than $400 billion for public schools have clearly not ended poverty, ignorance or hostility. He also practiced incrementalism, by which government expands its role. Once established, what earlier generations vehemently opposed later generations may vehemently defend. In 1840, for example, he maintained that education (again meaning public schools) requires the consent of the people, arguing that "Enlightenment, not coercion, is our resource." A little more than a decade later, with his public school system taking root, he helped the state pass the nation's first compulsory attendance law. Among the ironies was that while he promoted the need for a "common" school, he took little note of the segregated schools in Boston, where courts in the 1850s first upheld the doctrine of "separate but equal" facilities forty years before the U.S. Supreme Court did. Another is that he had little formal education. Born in a small town at a time when little public schooling existed he was largely self-taught by reading in the town library. He later was accepted at Brown University and became a lawyer. In fairness, Mann helped establish a state mental hospital, advocated free public libraries, as a Congressman opposed slavery, and ended his life as the first president of Antioch College in Ohio. He led the college in becoming the nation's first to recruit and educate women and blacks as equals. Every Antioch graduation still includes his words to the 1859 graduates, two months before his death: "Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity." Like many reformers he believed he knew what was best and he meant well. Yet 160 years later, his unrealized promises are another example of The Law of Unintended Consequences. It's time for alternatives. David Kirkpatrick is a Bennington native. A former public school teacher and officer in the Pennsylvania NEA, he lives in Pennsylvania. FROM THE EDUCATION INTELLIGENCE AGENCY COMMUNIQUE, November 8, 2004 On the web at: http://www.eiaonline.com QUOTE OF THE WEEK  "[Teachers] feel like they're being held hostage." - Cheryl Bost, president of the Teachers Association of Baltimore County, commenting on a district rule that limits voluntary transfers of "highly qualified" teachers. It's terrible when powerful interests keep you from the school of your choice." (November 28, Baltimore Sun)  *   *   * 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

---

Return to Education Report Index | Return to VBE Index | Vermonters for Better Education Homepage 

---

........