12 replies »

1. Act 60 1997 Education reform was and continues to be a disaster for students and taxpayers in Vermont.
   Act 46 2015 was.a reshuffling of the deck chairs on the sinking VT government run Education System. Promises of creating Equiry and lowering costs through consolidation and centralization of authority created the exact opposite situation.
   H.454 2025 Will only only accelerate the demographic and economic trends plaguing Vermont. Increased property taxes, more spending on the Education bureaucracy, less local control is a formula that has not and will not work. Doubling down on the same strategy is painfully hard to watch.

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   • This “education reform” bill removes almost all control of local school budgets by taxpayers. It’s only because of local control and taxpayers voting down many many school budgets across the state, we were able to get a message to Montpelier that we had enough with high spending and high taxes. So, instead of fixing that, they remove the local ability to approve school budgets and therefore send the message.
     This is wrong on many levels.
     We need more local control and influence on education funding and spending, not less.
     By implementing this bill, taxpayer voices in the process will be almost nonexistent going forward.

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2. Sam Douglass, R-Orleans – Yes “… in support of the spirit of reform that I was elected in part to address.”

   Out of the pan and into the fire.

   Steve Heffernan, R-Addison – Yes “I was brought here by my constituents to make changes in education.”

   Ditto.

   Russ Ingalls, R-Essex – No “…give Vermont kids the best education in the world.”

   The pan is just as bad as the fire. What Mr. Ingalls doesn’t understand is that he can’t give Vermont kids anything… except, perhaps, the opportunity to earn their education by allowing them to make their own personal choices. But no mention of that here.

   Chris Mattos, R-Chittenden North – Yes “…if it does not work for the school staff, the taxpayers, and most importantly, the children of the communities I serve, I will have to get off the bus at that time.”

   It doesn’t work now. Why are you still on the bus?

   Terry Williams, R-Rutland – Yes “Vermont is a unique place, it’s the only state that has a constitutional requirement that we educate our children.”

   No. Not really. What the Vermont Constitution actually says in § 68. Is that “…a competent number of schools ought to be maintained in each town unless the general assembly permits other provisions for the convenient instruction of youth.”

   What Mr. Williams conveniently forgets is that the general assembly did permit other provisions, like the country’s oldest and proven School Choice tuitioning provisions that have served us well, saved money, and improved student outcomes.

   And the Brigham decision didn’t say we have to educate anyone. It says that if we do choose to educate students, each student should receive “an equal educational opportunity”. That may sound like a nuanced point. But the difference between the Brigham decision and Mr. Williams’ interpretation of education law is huge.

   Ruth Hardy, D Addison – No “They repeatedly told me, we don’t trust the Senate, and that made me really sad.”

   Can you blame them? The more the legislature decides to manage the affairs of individual parents and their children, the worse Vermont’s societal predicament (including education) becomes. How about you let the parents, and their kids, decide what is the best education for their needs?

   Martine Gulick, D-Chittenden Central – No “…the very real possibility that we someday face litigation that could lead to universal choice and the privatization of education — expensive propositions that favor the elite.”

   One can only hope.

   Ms. Gulick, paradoxically, is ‘the elite’. She’s an establishment educator who believes she knows what’s best for everyone. As for the rest of us,… ‘let them eat cake’. And her assertion that allowing parents to choose independent schools is an expensive proposition is blatantly disingenuous.

   One last point: for now at least. Consider the bill’s provision for Per-pupil ‘foundation’ spending of $15,033. There are 80,000 PreK thru 12th grade students in Vermont. If this current bill lowers the current cost of education from $2.4 Billion to $1.2 Billion (15,033 x 80,000), with a commensurate 50% cut in property taxes, I’ll eat my hat.

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   • The term “foundational” is key as with regard to the $15,033 spending. As with all foundations, that is just the base and will certainly go up from there as the bureaucracy builds upon their foundation. Your hat is safe . . .

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   • 💯. Such a disappointing outcome from Republicans except for Russ Ingalls
     They were elected to reduce the education property tax burden. Look how quickly they forgot this, and catered to the Education Industrial Complex.

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3. For clarity about the House vote, which is indicated in the heading of the voting list above but not explained in the article: this was not a vote on the bill itself, but a vote on the highly procedural question of whether to send the bill to the Governor right away, rather than to leave it to the usual process, which takes several days. There was no direct vote on the bill. Why? Because House members were so much expecting a debate on the bill that when it came time to debate, no one jumped up right away to be recognized. (The “let someone else be first” syndrome.) So the Speaker followed standard process and called the question, and everyone responded by voting by voice vote (no one thought to jump up and ask for a roll call.) Some folks were startled; others very upset, claiming the vote was rushed on a very important bill, despite it following exact standard process. So, the incredibly mundane issue of how to send the bill — which had already been passed — to the governor became the surrogate for a vote on the bill in order to have a recorded role call vote, and for debate comments. It may be very unlikely, but it is would be conceivable that some people actually cast their vote based on the actual question being voted on. In other words, “I’m voting yes, because now that it has passed we might as well get it to the governor, even though I voted no on the bill,” or, “I’m voting no, because now that it has passed, as I had hoped when I voted yes on the bill, I see no reason for a special rush to get it to the governor.”

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   • This is outrageous!

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4. I’m looking forward to seeing a lawsuit on #4 in which only selective independent schools receive public funds, because this violates the state’s town tuitioning program. This is an attempt to exclude religious schools without specifically targeting them, and if some secular independent schools are disenfranchised in the process, well, that’s just necessary collateral damage.

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5. If the Vermont citizenry wants to get serious about improving the quality and quantity of education and lowering costs they would be wise to insist on full School Choice for every student. A return of education finsnce to locally elected town School boards and the dissolution of every supervisory union and the agency of education would also be an enormous boost to student academic achievement. Of course the upheaval in the education bureaucracy and dislocation of VSA administrators and VTNEA educators will be enormous but no less than the upheaval from what is happening to the beleaguered taxpayers every year when they open their property tax envelope.

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   • YES!

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6. Remember this from a year ago? Ignore the voters wishes!!

   https://vermontdailychronicle.com/legislature-to-no-school-budget-voters-three-strikes-and-youre-out/

   Mission accomplished except now, taxpayers don’t even get to come to the plate. And the umpire isn’t the school boards, it’s the state of Vermont.

   As a less government is better government guy, I am beyond disappointed.

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7. Thank You to Russ Ingalls for his NO vote! I live in one of the small towns he speaks of. We have very few children in school and the large majority of people that live in Victory are elderly and on fixed incomes! We can’t afford to pay these outrageous taxes for children in much larger towns and cities across the State to go to school! If anything the elderly should not even have to pay State taxes.

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