Conservative common-sense Vermonters are clearly over the target when it comes to education. And, just as clearly, the progressive, authoritarian, public-school monopoly can’t handle it. The fight for liberty and freedom is on. And, in the final analysis, those in the public-school monopoly, those who promote the progressive denial of parental rights, will begin to realize that School Choice is just as much a benefit to their individual liberty and freedom as it is to the rest of us.
This VT Digger article (“In Vermont schools, conservative legal groups have beome a potent force”, biased as it may be, gives an excellent synopsis of where we stand in Vermont’s battle for educational freedom. We may not be able to elect reasonable representation in the legislature or in our school boards. But we can hold elected officials accountable in the courts.
Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, Vermonters. Liberty and freedom are natural, inalienable rights for everyone. School Choice will set you free. – Jay Eshelman
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So this whole school funding thing was first brought about because one school didn’t have enough money to buy computers.
Then they had to redo it again, because they didn’t want to lose small schools.
All the time the problem was the state was not using money properly, we always had a mechanism to help the less fortunate, but they blew the money elsewhere.
They sold us Act 60 on the premise it was going to save money, but the knowingly lied using a funding mechanism they knew was too low.
And where is Vermont after all this. We’ve closed small schools. Burlington is building a new school to the tune of a quarter billion dollars…..on the backs of all the rural people and taxes.
What about the small schools, will they get a 750 seat auditorium?
See how this is working? Did Vermonters get to vote on that? Nope…..too funny. All because one class didn’t have a computer.
See they talk about DEI, Diversity Equity and Inclusion, it’s code words. I can tell you want it means in practice.
We will diversify our search in everybody’s equity (wealth) to the inclusivity of our pockets! This the decoding for Marxism, we are more equal than the rest of Vermont…..you will pay for our “needed” things.
Despite the schools, well built for some reason are the ONLY buildings across the state that can’t’ seem to last longer than 50-60 years. All of Burlington is over 100+ years old, most of UVM campus, most all buildings, but for some reason across the state of Vermont, we need new schools everywhere!
Interesting times, for sure.
Neil: There isn’t enough space here for anyone to sufficiently document all of the various items of educational mismanagement perpetrated by the public-school monopoly. We get it.
The point I’m making is that there is an ongoing conservative legal process that parents and the electorate can follow that will fix everything over time. The VT Digger article not only lists a lot of them, it lists the legal organizations that will help us.
What parents need to do is demand their constitutional rights through legal action. It’s not the funding source that’s at fault as much as how the money is being spent.
If parents are to be held accountable for their children’s educational outcomes, they must demand their constitutional right to direct the funding (at whatever level it happens to be) in an educational free market. This VT Digger article shows that the strategy is working. And unless you can cite an alternative process, with equal or better success, only this constitutional demand for School Choice will decrease costs and improve academic outcomes.
Hi Jay,
You are on the right track anything you can to do outline this on a regular basis for readers and parents to deal with would be amazing. I would never purport to know 1/2 as much as you do on this topic.
Wasn’t using the past a cure for the future, just to highlight the massive irony that it all started because somebody didn’t have $2,000 computer in their school, now we have disparities of 750 theaters in some schools while closing others, AND making the poorest pay for the richest, which is kinda the ultimate irony but everyday business for marxist thought. Because as we know some are more equal than others.
Merry Christmas btw!
The corporations are insolvent. The pantomime being played out is an illusion that the government is in control – it is actually out of control and broke. Institutions, such as education, will soon be face first into the brick wall they built themselves. Teacher salaries and pensions? Facilities? Resources? Where does it all come from? Not from failing trade, diminishing currency value, junk treasury bonds, depleted and clogged supply chains, vanishing credit lines, recession, or hyper-inflation to nose diving deflation. The real numbers don’t lie.
Jay, I’m all for school choice (sent two kids to Catholic schools and worked in one) but the part you constantly leave out is that private schools like Rice or MSJ (Mid-Vermont is a cult) can pick and choose the students that they want to accept. In a pure school choice scenario, they wouldn’t have that option. Having working in both the public and private schools, when my boss saw an IEP at MSJ, it mean as well have been in Mandarin and we told the parents that we couldn’t service their child. Schools that employ priests and nuns couldn’t stay open if they had to hire special educators or meet federal mandates. How do you suggest we remedy that? Your answer can’t be “get rid of mandates” either because even the Federalist Society, I mean Supreme Court would agree (and has) that that is unconstitutional.
Re: “private schools like Rice or MSJ (Mid-Vermont is a cult) can pick and choose the students that they want to accept….”.
I address this point often. And I’m well versed in IEPs.
Public schools don’t accept all students either. The false equivalence is in the difference between a specific school and a school district (i.e., a Local Education Agency – LEA).
It is the LEA that is required to provide a ‘Free and Appropriate Education’ (FAPE) to the students living in the district. This is not the responsibility of any given school in the district or elsewhere. Public schools don’t accept students who present a danger to other students and staff. They don’t accept students with learning disabilities they can’t accommodate.
And, conversely, private schools, especially those that specialize in teaching kids with specific disabilities, don’t accept students they can’t accommodate either. They accept only the students they are qualified to teach.
What both public (including charter and magnet schools) and private schools are required to do is not discriminate based on race, ethnicity, or religious affiliation. If a school reaches its enrollment capacity, it accepts students based on a lottery. Sometimes students have to default to their second or tertiary choices. But whatever the choice, it is the LEA that pays the bill.
Are there ‘gray areas’? You bet. And not just in private schools. Consider an all-boys school. Or an all-girls school. Or the more recent conundrum… sexual orientation issues, or the more general ‘mainstreaming’ programs, or the advanced placement programs for ‘gifted’ students.
The point is that the precept of ‘accepting all students’ is a false equivalence. Does that mean, for example, that a pre-kindergarten student has the unequivocal right to attend a specific class in a specific high school? Of course not. There are always limits and qualifications.
The law says, ‘free and APPROPRIATE education’.
In Special Education governance, for example, each student is directed by an Individual Education Plan (an IEP) and an IEP Team. The members of the IEP team include the parents, education consultants chosen by the parents, and school officials. There is a protocol. But in the final analysis, if the IEP Team establishes an IEP, and the student doesn’t meet the goals established in the IEP, the parents have the default authority to choose the education program they believe is best for the child. The same governance holds for Vermont’s existing tuition programs for public or private schools.
Jay- Thank you so much for all of your efforts to educate and provide solutions. I have learned so much from you regarding this situation in VT and many other subjects as well- much appreciated.
In Danville, we are currently in the middle of these conversations and trying to determine best path for the students and community. Is there any way you would consider presenting/speaking at a workshop or forum to help provide more information for on the ground steps/solutions? I know you have tremendous experience and research on this topic.
If this is possible and/or if I can ask your opinion on some avenues -please email if you can. alison.despathy@gmail.com
Thank you for all of your work, research and advocacy.
Gratefully
Thank you for your comment Alison. I’ll be in touch soon.
Hi Jay,
Thank for your insight, we have issues in our Taconic and Green School district and parents need to hear the truth about what is going on. The school board refuses to explain to parents why they are teaching the elements of critical race theory and gender identity theory to their children. Parent are not aware that through the 1974 pupil protection act they ha a lot of power to stop the radicalization of their children.
We would be pleased to host a town hall meeting in Manchester for you to speak to parents about what is going on.
Thank you
Eric Salat
Eric: The first thing I recommend you do is read the VT Digger article carefully. Yes, VT Digger is a mouthpiece for centralized oppression, especially in the public education monopoly. But this article, as long as it isn’t taken down (which is a real possibility given what I’m about to say), includes a description of everything that threatens the progressive left and, ironically, shows the roadmap for concerned parents to follow – especially its listing of the legal support folks out there.
The Alliance Defending Freedom,
The Institute for Justice,
The Liberty Justice Center,
And local Walden attorney Deborah Bucknam.
You should also learn Vermont law. Paradoxically, public school administrators and staff have no idea what the law actually says. The best example, in that regard, is 16 V.S.A. § 822 School district to maintain public high schools or pay tuition.
Specifically, consider:
§ 822 (c)(1) A school district may both maintain a high school and furnish high school education by paying tuition:
(A) to a public school as in the judgment of the school board may best serve the interests of the students; or
(B) to an approved independent school or an independent school meeting education quality standards if the school board judges that a student has unique educational needs that cannot be served within the district or at a nearby public school.
(2) The judgment of the board shall be final in regard to the institution the students may attend at public cost.
And keep in mind that in the last Vermont legislative session, the super majority considered the repeal of this statutory governance because it’s so threatening to the public-school monopoly – and the enormous amount of money funding it.
Learn the ropes. And, of course, I’ll be happy to kibitz at your pleasure.
Again this is probably another clumsy use of occam razor, but don’t all these problems leave the commonweal’s forum if resources go directedly to parents who can then contract with teachers for the curriculum and services they agree upon? Parents and venders do whatever customers and services providers do to reach an accommodation.
Yes, of course. The only reason the public education monopoly (make a note of that – it’s a MONOPOLY) resists School Choice tuition vouchers is because the monopoly loses control of the money. It’s not about ‘the children’. Never has been. It’s all about the money.
Think about it. On one hand public school advocates blame parents for the demise of their children’s academic and social outcomes, and at the same time refuse to give those same parents any control of how education resources are allocated – because they claim the parents don’t know what their doing.
Is there any question now determining who really doesn’t know what they’re doing?