In 2022 Vermont state and local governments collected $5.3 billion in taxes. About 44% of that was spent educating Vermonters from pre-kindergarten to high school. That makes education the single largest user of all the taxes collected by Vermont governments.
The rub is in the last few paragraphs. I'd vote for more of "X" if I didn't have to pay for it, assuming that the benefit of "X" was something I wanted. All these cost-shifts do is complicate and distort what should be a local decision, and leaves the control with a changing mix of politicians in Montpelier likely to only nibble at the edges of reform, vs. toss out what's not working and start again.
I'd rather we look at outcomes we want as the guiding principle. Better educational outcomes, by standard metrics, then look at how we can achieve that, then determine cost and funding mechanism. By all accounts, even with our higher per-pupil spending than the national average (higher by a *lot*), we're not seeing an increase in positive educational outcomes.
The rub is in the last few paragraphs. I'd vote for more of "X" if I didn't have to pay for it, assuming that the benefit of "X" was something I wanted. All these cost-shifts do is complicate and distort what should be a local decision, and leaves the control with a changing mix of politicians in Montpelier likely to only nibble at the edges of reform, vs. toss out what's not working and start again.
I'd rather we look at outcomes we want as the guiding principle. Better educational outcomes, by standard metrics, then look at how we can achieve that, then determine cost and funding mechanism. By all accounts, even with our higher per-pupil spending than the national average (higher by a *lot*), we're not seeing an increase in positive educational outcomes.
In other words, it's not working.
Ban strikes by public school teachers