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By Guy Page
A bill introduced Friday by a newly-elected Republican legislator would provide all Vermont school children with school choice grants.
H.89, sponsored by Rep. Mike Tagliavia (R-Corinth), would “allow all Vermont students to attend the school of the student’s choice, paid for by a School Choice Grant issued by the Agency of Education. The School Choice Grant would be paid from the Education Fund payment otherwise due to the student’s school district of residence. This bill also proposes to require the Joint Fiscal Office to issue a report with recommendations for the integration of the school choice program into Vermont’s current education funding.”
The bill was referred to the House Education Committee.
Term limits bill coming – a bill to include Vermont in the Convention of States to amend the U.S. Constitution to allow term limits will be introduced soon in the Vermont House. Today, three Vermont residents and term limits activists met legislators at the State House.
19 states have passed a COS resolution. The U.S. Constitution requires 2/3s of the states (34) to call a constitutional convention. This year, for the first time ever, every state has some COS legislation in its legislature.
New Hampshire is scheduled to hold a hearing next Friday. Vermont COS organizer Colleen Armstrong of Georgia today told VDC she hopes to at least get a committee hearing on a bill to be introduced soon by Rep. Mark Higley (R-Lowell). Volunteer Mike Adrian of Townshend has higher hopes: “No, we want to pass it,” he said.
Madeline Kerstetter of Ira told a skeptical senator that a Convention of States would not throw open the national charter to widespread changes, but would be limited to specific agenda items, including term limits.
School boards find ‘status quo’ expensive – In a development that illustrates Vermont’s school funding crisis, maintaining the ‘status’ quo will cost one rural Vermont school district an additional $1.45 million.
The Journal-Opinion reports that the 400-student Blue Mountain Union School Board approved a 12,054,049 25-26 budget, up 14% from this year’s $10,594,007. Blue Mountain School serves students K-12 under one roof for the Orange County towns of Groton, Ryegate, and Wells River.
“We’re just trying to keep things the same as the current year,” Board Chair Kelsey Root-Winchester said in a brief telephone interview. The culprit is inflation, she said.
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Categories: Legislation
Thank you. Both items much needed.
Did I hear term limits ?
The constitutional convention can open up an agenda to suspend your bill of rights. Be sure you know what you are doing.
I’ve heard this scare tactic before. From the people who want the status quo. The Vermont Constitution was changed for the murdering of babies, I didn’t see them take away any rights other than from the babies. The area of the constitution where term limits would reside is not in the first or second amendment.
It should be a Convention of States, not a Constitutional Convention.
Article V of the Constitution reads as follows:
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; …
I’m sure you’re aware or realize that Congress would not even think of proposing an Amendment of term limits on themselves. There are only 3 proposed Amendments that are being proposed: 1) Term Limits for Congress, 2) Fiscal Responsibility, and 3) Size and Scope of the Government. Article V is where the Founding Fathers put in the Constitution for We the People to be able to put Amendments in.
They could do as our first president did and voluntarily set their own limits.
Novel idea huh? They don’t need laws, they don’t need anyone’s approval. They can just do it.
This goes under all talk and now action, the ones that do the least ( for the American people and country) stay in the longest
Replying to Neil,
Exactly right, sir. The people who hang on longest often can’t go anywhere because they’re useless in the real world or – more often – their corruption is a family business. Biden, Kerry, Pelosi are all examples of the family grift system.
The problem with explicit term limits is that the people who see government as a grift spend a lot of time working out ways to game the system. In countries where term limits are in place, the politicians are often more aggressive at stealing. And they spend a lot of time making sure their successors are as corrupt as them. That way nobody goes down.
In the end, the two most powerful inoculates against political corruption are 1) small government and 2) zero tolerance. Of the two, small government is the more powerful.
Nothing is settled at the convention. Proposed articles are listed before it starts. After the convention each state gets one vote for the articles agreed on at the convention. There is no mention of anything in the Bill of rights and anything pertaining to an amendment would have to go through the constitutional process to remove an amendment.
Doing research on a Convention of States is much better way to comment on than just throwing out scare tactics. How else would the USA be able to convince the congress to cut their own throats and lose their sources of wealth. The COS is the mechanism in the constitution for the people to do this.
Please stop misleading people about a convention of states. An Article V convention is expressly for proposing amendments. That exists in the highest law of the land (Article five of the Constitution). Nowhere in the Constitution is any thing like a constitutional convention authorized. Call it a proposal convention or a convention to discuss amendment proposals. You are spreading the “con” otherwise. Your editor should require more precision in terms. Please publish a correction.
We missed you today Michael.
Here’s the correction:
Madeline Kerstetter of Ira told a skeptical Senator that a Convention of States would not throw open the national charter to widespread changes, but would be limited to specific agenda items, including term limits.
correct, and I think i have now done so.
“School choice bill introduced, term limits bill coming soon.” This is great news. Fantastic.
Over thirty years ago a very smart man said this constitutional convention was a bad idea as it would place the government under the control of a monarch and put an end to representative government. Now who will be your new king??? Be careful as many try to deceive you.
King and the peasants is not the way this government is set up.
Richard, you are correct, he was talking about a constitutional convention which would indeed be cause for concern. Fortunately, a convention of states under Article V of the Constitution is expressly for proposing amendments which will need ratification by 38 states. Quite different, and with a 3/4 majority required to become an effective amendment, the process is both legal and safe.
That same very smart man expressed strong support for an Article V convention.
Status would needing more money = mismanagement
IF people had the choice of educating their 4 kids a home for $110,000 per year or sending them to public school, which would they choose?
Our state of Vermont is not run by the people or for the people, it is run by lobbyists and special interests.
If people could vote on this topic, what would they do?
If people had a choice of educating their children in the finest private school for less money than public school, what would they do?
If people could send their kids to public school and their taxes would drop by 50% what would they choose? (Rice does it for less than half)
Our state will once again pull the wool over Vermonters eyes, just like that last 4x they did a major redo.
Notice they aren’t talking about giving you more control, less is on the table.
Notice they aren’t talking about a reduction in taxes.
Notice they aren’t talking about improving education.
Notice they aren’t talking about local control.
Notice they have not goal in reducing expense per student.
If they aren’t even talking about these things, they SURELY are NOT going to do them, they lied to us 3x before, your costs will go down, you’ll have local control, and what has happened the exact opposite.
EXPECT MORE OF THE SAME, WE ARE BEING SOLD A BILL OF GOODS!!!!
AGAIN!!!!!!!
They say we need workers in Vermont.
They say families are moving out of Vermont.
They say our school system is reasonable.
Let me ask you this question. If we treated families as well as we treated teachers what would happen?
If we paid families with 4 children $110,000 per year to home school their own children, what do you think would happen in our state? What if we gave that money for them to send to a school of their choice, anywhere in the nation?
We’d have people from around the world, clamoring to live here, our population would skyrocket. Everybody in the nation would want to move here. We’d have the smartest, brightest families moving here. We’d have the biggest education boom the world has ever seen.
Mom’s and Dad’s would have the highest paying jobs in our state!!!!
We’d have no retirement funding issues to concern ourselves with.
My friend Jay…….who I’m surprised hasn’t commented on this one, is absolutely correct, school choice is the answer. And the above explanation is why the system will NEVER give up control, they are making too much money. If we offered even half the money to educate our own children, we couldn’t control the amount of people wanting to come to our state, it would be a stampede of people we’d rather not deal with.
This is how well we treat our teachers.
This also demonstrates how much our system is not working for us.
The governor and those in Montpelier are not looking at this objectively they are being controlled by the lobbyists, NGO’s, non-profits.
If Vermont put up for ballot this change, get paid $110k to educate your 4 kids per year…….how fast would things change. We need to see the light, stop believing the lies we are told.
TGBTG
Neil: You’ve clearly articulated the commonsense benefits supporting School Choice (i.e., expanding the educational free market) as well as I could ever do. The more pertinent question isn’t with regard to your surprise that I haven’t commented, but that ‘They’ haven’t commented – the legislators and special interest lobbyists of whom you speak, who never, ever, make an effort to explain why they ignore you, let alone explain why, specifically, they may disagree.
Jay, they can’t respond or argue with any merit to the cause of school choice. They have to use smoke and mirrors, because it’s a house of cards, which pays them well and runs the government through lobbyists.
There is no press that will address this nor any debate stage with freedom that will bring this topic up. This is all very, very scripted. They will say the whole system will collapse if people are allowed choice and then a child will be left destitute because of it, which is not true. This is what will be portrayed, the narrative told across the state.
Except if you state the obvious, suddenly it reveals how insane our system truly is. It was this sort of post that got me banned from Front Porch Forum, restating facts in the light of day. $110,000 to educate 4 children per year in primary educations is insane, anyone would want that money, it’s ludicrously generous.
Jay, there are several groups within Vermont that are making serious, serious bank on the Vermont taxpayers, they fund the representatives, in many cases they are lobbyists. Here are a few organizations that run the exact same play book and are bringing Vermonters to their knees.
Education
Health Care
Affordable Housing
E-B 5 (has been discovered and covered up)
Clean Heat
Planned Parenthood.
Government zoning and land use.
Protesting this past year on Vermont campuses.
Our Drug and Crime issues.
None of this is home grown; it is all Astro Turf.
This is all about power and money.
Sadly, when you put all the pieces together, they match perfectly what was described in this little video.
A little side note: it is not a coincidence that across the U.S. drag queen story hour happened all at once.
It’s not a coincidence that all the media is controlled and says the same things.
It’s not a coincidence that censorship is rampant in Vermont
It’s not a coincidence about porn being interfamilial the same time as we’re locked down.
It’s not a coincidence that our populace is confused about their sexuality of all things, it’s in the video, planned out.
I keep posting this video for others to watch, when you see and hear the truth, let me say it’s very tough to unsee things.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gnpCqsXE8g
We have nobody speaking up for Vermonters, VTDEMS are completely controlled in how they vote and VTGOP struggles to bring people together to accomplish anything of substance, they are stuck in a wet paper bag, forever, lost.
Has any of the funding sources been addressed to benefit the taxpayers? Where’s the relief for taxpayers by offering School Vouchers to the school of your choice since it will still be paid with the same formula upon taxpayers? The article states that the “School Choice Grant would be paid from the Education Fund payment otherwise due to the student’s school districts of residence.” Am I missing something here, or is there a tax decrease to the taxpayers with a school voucher system with the current formula, since I read the Bill and nowhere does it state a new formula to decrease the burden on the taxpayers.
Also, when one reads the Bill, H.89, section (c) it imposes that independent schools must accept anyone who claims “gender identity” as follows: “An approved independent school may not decline to accept a student because of race, creed, color, national origin, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity.”
Yeah, they don’t want a religious school that believes in God and Science to be able to accept money from the state, it’s all about political science, not biological science, course a marxist wouldn’t know science if they were dropped from a plane, they’d call oppression instead of gravity.
Re: “Also, when one reads the Bill, H.89, section (c) it imposes that independent schools must accept anyone who claims “gender identity” as follows: “An approved independent school may not decline to accept a student because of race, creed, color, national origin, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity.”
An excellent point, saltlightfaith.
Yes, the language in H.89 stipulates that an independent school can’t discriminate. But note that the bill doesn’t stipulate that an independent school must change its curricula from what it normally provides either.
Consider, for example, a student who has some semblance of gender dysphoria. Should the student and the student’s parents not be allowed to attend a religious school that uses a curricula based on traditional family norms? Isn’t that what School Choice is all about? Choosing your poison, so to speak.
If the student and the student’s parents decide that the independent school’s curriculum isn’t for them, they can choose another school. One would hope, however, that the student and the parents did their research before choosing the religious school, instead of ‘changing horses midstream’. But no one is perfect.
Again, the education governance that accommodates these nuances isn’t the current one-size-fits-all system. The only remedy is allowing all parents to choose the school they believe best meets the needs of their children in an educational free market.
One other point regarding paragraph (c) – beginning with line 18 on page two. After all, what’s good for the goose should be good for the gander. The same regulation should apply to public schools too. The sentence should say:
“A Vermont public or approved independent school may not decline to accept a student because of race, creed, color, national origin, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity.”
Re: “Am I missing something here, or is there a tax decrease to the taxpayers with a school voucher system with the current formula, since I read the Bill and nowhere does it state a new formula to decrease the burden on the taxpayers.”
Another excellent point, saltlightfaith.
H.89 stipulates that “… the Agency of Education shall issue a School Choice Grant to the receiving district or approved independent school selected, …”.
H.89 also states that the Joint Fiscal Office prepares “… recommendations for the integration of the school choice program created in Sec. 1 of this act into Vermont’s current education funding structure, in accordance with the State policy set out in 16 V.S.A. § 822b(a).”
This ‘policy’ currently specifies a grant (i.e., tuition voucher) called the ‘Average Announced Tuition’ established by the Agency of Education (AOE). This is the system Vermont has used for decades. In fact, Vermont’s existing tuition program is the oldest School Choice governance in the U.S.. The problem is that not all parents qualify for it. And that is precisely the problem H.89 seeks to remedy.
Consider the various cost-per-student numbers being bandied around. Current costs to the taxpayer are somewhere between $28,000 per student and $33,000 per student.
Now consider the Average Announced Tuition provided by the Agency of Education when a parent chooses and alternative independent school. The 2024-2025 Average Announced Tuition of Union Elementary Schools (Grades K-6) is $18,346. The 2024-2025 Average Announced Tuition of Union 7th-12th Grade Schools is $19,774.
https://education.vermont.gov/sites/aoe/files/documents/edu-fy25-announced-tuition-report-print-version.pdf
Potentially, for every student choosing an independent school, there is a $10,000 savings.
Re: “Am I missing something here, or is there a tax decrease to the taxpayers with a school voucher system with the current formula, since I read the Bill and nowhere does it state a new formula to decrease the burden on the taxpayers.”
Another excellent point, saltlightfaith.
H.89 stipulates that “… the Agency of Education shall issue a School Choice Grant to the receiving district or approved independent school selected, …”.
H.89 also states that the Joint Fiscal Office prepares “… recommendations for the integration of the school choice program created in Sec. 1 of this act into Vermont’s current education funding structure, in accordance with the State policy set out in 16 V.S.A. § 822b(a).”
This ‘policy’ currently specifies a grant (i.e., tuition voucher) called the ‘Average Announced Tuition’ established annually by the Agency of Education (AOE). This is the system Vermont has used for decades. In fact, Vermont’s existing tuition program is the oldest School Choice governance in the U.S.. The problem is that not all parents qualify for it. And that is precisely the problem H.89 seeks to remedy.
Consider the various cost-per-student numbers being bandied around. Current costs to the taxpayer are somewhere between $28,000 per student and $33,000 per student.
Now consider the Average Announced Tuition provided by the Agency of Education when a parent chooses and alternative independent school. The 2024-2025 Average Announced Tuition of Union Elementary Schools (Grades K-6) is $18,346. The 2024-2025 Average Announced Tuition of Union 7th-12th Grade Schools is $19,774.
https://education.vermont.gov/sites/aoe/files/documents/edu-fy25-announced-tuition-report-print-version.pdf
Potentially, for every student choosing an independent school, there is a $10,000 savings.
Thank you H. Jay Eshelman for the link of tuition costs. I wonder if there is a requirement list somewhere as well, as I’d like to know why no one can qualify to pay for the lower tuition the schools list. Yes, it seems School Vouchers would decrease the cost to the taxpayers.
Also, agree with Neil Johnson on the list of organizations that run the show along with lobbyists. If funding for these would dry-up, this whole racket would be resolved pretty quick. I believe that may be the case for some of those. Agree, there are no coincidences.
1 Timothy 6:10
Re: “I’d like to know why no one can qualify to pay for the lower tuition …..
Saltlightfaith, there are 90 school districts in which parents currently live who qualify to use the Announced Annual Tuition voucher. These are districts that don’t maintain a public school. In my Westminster School District, for example, we don’t have a middle school (7th & 8th grade) program. So those Westminster parents with kids in 7th & 8th grade qualify to use the tuition voucher to attend any school, public or approved independent, in-state or out-of-state, that they think is best for their children.
And… the tuition voucher was less than the cost per student in the monopolized K-6th grades and 9th thru 12th grades.
And… the student outcomes were better, as judged by the parents making the choices.
Again, H.89 seeks to allow all Vermont parents and their children to do what my family did in our 7th and 8th grade. Namely, choose the school they believe best serves the needs of their children… and save taxpayers about $10 Grand per student in the process. And, as more and more parents make these choices, “the whole racket [will] be resolved faster and faster.
Term limits…best idea since sliced bread.
If passed ,law should have a rider that all elected officials serving longer the the term limits must step down within 6 months of passage and a special election be held to fill their seats because as Biden has proven a lot of damage can be done before one finishes their full term.
The monied people who make the rules don’t send their children to war or government schools. Ask Chelsea Clinton or Peter Welch.