Though his plan to drastically consolidate school governance drew sharp resistance from lawmakers and the public, the governor pressed on.
Only by wresting power from local boards, and concentrating authority in 12 regional districts, the governor argued, could Vermont finally modernize a system yoked with costly redundancies.
“It’s ludicrous, utterly ridiculous and wasteful,” the governor said. “It may be political suicide, but I am determined to end this sort of provincialism.”
Vermont had a population of 400,000 people and 800 school districts when then-Gov. Phil Hoff, a Democrat, delivered those remarks more than 60 years ago. They echo as truly from his Republican counterpart in 2026.
“We need far fewer districts each serving far more students. This change will eliminate duplicated effort and expenses,” Gov. Phil Scott said during his State of the State address earlier this month. “Education transformation is not optional. It’s essential.”
When it comes to education policy, history more than rhymes. And no aspect of that centuries-old debate “remains so perennially unresolved as school governance,” the educator William Mathis wrote in Vermont State Government Since 1965.
“The inherent contradiction between local autonomy and the requirement for overall state quality control roils back and forth throughout Vermont history with little resolution,” Mathis wrote in 1999.
Members of the 78th General Assembly now face the same tension that confounded so many of their forerunners. Three weeks into a legislative session that’s supposed to produce one of the most consequential school-governance overhauls in state history, lawmakers are knee-deep in the “inherent contradictions” that make meaningful reform so elusive.
‘A divided state’
Today’s debate centers on Act 73, a law passed last year to curb education spending, and ameliorate geographic inequities, by changing the way Vermont pays for and governs its schools.
The plan hinges on consolidating the state’s self-governing 52 supervisory unions and 119 school districts, some of which have as few as 200 students. It calls on lawmakers to approve a new map, this year, that would create 10 to 15 districts of between 4,000 and 8,000 students.
As precious time elapses in the Legislature’s 18-week session, however, the education committees charged with the task haven’t even decided whether to proceed with redistricting, let alone what the new map ought to look like.
“What we have is just a very divided body, a divided committee, a divided state. And this is always the case when you try to do big education transformation,” said Cornwall Rep. Peter Conlon, the Democratic chair of the House Education Committee. “Everybody’s reality is a little different. ... And they cherish what they have and what they want to hold onto.”
Lack of progress has begun to frustrate redistricting hawks who view forced consolidation as the only way to slow rising education costs, which have sent property tax bills skyrocketing by 40% over the past five years.
“We haven’t moved anywhere in two weeks,” Addison County Sen. Steven Heffernan, a Republican member of the Senate Education Committee, vented to colleagues this week. “And it’s depressing to sit in the committees and try to do what’s right for Vermont and just get rejections from everybody.”
Those “rejections” have come in the form of pushback from education officials, many of whom say the scale of consolidation contemplated in Act 73 would lead to a level of disruption from which some districts might not recover.
They’ve come from the Legislature’s own redistricting task force, which rejected its mandate to propose new maps over the summer.
And they’ve come from an organization that represents more than 100 rural school boards and select boards that say decentralized bodies can’t be trusted to make decisions about schools in communities they know nothing about.
“The town of Glover really is different than the town of Barton, and it’s different from the town of Albany,” said Glover Rep. Leanne Harple, a Democrat. “One of the biggest fears I have is we will lose our community centers. … That is what people are afraid of — that we will lose our sense of community.”
‘Art of the possible’
The House and Senate education committees are left to resolve a policy dilemma that implicates two things Vermonters guard most closely — their children and their money.
Williston Rep. Erin Brady, a Democrat, said the House Education Committee this year has felt more like “a support group than a policy committee.”
“Really the reason maps are so hard is because they’re not just about school districts, it’s really about the future state of Vermont,” Brady said this week.
"That is what people are afraid of — that we will lose our sense of community.”Rep. Leanne Harple, D-Glover
Hovering over the Legislature’s work on education reform is an ultimatum from Scott, who says he won’t allow the state’s $9.4 billion budget to pass into law unless lawmakers approve forced consolidation as envisioned in Act 73.
That threat likely won’t compel lawmakers to reconsider their non-negotiables on education reform. And for many of them — possibly a critical mass — mandatory consolidation of the scope Scott has demanded is a nonstarter.
As chair of the Senate Education Committee, Sen. Seth Bongartz played a key role in getting Act 73 over the finish line. But the Bennington County Democrat now says political realities may require the Legislature to forgo redistricting, and instead consider policies that “create the atmosphere for it to happen organically” — i.e. voluntary mergers.
“Legislating is, in part, the art of the possible and figuring out what is going to be possible to achieve with all those contradictory signals swirling about,” Bongartz said.
Despite the headwinds, there is near unanimity in Montpelier on two fronts: Vermont needs to transform the way school districts operate, and it needs to spend less money on education. Longtime observers say the opportunity for true reform is as ripe as it’s ever been.
Jeff Francis led the Vermont Superintendents Association for nearly 30 years, and helped oversee previous governance reform efforts. Francis told lawmakers earlier this month that he’s never seen the education community so aligned on, and supportive of, the need for change.
“The time is now,” Francis said. “And I think everybody knows it.”
Lawmakers now have to decide what exactly to do with their moment.
