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Learning & Education
Does the Recent Election Tell Us Anything? In the months & weeks leading up to the election, one of the bones of contention between Ruth Dwyer and Howard Dean was the state of Vermont's schools. Leaving aside for now any questions about vouchers or funding, what was the tone and timbre of the respective campaigns on the question of education? Well ... The campaign ... Dwyer's frontal assault made that side of the issue clear: Vermont schools were failing, and they were failing because of the failed policies of the Dean administration. This was not the anti-Act 60 rhetoric of the Dwyer campaign. It was not a criticism of supposedly failed or failing tax programs. It was a criticism about student performance and achievement. Such a criticism, of course, especially in the midst of election campaign fervor, is not, in itself news. But what might have been news, if it hadn't been missed because of its subtlety, was the shift in the Dean campaign's pitch on education. On the other side, the Dean campaign seemed to start out with a defense of the Governor's record on schools and education. But as the campaign was closing in on Election Day, the rhetoric appeared to shift toward language that, while upholding the Governor's rep, almost seemed to acknowledge the Dwyer campaigns criticisms. In essence, the Governor seemed to say that we had made progress in student performance and achievement ... but, we still had a ways to go. This may have been part of Dean's program of presenting himself as a moderate in all things, as, for example, he did when disavowing everything and any motive but his incumbent duty to uphold the ruling of the Supreme Court with regard to Civil Unions. But there may have been something more to it. Vermont Students: High school then college? Several years ago, I came upon a nation-wide study out of Minnesota that looked at both high school graduation rates and continuation rates, i.e., the number of high school grads who went on to college. Vermont had cause for concern. While the State had the highest high school graduation rate in the country, it ranked 49th in the rate of high school grads who went on to college. Such facts -- and the discrepancy between them -- beg more questions than they answer. In addition, while the tone and timbre, as well as the photo op's of the campaign, were all focused almost entirely on elementary and secondary education, it has long been known that Vermont lags behind the rest country when it comes to its post-secondary education system. Back in '96, Vermont ranked among the highest for in-state tuition at state colleges while the state college faculty were the lowest paid in the nation. The situation has not improved. ... In its most recent publication of The Almanac, a statistical compendium, the premiere news source for things post-secondary, The Chronicle of Higher Education, had this to say about Vermont:
As if the State's dismal showing in the nationals wasn't bad enough, a closer look at the University and State College systems showed, according to The Almanac, that state residents made up a mere "31% of all freshmen enrolled in Vermont in fall 1996 who had graduated from high school in the previous year." Of course, the State Colleges and the legislature are caught in something of a Catch-22 here: On the one hand, the lack of support from the legislature has sent the the State Colleges fishing for students elsewhere, primarily from southern New England and the mid-Atlantic states. On the other, the legislature has historically cited the low in-state enrollment as a reason for not providing more funding. As The Almanac noted, the two did reach something of a compromise last year when the State's public post-secondary school requested, and received, a commitment for a predictable series of increases in State appropriations. But, helpful as that may be for planning, it's doubtful that it will have much impact, particularly in the shorter term. What comes next? But the governor now has new term, and the opportunity that goes with it. And the somewhat new legislature has an opportunity, as well, to show that it understands both the value and the needs of education in Vermont. We can only hope that Act 60 -- the financing law with all of its pitfalls and promises -- doesn't end up detracting from the infinitely more important questions facing Vermont education today. lmc
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