Quality public education opens doors, creates opportunities, and improves our standards of living. That’s why Kate is committed to supporting high-quality public schools and expanding access to Pre-K and higher education. 

Improving on the educational transformation legislation from 2025 was a really low bar.  However, we did manage to address the importance of prohibiting “topping off”.  A school eligible to receive tuition shall be prohibited from requiring tuition from a student attending the school, above the amount of tuition paid by a sending school district.  In addition, a school district like that in St. Johnsbury that operates schools K-8 and tuitions their high school students will no longer have their budgets held hostage by schools eligible to receive tuition charging whatever they want.  Instead the approved independent schools will only be eligible to receive what the foundation formula determines it costs to educate the child being tuitioned.  When an approved independent school sets their own tuition without guardrails, that school district MUST pay that tuition first and then use whatever is left in their budget to operate their own schools, pay their employees, run their programs, make repairs, etc. 

I’ve been a lifelong advocate for public education, and it’s deeply disappointing that this (2026) reform misses a core element. When public dollars fund education, "same dollars, same rules” should apply. All schools taking taxpayer money should be required to meet Education Quality Standards, serve every student, and operate transparently. This reform should have delved into that issue more deeply because real transformation can’t happen without it. For real transformation and reform to take shape in our education system, lawmakers must be bolder and braver. We must be willing to look under the hood and expose the deeply engrained flaws in the system. Because you cannot fix things until you acknowledge that there is a problem. And we do have a problem in this two-tiered education system of ours. Whoever fills the seats in the legislative chambers next biennium, I hope they will be willing to do the hard work of creating fairness and accountability in our education system, and insist that public dollars come with public obligations. If I am back in House seat 77, I am committed to that work.