The Vermont Education Opportunity Fund began with a conversation between two Vermont mothers over lunch in a small diner.
Like many families across the state, we had both experienced the public education system up close. In different ways, those experiences left us asking the same questions many parents, educators, and lawmakers are asking today.
Why has education in Vermont become so expensive?
Why do proficiency rates remain so low despite the amount we spend?
Why do families sometimes feel farther from decisions about their children’s learning?
And why do legislators struggle to see clearly how the system is actually working?
Those questions led us to look more closely at Vermont’s education system — not just as parents, but as citizens trying to understand how the system evolved.
For generations, Vermont has taken pride in its commitment to education. The state’s Constitution calls on lawmakers to ensure that every child has access to learning and opportunity. That commitment was reaffirmed in the landmark Brigham v. State decision, which held that Vermont must provide students with an equal opportunity for education regardless of where they live.
The goal was fairness: every child, in every town, should have meaningful access to education.
Over time, however, the system built to pursue that goal has grown increasingly complex. Efforts to ensure fairness have often pushed the system toward sameness, even as families, communities, and the needs of students continue to evolve. Costs have risen dramatically, property taxes continue to climb, and many families feel increasingly priced out of living in the very communities they love. At the same time, student enrollment has declined across much of the state, leaving Vermont to support a system built for larger populations with fewer students to sustain it.
At the same time, proficiency rates reported on the state’s education report card show that a large share of Vermont students are not reading, writing, or doing math at grade level. Legislators across the state are now looking for ways to control costs and improve outcomes, and new reforms are being debated to restructure the system.
Yet many families feel caught in the middle. As reforms attempt to stabilize spending, options in some areas are narrowing. Tuitioning towns are being phased out, the creation of new independent schools has been limited, and parents increasingly look to other states where education savings accounts, vouchers, or flexible learning models are expanding opportunity.
This tension raises an important question for Vermont: if our Constitution speaks so strongly about access to opportunity, how should a modern education system deliver it?
As we studied the system more closely, one thing became clear: many of the challenges facing education today are not simply about schools. They are about how education funding moves through the system and how the system is governed.
That realization led us to a simple question:
How might Vermont modernize the way education funding is delivered while preserving the public system communities depend on?
The answer we began developing became the Education Opportunity Fund (EOF).
EOF is designed as an access and governance mechanism that modernizes how public education funding flows through Vermont’s system. It preserves the foundation formula and public school infrastructure while giving lawmakers clearer tools to oversee spending, stabilize reforms, and ensure that families can access meaningful educational opportunities.
Our goal is not to dismantle public education.
It is to strengthen it, while creating broader access to opportunity.
By modernizing how education funding is delivered, Vermont has an opportunity to build a system that is more transparent, more responsive, and more faithful to the promise of equal opportunity that has guided the state for generations.
Vermont has long been a place willing to examine difficult public challenges thoughtfully and search for balanced solutions. We believe the Education Opportunity Fund is one such solution — a way forward that supports families, strengthens public education, and gives policymakers the tools they need to guide the system responsibly.
And like many meaningful ideas, it began with a simple conversation between two parents asking how the system might work better for everyone.
Learn how the Education Opportunity Fund works by watching our short explainer videos or exploring the full legislative roadmap.