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1. Excellent discussion! I am wondering how truly different the Senate and House Education bills will be. I suspect the big difference will be the degree of consolidation. I doubt the Senate and House Ed committees will investigate unrestricted school choice. I lament along with Paul Bean that we are paying legislators as they drag their feet into an extended session. May it be the last hoorah for those who are dragging their feet.

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2. The technique is called “slow walking”. The D’s at the end of this session will attempt to put it on the Republican’s. Yes; we all have seen this behavior before.

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3. Re: Transgender athletes playing in school sports.

   As long as parents have limited choice in sending their children to the schools they believe best meet the needs of their children, in effect being forced to send their children to schools allowing transgender students to play in girls’ sports, or visa versa, the duly elected federal administration not only has the right to set policy, it has the obligation to respect the opinion of the voters who elected them.

   And while I would not want my daughters to be forced to play sports with transgender students, I respect the opinion of parents who disagree with me.

   So… what’s the solution?

   Obviously – allow parents to use a publicly-funded tuition voucher to send their children to the schools they believe best serve the interests of their children. If parents want their children to ‘mainstream’ with transgender students, choose the school that supports that policy. If parents don’t want their daughters playing sports with transgender students, they can choose the school that supports that policy.

   Is this ‘separate but equal’ discrimination? No. Because parents have the choice as to which school they choose. And schools can’t discriminate. The H.89 School Choice bill says:

   (c) Acceptance of choice of school. A Vermont public or an approved independent school shall accept all students whose parent or guardian has selected that school unless the school has insufficient capacity or resources.‘

   And…

   ‘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.

   If, for example, the parents of a transgender child want that child to attend a school that doesn’t allow transgender children to play on teams of their formerly opposite sex, so be it. If the parents of a non-transgender child want their son or daughter playing sports with transgender children, so be it. Their choice is really none of our collective business.

   If Maine or Vermont had this School Choice governance policy, the Trump administration would not be able to justify its current argument to withhold federal education funding.

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