February 16, 2026

Education Reform, 2026 edition

My inbox is beginning to fill up with impassioned pleas about education reform. I share many of the concerns, though they are often conflicting.

The Legislature is as conflicted as the public. House Education committee chair, Rep. Peter Conlon, released a draft map showing 27 school districts, intended, as he put it, as a "conversation starter" (link to map). My conversations with committee members has not provided clarity on what happens next.

What is clear is demographics: school-age population is 25% less than 30 years ago, and almost certainly will continue to shrink for the foreseeable future. Costs do not and cannot shrink at the same rate — you can't simply lop off one-quarter of a building or stop teaching one-quarter of classes. So as the number of pupils declines faster than costs, the cost-per-pupil — the metric of school costs — goes up. The math is not hard.

And of course, costs are in fact rising: soaring health insurance; increasing social-emotional needs; delayed and deferred maintenance due to 18 years' moratorium on state construction aid; and a school-funding formula overly reliant on inconsistent and out-of-date property valuations. We must admit to a lack of foresight by state government, which includes both the part-time citizen Legislature and the Administration.

My sense is that there is not widespread support in the Legislature for the wholesale, mandated school district consolidation that the Governor insists on, despite his threat to veto the budget if he doesn't get his way. I don't know who will blink first.

If there is no agreement on consolidation, the backup plan is likely the Redistricting Task Force's recommendation to start with Comprehensive Education Service Areas. These are similar to BOCES in other states; they consolidate at a regional level administrative functions now duplicated in each district, though governance remains with the districts.

A key worry locally is how any version of education reform will affect independent schools. I think everyone recognizes that the only public high school in the area, in Danville, could not accommodate the number of students now in independent secondary schools. I expect little change there.

The primary school scene is different; there are public schools available. It is not inappropriate to ask whether, as a publicly funded system, fairness is served when one family's children has an assigned public school and their neighbor just over the town line can choose any public or approved independent school. Although in aggregate the percentage of public tuition dollars flowing to independent schools is relatively small, the impact on small public schools can be large: again, fixed costs with fewer pupils means higher per-pupil costs.

With more independent schools opening in recent years to take advantage of the current public tuitioning system, there is concern those impacts will rise. Act 73 established criteria that limits eligibility for public tuition dollars. At the moment, those limits do not appear to affect many local independent schools, secondary or primary.

But conceptually, what Vermont owes all its children is a solid educational foundation in an integrated system of public and, where public schools don't exist, approved independent schools. The Task Force report made a useful distinction between "access" and "choice": access is for all families, choice is for a lucky few. Sounds simple and fair, but it's likely not simple to implement, and for those who enjoy the option of choice today, it would be far from fair. These are tough nuts to crack.

Last update February 16, 2026

Join me for “coffee hour” once a month on Saturday! All meetings at 8:00 AM:

Feb. 21, Mooselook Diner
1058 Main St (Rte. 2), Concord

March 28, Kitchen Counter Cafe
378 Railroad St, St. Johnsbury

April 25, Mooselook Diner

May 16, Kitchen Counter Cafe

What I’ve been up to

I was in treatment from April to August last year, and after several more months I’m pretty well recovered.

During that time I chaired the second year of a two-year off-session committee, the Building Energy Code Working Group.

We met seven times from June through November and produced a final report (link) recommending that —

• Vermont adopt a residential building construction code (did you know we don’t have one?!);

• energy codes, which are mandatory but have no enforcement or penalty, be placed under authority of Division of Fire Safety (which enforcing commercial construction, electrical, plumbing and other building codes);

• major improvements to the Secretary of State's Office of Professional Regulation Residential Contractor registry, which is also mandatory as of 3 years ago but also has little enforcement and a very weak website; and

• a Task Force be convened to assist OPR in making the improvements and advise in developing certifications that registrants can obtain voluntarily.

I have a bill in process to implement some of Working Group’s recommendations.

Among other ongoing work as a legislator, I participate in the Climate Solutions Caucus. The climate disruption now underway due to human activity is a defining challenge of our time.

My background is building construction, design and energy-savings analysis.

I am not a climate scientist, but I have been keenly aware of the existential challenge facing us for more than 30 years.

Skyler Perkins is a Vermonter, documentary videographer and a member of the next generation, even more aware of this challenge and how we as a society have failed to confront it.

He is in the process of producing a series explaining how climate disruption, pollution, habitat destruction and biodiversity loss is poisoning the planet’s—and humans’—future.

Event calendar
St. Johnsbury/Concord/Kirby