Dear Editor,
Act 73, Vermont’s recently enacted law aimed at overhauling the state’s public education system, states that “the right to education is fundamental for the success of Vermont’s children in a rapidly changing society and global marketplace as well as for the State’s own economic and social prosperity.”
The law also establishes the Commission on the Future of Public Education in Vermont, which “shall study the provision of education in Vermont and make recommendations for a statewide vision for Vermont’s public education system to ensure that all students are afforded substantially equal educational opportunities in an efficient, sustainable, and stable education system.”
The push from Montpelier to dismantle long-standing partnerships in rural areas that have benefited our children and the state is, at best, misinformed and, at worst, deeply harmful. Threatening the traditional academies and independent schools that serve our communities when no public option exists in our towns is unconscionable.
After decades — in some cases, more than a century — of developing and providing quality programs and a multitude of curricular and extracurricular choices, including a large number of academic, technical, fine arts and language courses nonexistent in any other schools in their proximity, are legislators willing to face our children and tell them to settle for more limited options? Or endure extra-long commutes each day? For what reason, precisely? Will legislators also tell our communities — and us as taxpayers — that, in the name of equality and in the midst of rising living costs, we should anticipate costly school construction projects as districts reorganize? Equality that ignores local realities is not fairness.
If the goal of education policy is truly to be student-centered, and if Act 73 is meant to reduce costs, this is clearly not the way. A poster often seen in teachers’ classrooms shows two children trying to watch a ball game behind a fence, both standing on equally high stools. With the shorter child still unable to see, the poster reads, “Fair is not always equal.” Legislators should take note.
Carmenza Montague,
West Burke, Vt.
