More from the Front Porch Forum/VT Legislative Cartel – this time on the Education charade.
by H. Jay Eshelman
On December 6, 2023, Front Porch Forum (FPF) published a ‘DEC. 1 Tax Letter’ from our Windham 3 legislators, in response to Commissioner of Taxes, Craig Bolio’s, warning that the State of Vermont is: “based on specific calculations outlined in State law, and as a result of collaboration by the Department of Taxes, Agency of Education, Department of Finance and Management, and Joint Fiscal Office”, projecting “property tax bills to increase by an average of 18.5 percent next fiscal year, driven largely by a forecasted 12 percent increase in year-over-year education spending”.
If VDC readers recall, I commented here on VDC that “This is the usual ploy. In the fall, the various school boards begin working on their budgets for next year. They always come in with an outrageously high initial estimate. It’s their modus operandi. And they are oblivious to the appearance of their projection. Honestly, they don’t think. They do what they’re told to do.”
Suffice it to say, the predicted legislative back peddling and finger pointing has already begun.
And while the FPF publication designated our legislator’s missive as being for ‘Discussion’, we all know now what that means in the context of the FPF Public Benefit Corporation. This is especially noteworthy given that I can’t find a reference to this FPF/legislative missive anywhere but on FPF.
So, without further ado, what follows is a copy of the FPF missive.
Dear members of the Windham-3 community:
We are writing to offer some clarification to a recently issued letter from the State Tax Commissioner about projected property tax rates.
The December 1st tax letter was received by many in local government on November 30th, and it raised a lot of concerns. We hope to address some of these by forwarding this op-ed from Representative Mike McMarthy (SIC*) from St Albans, chair of the House Government Operations Committee. His piece clearly articulates the process of establishing the education tax rate which starts on December 1 with the tax letter and is completed with the signing of the “yield” bill by the Governor sometime in May.
Between now and then, we will listen to you and work with our colleagues in the Legislature to achieve the best possible results for our students and our taxpayers.
As always, please contact us with questions or concerns.
· (HJE notation) The representative’s correct name is Mike McCarthy.
The December 1 tax letter was sent out by the Scott administration with a blistering press release. It went out a day early, which was a surprise to school administrators and legislators, and maximized the coverage in the news cycle of a projected tax increase looming next year. The Governor cast blame on school districts and the legislature. He focused on the sticker shock of a whopping 18% average property tax rate increase that could (not will) occur if several things come to pass: if preliminary school budget figures are all approved in March, if a complex reformulation on of how we weight the cost of educating students with more needs goes into effect as is (which got a bipartisan vote and which Governor Scott signed, by the way), and if the legislature takes no action at all between now and July 1, 2024.
The December 1 letter is required by law and it is an important exercise. It is, by nature, a starting point. In my time as a legislator I have worked to make sure we provide school districts with the money for budgets we all approve locally on Town Meeting Day without relying solely on Property Tax increases. We fund education with property taxes (about 30% of the Ed fund), the Sale & Use tax, the lottery and a variety of smaller funding streams. We income-sensitize the property tax for your “homestead” and provide renter rebates to help about two out of three families get a discount based on their ability to pay. The legislature never ends up with the property tax increase modeled in the December 1 letter. Tax rates next year will depend on a lot of decisions that are yet to be made by local districts and the legislature.
We citizen legislators could use the Scott administration’s help, perhaps a proposal to deal with some of the unusual cost pressures on schools. As usual, no specific proposals are forth-coming. With all of the Governor’s popularity and six years in office it should be shocking that the things that cost the most in state government (healthcare and education) have not seen any bold plans or new initiatives from the executive branch. It’s easier to blame local districts or the legislature for the costs of schools and hospitals than to propose painful cuts to teachers, cutting programs or advocating an unpopular revenue source or tax increase.
I will be honest with my constituents about the hard questions left unanswered by the administration. Should we ask districts to spend less, even in a year when much of the apparent increase in local and state education spending is back-filling COVID-era federal funds that will no longer be available? Has the administration maximized the amount of federal funds available for schools, especially when it comes to needs like security, construction, healthcare and counseling? Have rapid changes in property values and a lack of ability for towns to adjust assessments warped the property tax model?
We will have tough choices to make this legislative session, but as we return to the Statehouse in Montpelier I’ll be listening to neighbors, teachers, parents, school board members, business owners and everyone in our community about how we get our students what they need in an equitable way with the least amount of pressure on property taxes. Fortunately, as we heard at our December 1 fiscal briefing, revenues are strong and the much-feared recession is not upon us. We have resources, especially the well-off among us. We also have huge challenges to tackle. Fear-mongering about a projected (not proposed) tax increase is cynical and unhelpful.
Many of us are feeling the pain of rising inflation, higher interest rates and an economy where wages and salaries don’t keep up. It is easy to be cynical and point fingers in times like these. Instead though, I’ll continue to work together with other community and state leaders to make sure we are supporting our students without breaking the bank for Vermont households in the coming year.
Rep. Mike McCarthy
Saint Albans, VT
Email Author
As VDC readers consider education funding for their March school district annual meetings, they should keep in mind that:
– the VT Agency of Education employes roughly the same number of people, from Superintendents, to teachers and paraeducators, to bus drivers, as there are K-12 public school students in the entire State,
– We’re already spending as much to educate a first or second grader as it costs to send an in-state student to the Vermont State University for a full year’s undergraduate degree course load – including room and board,
– More than half our public-school students can’t meet grade level proficiency in reading, writing, math, or science (at my high school it was recently reported that half our 9th graders were reading at elementary grade level),
– And nearly 90% of those students graduate anyway.
Think what you will about the socio-economic indoctrination in our public schools.
Again, you won’t see any of these issues discussed by our legislators cloistered on Front Porch Forum. Nonetheless, every Vermonter should have access to these discussions, despite them having been judged to have offended anyone’s ‘terms of use’.
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Categories: Commentary
Funded Propaganda Forum… where the fascists and socialists love on one another, and support each other’s disinformation…yaaaawwwnn…soooo boring, nothing new, same old same old… turn the page, man…
If you keep clicking on the website, you are voting to support them.
Please pay attention to the issues then – i.e., the VT education budget charade. That the disinformation is published on FPF is not the main issue. That the Vermont public school system, and the legislators who fund it, are ripping you off and not explaining themselves is another. Read the information and contact your representatives to let them know, at least, that you’ve seen their propaganda and don’t appreciate it. And if that’s still a ‘yawn’ for you, why bother clicking here and commenting on VDC? Surely, you have better things to do, right?
What this article says to me is “please don’t do this to us”. I say stop asking permission and get these people OUT, NOW. As a simple poll I never see: How many of the citizens of Vermont even know what is happening not just in state but out of state?
How many of you just write that check to the state for “school” taxes?
How many visit that school they send their kids to?
How many even know their kids can’t read or do math?
Though I am not a fan of the author, I will say he does bring up points but to mostly the choir or deaf ears.
Too often lofty words are used to get a point across and now is not that time.
Fire the lot of them. Especially the aids as the aids they give is akin to using a bucket to keep the Titanic afloat.
Stop , all of you , putting your kids in public school.
How do you think they (the administrators/teachers) would get all the parents if you all kept them at home. As I said about this covid lie, THEY CANNOT GET US ALL. At what point is that the plan. When they start having sex (oh they already do) with them ( the students) or better yet they start the child sacrifice rituals to the LQPTQMOUSE+ crowd (like they are already doing now).
But you did let it happen, you all stood in line for the shots/testing. Bemoaned your kids staying home and in some cases getting smarter. Why did you not go to schoolboard meeting and do more than sit there. Yes they may have “rules” but honestly you cowards never show up in force, in volume. You let some schmuck do it so he and only he is arrested or some such thing.
You let them rely on “procedures” and such garbage. How has that worked out for ya. Has any judge done anything to uphold their oath to uphold the constitution ? No they claim lack of this or lack of that or frivolous this or that.
Better yet, don’t you understand they are, as always, showing you what they are going to do, nothing more , with or without your consent. Remember just recently the S5 BS or the solar billboard signs everywhere. Lets not forget to mention the EV BS that even the car manufactures are balking at now. Why- because like most of the political brainwashing garbage that they are shoveling, WE The People are not buying it. Well unless you are so rich that the only thing you have for a goal in life now is to virtue signal to everyone that you think you are better then them.
This will happen as they prescribe because you the people of Vermont who CAN do something are not, as always.
I seem to remember a man and his friends, you know them, Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys, doing something that needed doing and I don’t remember it being with the gubments blessing. Think about that next town meeting day and voting day or any of this garbage that is no semblance of a Republic form of government.
I was in the process of penning an apology to your sensibilities, Shannon, when I realized, at this point in time, having been subject to censorship, false witness, and yes, the ridicule directed at me by others, now including you, that ‘frankly, my dear, I don’t [care]’ if I ruffle some feathers along the way. I’m here to speak truth to power, no matter who it offends. Take it or leave it.
Well, I chose to leave it and your opinions on the wayside. I will not say you offend me because to say that would feed into your ego and make me repeat myself. I will say
” Ridicule is the ammo of people who have no real answer or argument”
BTW I do care what you say. I just don’t think you are as right as you YOU think you are, but even fools have a right to speak.
I feel the exact same way about my own commentary on here. I too have been booted off FPF twice, Bennington Banner’s Disqus, NextDoor and others, whilst being irrationally maligned right on here for daring to harbor a disparate perspective on but one subject matter. While I agree with most of the people here most of the time, I never signed any allegiance to any “party” or will I ever deduce within set constructs or seek to arrive only at conclusions that are in keeping with “populist notions”. I’m independent, free-thinking & more than capable of forming and expounding upon my own conclusions. I had apparently mistakenly believed that most “conservatives” believed such was not only an intrinsic right, but the cornerstone to a free society. I I guess this site maybe isn’t all that much different, or any less judgmental, or “freer” than progressive sites. In any event, yes, take it or leave it.
But I do, consistenyly, have a real answer to the education problem, Shannon. It’s called School Choice. Perhaps you might consider not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. And if you think me wrong, take your own advice and explain yourself rather than telling me what you think I think of myself.
School choice is a good option if you have the money but most don’t
It is actually quite simple. Stop with the teachers aids. If a kid needs “special” help put them in a different class, as they used to. THAT class will be so much cheaper than paying some stooge to stand around and NOT teach. Next, start paying and firing based on results not some NEA agreement or some such thing. Teachers should have NO RIGHT to a union nor striking as they are defacto public servants like cops.
As a child we had 1 teacher and better results then today by a long way. You can look that one up yourself. You can also look at what has happened to the kids that graduated in ’85,’86,’87. See how well they did on the “old way” of doing things?
They (modern schools/teachers/board/unions) as a group decided to STOP all the things that made school a school, like having kids learn civics or cursive or critical thinking. Stop that from happening by making the curriculum a vote on subject at town meeting day for the following year. I doubt that the crazy stuff that goes into kids heads happen after that.
Do not interfere with parents who, at will, come to their kids school to inspect the school, the teacher and how their kids are acting. My parents did it, my wife did it, why not today. Because they want complete control and money to keep it that way.
Stop with the fluoride. It makes kids stupid.
Teachers who have kids that cannot pass basic reading writing and math should be fired and have their license under review for 5 yrs to be sure they do a better job at any other teaching job they may get. If they do not, no more teaching. Remember kids are our future. Aren’t you afraid of what they are teaching today which is so anti-white and a true mandela effect in operation.
Bring Christ/ The Bible back into schools. (The reason schools were started in America in the first place) Regardless of your religion what was taught was a way to live and treat others, not a bad thing, in any religion. (This would eliminate most, if not all, the “discrimination ” kids feel today. The Christian God does not discriminate against anything but evil).
Remove all the computers except for the library. No laptops in class, kids are forgetting how their hands work to write, as a starter. Books FORCE people to read. even those that are dyslexic can be taught to read. Ask Tom Cruise.
I am not against so called “modern learning” but after 40+years of watching how stupid kids are coming out, spending large amounts of money does nothing but make those that did this richer.
There was nothing wrong with education 40+yrs ago. One teacher per class. One phys-ed teacher that went from school to school. Same with music teachers. Extra curricular activities were encouraged but not paid for by “we the people” until it was voted on during town meeting day. Now it is all part of the budget.
I have answers. I see what is going on. I confront teachers who claim “not my kids” only to have test scores show different, but they know how to put on a condom, they know how to not like white people and feel bad about themselves. They learn to not question authority, which is antithetical to our Constitutional Republic.
Should I go on or are you getting my point?
You are no expert and neither am I. I just pay attention.
Actually, Shannon, I am somewhat of an expert on education governance. At least relative to most people.
I served on one of our public-school boards and helped transition it into an independent School Choice institution. I was a member of the national Workforce Investment Board (liaison between our local schools and businesses), and as such I initiated several apprenticeship and intern programs with our local public schools. I sent my own children through Vermont’s public school system (which included provisions for Vermont’s Tuition school choice vouchers). I’ve been an employer of those Vermont students and graduates for 40 years, researched School Choice programs and their performance throughout the country for decades, am familiar with both Federal and State statutory law governing education and School Choice, have sat on more ‘roundtable’ discussions in this regard than I can count, actually debated former Education Secretary, Dan French, on School Choice, and, importantly, have recounted all of these experiences her on VDC for many years.
Suffice it to say, I can assure you that working to reform education within the public-school monopoly has never worked and will not work, because no two people ever agree 100% on what the best education pedagogy is for all students. In other words, one size doesn’t fit all. Never has, never will.
But apparently, you haven’t been paying attention to any of that. So now what?
Public schools are the bread and butter of our educational system not just here but world wide. To just
“run away” or “take your ball home” is never the solution.
We pay these people for results-no- sorry we have money forcibly taken from us for “education”, so we HAVE to do it. The kids today are STUPID. Even the ones in the private schools, because of some simple things. Notice I said 40 years… that is 2 generations of STUPID. So you have stupid in any school who have been taught for decades to “follow orders” and do just that. I direct you to the following video embedded of a private elite school and what happens there.
https://nypost.com/2022/09/02/
Not to mention impromptu videos from a variety of people asking basic math and history… THEY ARE STUPID
This is not the only one. People in other countries LAUGH at us.
I watched this as well as others over the years.. sorry. The public schools would be better if people took more actions to keep this and other malfeasance from happening instead of running to an exclusive school that does the same thing.
So maybe it is time to sit down and let the adults who care do something besides comment to a guy who has answers that WILL work, not just a bunch of talk and educated but childish sniping. You and your generation are the ones who put these illustrious notions into our schools. You broke them now you want to “give up” on it.
I have dealt with people like you, both male and female and ultimately, to be frank, you are found out to be wrong, in some cases deadly wrong.
I would have thought that after, (as you put it) 40 years, you would see that you are wrong, as nothing you have proposed or put forth has fixed anything you claim to have fought for. Vermont is full of STUPID KIDS that may one day (hopefully not) run the world.
Re: “Public schools are the bread and butter of our educational system not just here but world wide. To just“run away” or “take your ball home” is never the solution.”
School Choice means ‘choice’, Shannon. That includes public schools, independent schools, hybrid public/independent schools like the one I helped manage, and homeschooling. School Choice is anything and everything but ‘running away’ and ‘taking your ball home’.
School Choice is the ultimate expression of developing, and accepting, personal responsibility for one’s educational choices and outcomes. It is the ultimate expression of an educational free market. And in my experience over the last 40, now closer to 50 years, and the peer reviewed studies and anecdotal experiences of many others who have enjoyed the same opportunities of school choice I have, not only are their children’s academic outcomes improved, the cost of education is significantly lower – for parents and taxpayers.
But something tells me that you’re neither in a position nor inclined to listen to anything I say, despite my personal experiences in this regard. But hey, with School Choice, after all, you can tune me out and do whatever you like – as long as you provide the same courtesy to me and your neighbors. Without School Choice we’re all condemned to what we’re experiencing here and now – ‘just a bunch of talk and educated but childish sniping’…. whatever that means.
You just showed your true colors H.J. This is how you look at We the People ??? WOW!
Unfortunately, Mr. Stans, I have no idea what you mean by ‘true colors’. Can you elaborate?
@hj: I SAW WHAT YOU WROTE AND I AM NOT THE ONLY ONE.
We all know that in this two tiered system, where people like you get protected so well that you feel free to openly be the Bully who smugly sneers at the ones you hurt b/c no one else is permitted to see what YOU dish out, I feel no compunction any longer to be even slightly polite.
I SAW WHAT YOU WROTE BEFORE YOU WERE PROTECTED.
You showed your true colors.
Again, Mr. Stans, what, specifically do you see?
This news site is actually breaking my heart. I know, and YOU know, hj, that when I quote what you wrote it will be yet again censored. To protect you.
But I will give it one more try; in your words, I’m here to speak truth to power.
In your last sentence in your response to Mr. McLamb YOU WROTE:
“You should go back to playing with yourself.”
Again, my heart is breaking, b/c I know that the editor will censor it, and that means I’m gone from here forever.
WOW.
Call it censorship if you want, or see editorial removal of profanity, explicit racist language, and/or personal ridicule for what it is: an effort to promote civil discourse in any and all subjects. My bar, my rules.
No, Mr. Stans, that is *not* what I wrote.
Mr. McLamb ended his response to me, saying that: “No I am done playing with you.” To which I responded: “Perhaps you should stop playing with yourself”.
My remark was censored. Mr. McLamb’s comment was, and still is, allowed to stand. Those are the ‘true colors’, sir. And I accept full responsibility for what I wrote.
And I want to thank the VDC editor for allowing us to clear the air while we attempt to get back to the specific issues at hand.
Point taken, Mr. McLamb.
I as always give people the chance to hang themselves and you do it gloriously with the same MO.
After 40 years your ideas did not and do not work. I on the other hand have let people like you , you know, old white people, to dictate what happens ( because, as you say you are the expert) and as we can see the money goes up the education goes down. Great work!
School Choice means ‘choice’ not when the the state makes it all the same as they have for years. Any deviation will result in a loss of that license. Look at what happened to that Christian school in the southern part of the state for “non compliance” . That does not happen in public schools because they do it and say, “so what” regardless of what it was being done.
As other articles and the state budget and laws say that private schools have to follow the same garbage curriculum as public schools. So based on that alone your argument is laughable but is moot from lack of proper results. You apparently have some form of vested interest in private education or a particular location of one and in no way hear what I say that what has happened before, did not and does not work.
The ultimate example of insane is to keep doing the same thing again and again and expecting new results. The biggest and in my opinion only difference is, you can actually stop paying a private school and you will lose you house and property if you do not pay into the vig of Vermont’s school tax.
Your way did not work and as I see it you are an expert , at failing to get results that matter. Whining about your credentials is not going to change my mind because you have had 40 years to do it and as I keep saying you fail.
A chest of medals do nothing for the soldier in the field but weigh him down. Accolades are for people looking for some form of praise. I want no praise just lower taxes and smarter kids, which under your watch just has not happened. You can spout your rhetoric all day but that fact is still valid and it makes your argument though clear, not persuasive and it indeed shows you to be a whiner not a winner. I see that you are used to “being in charge” but that still does not make you right, just a bully.
No I am done playing with you. I will leave any last words to you as I see you like to do that. I have said in past comments to you and I will say it again; Your privilege is showing.
They aren’t my ideas, Shannon. Vermont has the oldest School Choice governance in the country. The problem is, the legislature (controlled by special interest groups) won’t allow all parents to use it. And there are several law suits pending now to try to recify that.
Where School Choice has been used, in the various Vermont school districts like mine and 90 or so others, School Choice programs are by far the most popular and better performing. Costs are down. Academic outcomes are up.
I saw the end of your last comment before it was deleted by whoever and WOW. So much education, allegedly and you resort to sick stupid comments . My wife calls it just petty.
As I stated before, those with no argument ridicule.
You have indeed showed your colors. You sound like so many of the lefts/progressives “we won, you lost” mantra in volumes on display for all. You care not for other opinions that have valid points, just more” Believe me I know, see I have paper behind my name ignore my failures”. Well the best minds in the world throughout history had no such titles and did just fine. Without touting it out there every time someone disagrees.
To the editors of this piece and comment section. I have a real problem with the comments of Mr Eshelman being out there even after a personal attack on me with some sexually degrading comment . I do mean only his last comment either being taken down for not following the TOS of this site or a Label stating what he has done . Just taking down the nasty comment and leaving the rest is just insulting and feels like you are somehow protecting him ( like he is some how better than the rest of us. ). What he said was completely uncalled for.
I disagree with his way of doing things and have said as much ,I challenged his “credentials” because I believe after so much time with things being so bad in ALL schools that his way did not work so let some new ideas into the mix. I responded according to his challenge to my denial of his aptitude “after all these years” to keep up with the same failed policies and ideas.
Shannon: I’ll take this opportunity to remind you that it was you who first referenced the following.
“No I am done playing with you.”
I simply used your words …. to reverse your ad hominem attack on me. Apparently, you can ‘dish it out, but you can’t take it.”
Dear Lord, I am so grateful that Rep Mike McCarthy has the deep intellectual insight and amazing leadership skills to let us know how deeply he understands the state education finance system, how much he is “listening”, and to caution us common folk and our Governor about “fear mongering” and “pointing fingers”. Such brain power and such words of true compassion and wisdom, for certain.
Yes indeed, Lord, how fortunate we are to have this hip, savvy, aware and skilled social justice advocate and climate change warrior at the helm, steering our ship of state so that we fend off our nasty and miserly Governor from harming our state, and do our utmost to save our kids, save the planet, tax “the well off among us”, and make sure not to “break the bank of Vermont households”. Lord, thank you. I sleep so very soundly at night knowing that Rep. Mike is here for us.
That’s some powerful Kool-Aid right there….
Whew!!!!!!
How’s Church Street these days?
“Brian” I could be wrong, but I do believe that “Church Street Citizen” was being facetious. I cannot imagine that any of that is legitimate. I could be wrong.
When extreme sarcasm is taken for everyday leftist dogma, otherwise known as truth by sheeple, we know the propagandists have won.
The Great and Powerful Schtadt has graciously informed us as to how much they will be fleecing We The People for made up “needs”.
My take: They need more money to keep the illegal aliens fed and clothed and catered to, thus ensuring their (unconstitutional) “right” to vote for the “caring” Progressive Regime.
I smell corruption.
Am I the only one who understands that there is NO MONEY; that the privately owned Federal Reserve has been shut down, their building currently being torn down; that the privately owned Federal Reserve has finally been forbidden to print out more paper-nothing-dollars; that beginning in February 2024 the U.S. Dollar will no longer be used at home NOR abroad; that the Dinar is right on the cusp of being the new go-to money for the world? That there is a large number of powerful nations celebrating their newly acquired freedom from the corrupt U.S. Government?
Am I the only one who knows that D.C. has been a literal ghost town, along with the political offices here in Vermont?
Again: There is NO MONEY. There is NO GUBMENT. The only power they have is the belief on the part of We The People that a lie of this magnitude could actually have been cooked up and upheld by SEWER RATS.
So please, explain to me why I should continue to obey a SELECTED (don’t continue to lie that you were elected) group of power hungry tyrants.
When was the last time We The People were given the opportunity to attend an open meeting with Vermont’s politicians? Oh, that’s right-we can listen on the phone to a prepared agenda that we have no avenue to address.
How much are you SEWER RATS pocketing out of your proposals?
And to my fellow Vermonters: If you do not stand up against this NOW, say goodbye to your home ownership. This just another step toward very powerful people getting what they want.
They want us dead.
“You will have nothing and you will like it.” Klaus Schwabb
“Public education cartel” or as Rob Roper coined it “the public education blob” is a more apt description of the leech that has taken residence in the pockets of Vermont taxpayers.
no right////no tax///any questions///sewer rats/// those are my words, come up with your own words
VT public education is the biggest single waste of taxpayer dollars. Yes, I’m an expert and have worked within public schools for a long time. I could go into any district and slash millions of dollars of waste. The only thing the citizens would notice would be a smaller tax bill and improved achievement.
Totally agree about the ridiculous amounts of money we spend on k-12 for a diminishing school population that comes out uneducated.. When I was first elected to the school board in Randolph, I asked the principals/superintendent at the first meeting what they would cut if they had to cut 10%. Impossible they said, can’t be done. Meanwhile, I was used to doing that almost every year at VTC.
A smaller tax bill would be absolutely feasible. I’m not sure that outcomes/achievement would be any better since that is about more than money. Bringing back academic rigor and awarding achievement vs worrying about fragil egos would go a long way.
Yah….my local rep, whose kids were busted holding an underage drinking party and didn’t have a charges pressed (surprise!) just had a lengthy diatribe in our local commie rag (called the ‘Citizen’ no less).
Her best quote : “We can’t change the school budgets.”
The school system in this state is completely corrupt.
admit it /// you all wore that stupid face diaper ///stood six feet apart ///hid in your house //did as you were told //thank you phil vermonts great leader//
If this entire discussion does anything, it demonstrates why a collectivist public education system simply cannot function. No two people will ever agree on what constitutes a reasonable education program for any children, even their own. The only way to avoid the misinterpretation, misunderstanding, and misanthropy that occurs when individuals are forced to conform with one another is to either stop publicly funding education altogether or allow each parent, through School Choice governance, to choose from an educational free market, the programs they, as individuals, believe best meet the needs of their children.
Again, in the words of Milton Friedman:
“The great virtue of a free-market system is that it does not care what color people are; it does not care what their religion is; it only cares whether they can produce something you want to buy. It is the most effective system we have discovered to enable people who hate one another to deal with one another and help one another.”
And this:
“The key insight of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations is misleadingly simple: if an exchange between two parties is voluntary, it will not take place unless both believe they will benefit from it.”
Hopefully, we can learn to stop punishing ourselves and let people take responsibility for their personal choices… whatever they are… before we destroy each other any more than we already have.
BIGOT: a person who is obstinately or unreasonably attached to a belief, opinion, or faction, especially one who is prejudiced against or antagonistic toward a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular group.
My group is poor Vermonters and smart people who think differently.
“I simply used your words …. to reverse your ad hominem attack on me.
Apparently, you can ‘dish it out, but you can’t take it.”” H. Jay Eshelman
When you say anything that actually affects me I will let you know. I am mostly annoyed, because I learn nothing but how not to do things from people like that. Also, that as long as I have lived here the bigots are in charge and swinging their opinion around for all to “COMPLY WITH”. To destroy other peoples lives and show how much better they are. Like I said before, I have all my life, dealt with people just like that.
What I say may not make you happy but I do not attack you, I care not about you, but these ideas are, in my opinion, POISON and much like progressivism and racism and all the other isms must be shown for what they are: totalitarian and absolutely antithetical to our representative republic.
As I stated before, “those with no argument ridicule”
I would list all the ridicule on the page slung, not just to me, but poor Vermonters in general, but you should have enough insight to see it anyway.
In your whole comments nothing was produced but insults showing a lack of true ideas; just mantras, to those who disagree, as well as myself.
Milton Friedman cannot help with a bad argument nor supplement it to make what you want it to say true or better.
” …individuals are forced to conform” H. Jay Eshelman
Is this your angle? To FORCE people into compliance. As always, here in Vermont we have another old white guy or woman, claiming success after 40 yrs of failure. Yes failure, telling us WE MUST COMPLY. Using that old Saul Alinsky / Nazi method of “for the children”.
Do as we say not as we do and BELIEVE US. WE DEMAND IT! Kinda like the climate change people telling us we are all going to drown and then they buy a big mansion on Martha’s Vineyard and drive giant SUVs and fly private jets…
The aforementioned arguments and ideas, have not and do not work. It is designed to ensure ” individuals are FORCED {emphasis added} to conform” so that we can see how wrong WE are. I, as well as others, think not.
Here is the whole thing that is missing. In Vermont you have no choice of education. The same things taught in public schools are available in private schools. Just at a higher price. The difference is, and here is the big secret, ALL private schools are consumer driven. You and at the time others, as the check writers, in a private school, can and in most cases DO, demand a certain level of excellence and if you do not get it, you pull the money you give them to go to a different school so the school in most cases comply with the check writers. We the People are FORCED to pay out property school tax that we have no power over. (and many do not have extra money to give to another school). Don’t like how or what your kid is being taught? Oh well.
“…if an exchange between two parties is voluntary, it will not take place unless both believe they will benefit from it.”
This, your own quoted statement, says exactly my point, VOLUNTARY. Most Vermonters know the school tax is NOT VOLUNTARY and they have almost, if not completely, lost the control over the schools you speak of. Even if there was no school tax, I doubt many Vermonters can pay out around $15,000 a kid to go to a school not overseen exclusively by the state. Nor do they make the money needed for such a thing.
It is easy for a 1/2 dozen folks in a private school that has put out collectively at least $90,000 to $150,000 (a year?) and have a voice in that school as it will effect its bottom line, as well as recruit others to do the same. Whether it be bad subject matter or teachers, remember it is still a business beholden to people who have invested, and customers in that school. No such thing is available to regular people sending kids to regular public schools-by FORCE.
As for public schools they are at the whims of the newest control and manipulation, money available from DEI…to Common Core…to the latest trans /gay sexual agenda being pushed WITHOUT parental permission, or in many cases their knowledge. That cannot be said for private schools.
As a simple example for you to follow:
Remember what Bud Light did with that thing on their cans? Remember how the “customers ” had a real problem with it. Well, MONEY made them change-or correctly-lack of money, made them change.
The problem is closed minded people (bigots), who demand compliance for a failed policy that is, much like a simpleton beating a dead horse. You cannot see that what you have done, did not and does not work. To insult the people you are trying to convince shows, as stated by others before, one’s true colors as a totalitarian bigot,( bigot, definition is above ) who wants to show that he wasn’t wrong as the children run for their lives, the state burning…and Nero fiddles.
I, as well as many others, are able to look at and use modern and old approaches to education, but you propose things that only affect people WITH MONEY.
THAT is my problem with those ideas and the apparent lack of ability to see beyond it.
The level of STUPID in this state shows how bad it has gotten from ideas and plans that have been used for running things.
Look at how people were fooled by the covid or the shots . Basic education, REAL basic education, which includes science and civics, would have stopped the scam in its tracks, but because of 40 years of lack of education, brought on by people of your ilk made it happen, make it continue even today. As an employer, I would have fired those responsible for incompetence long ago. But in Vermont people fail upward all the time. Like most Dem/Progressive places.
No, I do not like your ideas, I do not like failure, ( in myself or others ) so please step aside and let your betters take over. Then if they fail, you can point and laugh and say: “See I told you so”, but by then, 40 yrs from now, you and I will most likely be dead anyway. If your ideas worked you would list them, the actual area where and how it worked and how doing it “the other way” failed. No, you spout your creds like a gangster hoping people will not notice the failures. Sorry, many of us are not impressed nor do we see evidence to believe.
Smith wasn’t great on a lot of things, but it was a good first attempt. Mises and Rothbard clarified many more things, and if the praxiological approach to understanding economics was taught in schools, we would have a much different society. It’s funny because Mises basically invented the agile system, and I was impressed to see schools using the agile approach to managing their curriculum/planning. Now if they only knew that was Mises, lol! Business schools are just now catching up to what Mises and Carl Menger were writing about over 100 years ago.
Murry Rothbard wrote a decent book “Education: Free and Compulsory”, that I would encourage everyone to read.
Click my name, or search “Education: Free and Compulsory” to read or listen to the audio book.
How do you create school change in Vermont?
How do you get school choice in Vermont?
Start with the smallest town in Vermont. Band together as a people, as Vermonters and fund those in the town with school choice.
It’s done with love and generosity.
112,704 people giving one dollar ($1) to the cause, makes a budget for at least 5 children, perhaps more depending upon the school.
Giving $100 every year would educate 500 new students.
Within 3 years you would have upended the entire system.
It would be the best contribution to fundamental, political and societal change anyone could do.