In 2012 Vermont traded its board-run Department of Education for a governor-appointed agency — the year before scores peaked and began to fall. The old era was not more stable. The instability changed kind. Part 3 of 4.
Part 3 of 4, a series on Vermont's schools statewide. In 2012, Vermont abolished the Department of Education and its board-hired commissioner. In their place came an Agency of Education, led by a secretary who serves at the pleasure of the governor. The change was enacted in 2012 and took force in January 2013 — the year Vermont's scores peaked and began to fall. The old era was not more stable — the tenure numbers refuse that story. What changed is the kind of instability: who leaves, why, and what a change of governor can now set off. Vermont is studying whether to change the arrangement again.
The first story in this series laid out a decade of falling measures beside a graduation rate that barely moved. The second reported how Vermont rebuilt its diploma and changed its test three times. This one reports the third change — who steers — and it came first: enacted in 2012, in force on the first day of 2013, the year Vermont's scores peaked and began to fall.
For decades, Vermont's education chief was a commissioner hired by the citizen State Board of Education — a board built for insulation, its members serving staggered six-year terms. Act 98 of 2012 abolished that post. In its place came an Agency of Education led by a secretary the governor appoints — a cabinet member serving "at the pleasure of the governor." The board was left to propose a slate of candidates, and little more. Supporters argued the change would make the education chief answerable to an elected governor, and give education a seat in the cabinet alongside every other part of state government. The last commissioner, Armando Vilaseca, became the first secretary — one person on either side of the line.
The State Board kept its name and lost its function. Before 2012 it supervised and managed the department. After, its job was to weigh proposals that came from the governor and the secretary — and the secretary sits on the board, as a nonvoting member. By 2019 the board was publicly asking what it was for. Its chair, John Carroll, put the change simply: "We are not the board that we used to be — by law."
The argument over what had been traded ran on. Jay Nichols of the Vermont Principals' Association warned that an appointee would be "beholden to the state's chief executive"; the Agency answered that its secretary is "beholden, first and foremost, to the students of Vermont." Jeb Spaulding — the Shumlin administration's secretary of administration when the agency was created — said of the change in 2018: "you're really adding a level of volatility to the education system."
Not by simple tenure math. Seven commissioners served from 1982 to 2012, about four years each on average. Stephen Kaagan and Richard Mills each held the job six to seven years. But the late 1990s and early 2000s ran through three commissioners, with two long stretches when no one held the job at all. The two completed secretary tenures since — Rebecca Holcombe's and Dan French's — each ran slightly longer than the commissioners' average. The record does not show that the board era kept its chiefs longer.
The kind of instability changed. Every documented commissioner departure was a better job or ill health. Mills left to run New York's schools; Richard Cate left for a university post; Marc Hull left sick. Four of the seven served across a change of governors, and none was replaced when a new governor arrived. The secretary era's turbulence is political. Holcombe resigned abruptly in 2018 amid differences with the governor's office — the administration said "personal reasons"; the board's chair cited "differences in opinion about major issues." French served four and a half years and left for a national post. A deputy filled in as interim twice, about a year and a half in all. Then, in 2024, the Senate rejected Governor Scott's nominee, Zoie Saunders, 19 to 9 — a rare rebuke of a cabinet pick, over her charter-school background and short public-school record. Scott installed her as interim secretary the same day. Senators sued, and lost on mootness. A newly elected Senate confirmed her the following March, 22 to 8. The state ran nearly a year under a secretary its Senate had voted down.
Fights like that could not happen before 2013. There was no Senate confirmation, and no governor held the appointment. In 2018, Seven Days asked veterans of the system whether the new structure had made the office political. Brad James, the state's longtime education-finance official, answered: "That's exactly what happened."
The department became the governor's agency on the first day of 2013. By several measures, 2013 is also the year Vermont's scores peaked and began to fall. The data can show that the two run together. It cannot say whether one caused the other. What the 2012 law plainly changed is who steers the system — and what can pull the person steering off course. A governance chart does not move a fourth-grader's reading score. Whether a decade of churn at the top reaches a classroom is a question the data cannot settle.
Vermont is looking again. A Senate education workgroup has been studying how other states choose their chief — by board, by ballot, or by governor — and whether the 2012 arrangement should change. The final story turns to the number all of this steering is judged by: the diploma.
The governance change has no demonstrated effect on any test score, and by raw tenure the secretary era is no less stable than the one it replaced. The roster and its averages come from contemporaneous records and are approximate; one commissioner's 1988 departure reason is undocumented. Every account of motive here is the participants' own, quoted or attributed. Where accounts conflict, as with Holcombe's exit, both are given.
Explore the underlying data yourself: the Comparer · District Outliers.
Method and caveats: the structural change is Act No. 98 of 2012 (H.440), approved May 3, 2012, effective January 1, 2013 — it repealed the State Board's power to appoint the chief (former 16 V.S.A. § 211) and created the governor-appointed secretary (3 V.S.A. § 2702: the governor chooses from at least three board-proposed candidates, with Senate advice and consent; the secretary serves at the governor's pleasure). The supporters'-rationale sentence reflects the debate as recorded in later retrospectives; contemporaneous 2012 statements were not located. The commissioner roster (Kaagan, early 1982–1988; Mills, 1988–1995; Hull, 1996–1999; Wolk, 2000–2001; McNulty, 2001–2003; Cate, 2003–2008; Vilaseca, 2009–2012) and tenure averages are compiled from contemporaneous records — Education Week (1982), press archives, official bios — and are approximate to within about half a year; interim stretches in the mid-1990s and 1999 are unattributed. Secretary roster: Vilaseca (2013–14, transitional by design), Holcombe (2014–April 2018), Bouchey (acting, 2018), French (August 2018–April 2023), Bouchey (interim, 2023–24), Saunders (April 2024–, rejected 19-9 on April 30, 2024, reappointed November 26, 2024, confirmed 22-8 on March 13, 2025; the Vermont Supreme Court dismissed the senators' challenge as moot in February 2025). Quotes: Carroll per VTDigger (September 2019); Spaulding and James per Seven Days ("Head of the Class," June 6, 2018); Nichols and the Agency's reply per Seven Days (2024). The Senate workgroup on chief-selection methods is per its commissioned research memo; its conclusions were pending as of this writing.
Sources: Act 98 of 2012 (H.440) as enacted; 3 V.S.A. § 2702; VTDigger (2013–2025, as linked); Seven Days ("Head of the Class," June 6, 2018; 2024 retrospective); Education Week (January 1982); UVM Legislative Research Shop, chief state school officer selection; Vermont Supreme Court (February 2025); Stanford Education Data Archive 2025.1 and NCES NAEP (the 2013 peak).
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