Dear Editor,
Ready, set, pause?
Vermont’s education reform debate has the distinct energy of a race that never quite starts. Lawmakers stretch, posture, check their laces and then … linger at the line.
Governance overhaul, funding fixes, bold ideas about consolidation in the name of equity all circle the track, but none break into a sustained stride. The result is stumbling inertia dressed up in policy language.
Last weekend, I ran a half-marathon along the lake. Thirteen miles of rhythm, discomfort, small decisions and forward motion. No one at mile eight gets to call a timeout to rethink the entire premise of running. You keep going even when your legs start filing complaints.
That’s what is missing in Montpelier: a willingness to commit to the course. Not blind sprinting, but deliberate movement. Reform doesn’t need to be perfect at the starting gun; it needs to be in motion. Instead, we have a kind of legislative crosswind that pushes proposals sideways until they collapse under their own hesitation.
Sure, the House has a bill that is moving along with mixed support. But the Senate has been warming up with other ideas, and the governor has said flat out that he’ll cancel the entire race at the rate things are going.
On the lake path, progress was simple: one foot, then the other, even when it hurt. My kids cheered me on, thanks to a friend who kept an eye on them. Meanwhile, in the Statehouse, progress has become theoretical, debated in loops, postponed in search of a consensus that never quite arrives.
At some point, you stop analyzing the course map and start running it. Vermont’s students don’t need another mile marker meeting. They need lawmakers willing to move together as a team.
Steven Berbeco
Winooski, Vt.
