[G]ov. Phil Scott didn’t show up at a legislative luncheon celebrating National School Choice week on Wednesday, citing a change in his schedule.
Scott was supposed to introduce Kevin Chavous, a voucher advocate and supporter of President Donald Trump’s pick for education secretary Betsy DeVos, at a lunch in the Montpelier room at the Capitol Plaza.
Rebecca Kelley, a spokesperson for Scott, said that Scott’s decision not to attend was “purely a scheduling conflict.”
“There was a double booking of this time slot, which the scheduler did not realize until the end of the day yesterday (Tuesday). I believe the other meeting was in regards to Green Mountain Care Board appointments,” said Kelley.
It is National School Choice week and the event was held to show support for Vermont’s tuitioning system. There are 90 towns in Vermont that pay tuition for students to attend private or public schools of their choice.
On Saturday, Jan. 21, Vermont Future Now, one of the organizers of the event, issued a press release that said supporters of school choice would be at the Statehouse with Scott and Chavous. Instead, Nava Crispe, a Long Trail student and founder of We the Students of Vermont website introduced Chavous.
Chavous, a Democrat who helped introduce charter schools to Washington, D.C., praised choice advocates at the luncheon for maintaining “the oldest school choice program in the country.”
“I wish there was the same program in every other state,” Chavous said. “Right now there are those who are talking about backing away from this. Don’t do that. Don’t go backward, I think less is not more.”
Choice pushes the education system to look at itself in a way it wouldn’t do otherwise, he said. It forces change.
“Money alone is not going to solve the problems,” affecting the schools, Chavous said.
He also had some harsh words for public school defenders. “The system has morphed itself into a bureaucracy that’s more than anything, even more than the education of our children, it is self protecting, and frankly, self serving.”
Chavous said that politics causes problems with education at the national and state level.
“We have to evolve beyond politics of the day and make our decisions based on whether or not it helps children learn,” he said.
Chavous is on the board of the American Federation for Children, a right-leaning group organized and funded by DeVos. The federation website features model legislation for private school voucher programs that is identical to legislation provided by the American Legislative Exchange Council.
Lenore Broughton, a philanthropist who has funded scholarships to help students pay tuition to private schools and set up an online catalog describing private school options, is vice president of Vermont Future Now and was also present at the luncheon.
