Today's Freep editorializes that folks should veto school budgets locally to force the Legislature to fix Act 60. If people respond to this appeal, most certainly action will be needed. As I've written before, Act 60 is broken. Enrollment declines, property taxes in support of schools continue to rise, education quality does not improve commensurate with the money spent on small class sizes and other enhancements. The problem must be fixed.
We Vermonters must cap school costs. Many ideas are surfacing to help with this, e.g., Statewide this, that and the other. Local control of education is a myth. Local control cannot accomplish the Supreme Court's ruling which led to Act 60.
Is Vermont small enough to have one school system? I wonder. What harm in modeling it publicly, openly, inviting full debate? Not political rhetoric, or special interest bleating, but a thoughtful look by pragmatists at what such a system would cost and what it might potentially deliver. Such work could be of more value than most Legislative Summer Study committees.
d-
No comments:
Post a Comment