So the Legislature, in all its not-quote-infinite wisdom, has approved H.454, the sweeping “education reform” bill. In doing so, it pressed a gun firmly to its own neck. This bill threatens to backfire big-time if they don’t fix it next year, so in passing this bill they set themselves up for an even more contentious education debate — this time during an election year.
Yeah, no pressure.
As I’ve noted previously, the bill’s best feature is its raw unpalatability. To me, it’s virtually certain that H.454, in its current form, will never take effect. It’s political poison in so many ways that lawmakers will have no choice but to reopen this Costco-supersized can of worms next January.
Monday’s the big day, or so they tell us. The full House and Senate are scheduled to vote on the education reform Grand Bargain, which will never take effect in its current form even if it survives the big votes.
Still, major drama. The vote is not a sure thing by any means, despite the unified support of Gov. Phil Scott and Democratic and Republican legislative leadership. Many members of both parties realize the bill would negatively impact their local schools — districts in Democratic areas could see significant spending cuts, while rural Republican districts could see a wave of school closures and higher property taxes. The Democrats are also hearing it bigly from school officials and labor union constituencies.
Maybe legislative leadership can crack the whip firmly enough to scratch out a win, if only with the threat of a midsummer return to the Statehouse at the behest of Gov. Phil Scott. But as I wrote previously, leadership’s best argument is that they can all come back next year and overhaul the overhaul. In other words, hold your nose and vote for it, just so we can declare victory and get the hell out of here. Inspiring.
First of all, “Declare victory and go home” is apparently one of many “famous quotes” that were never said at all, or never said by the person credited with saying them. (Usually Winston Churchill. Or Albert Einstein. Or Yogi Berra. Peas in a pod.) Details below, if you want to stick around.
Second of all, the “handshakes across the table” picture is not nearly as dramatic or satisfying when it’s taken from the viewpoint of the center-table cameras used to transmit legislative hearings. But I wasn’t there for the Big Moment, so I had to make do.
Now to the business at hand. After weeks of wrangling and repeated brushes with failure, legislative leaders and the governor reached a grand bargain of sorts on reforming public education finance and governance. Sounds impressive, right? But maaaan, the articles about this achievement are chock full of caveats and red flags. The more you read, the less monumental it seems. Really, it looks like a way for all concerned to engage in the Statehouse’s favorite participatory sport, kicking the can down the road.
If you think that’s overly cynical, I give you the words of none other than Gov. Phil Scott, who endorsed the bill and promised to twist Republican arms to try to get it past the entire House and Senate, an outcome that’s far from assured. Here’s how the governor described what this bill would do:
I believe it will put us on a path to stabilize property tax pressure for working Vermonters, while also putting us on a path to much needed governance reform that will unlock more opportunities for our kids.
The Phrase That Pays is “on a path.” This isn’t the actual transformation of our education system. This puts us “on a path” to transformation.
In other words, this bill is never going to take effect in its present form — even if it does pass the Legislature on Monday. Scott also predicted a return to the education reform issue next year, and he doesn’t think it will be any easier than this year.
Need more evidence that Our Betters just wrote themselves a “Get Out of Jail Free” card? Start with the fact that the bill wouldn’t take effect until 2028, a full year later than the governor had wanted. That’s plenty of time for second thoughts and rewrites.
Besides that, the bill is loaded with escape hatches, “off ramps” (Vermont Public’s Lola Duffort), and “is replete with unknowns and contingencies, and requires years of phase-ins and -outs before it takes full effect” (VTDigger’s Ethan Weinstein).
Now, that’s lawmaking.
But to even get to the point where those off ramps and contingencies can be deployed, this bill has to survive a vote of the full House and Senate. The governor himself predicted that some Republicans and some Democrats would vote “no.” (Almost certainly some Progressives will as well, but I think Scott sees the Progs as a rounding error or something.) Senate Minority Leader Scott Beck, who played a crucial role on the Committee of Conference that produced this bill, plans to spend the weekend urging his fellow Republicans to vote “yes,” and predicted plenty of uncomfortable and difficult conversations. “The conversation will definitely start with a lot of ‘no’s,” he said.
Which makes all the sense in the world. This bill would impose significant tax increases on some districts, mainly Republican ones, and force significant spending cuts in other districts, mainly Democratic ones. It would also lead to widespread school closures, almost entirely in rural areas. Honestly, if I were a Republican lawmaker, I’d have a hard time voting “Yes” because it would clearly NOT be beneficial to my constituents. And if I were a Democratic lawmaker, I’d have a hard time voting “Yes” because the bill would almost certainly force cuts in the public education system.
You and I won’t be privy to those arm-twistings, but I’ll bet you a shiny new dime that one of the key arguments will be “Don’t worry, this bill will never take effect. We’ll fix it next year.”
Speaking of which, you know what would come in real handy? A fully-empowered Commission on the Future of Public Education, the august body created by the Legislature last year and tasked with presenting a reform plan by the end of 2025. Given the obvious fact that this bill is deeply flawed and probably designed to never take effect, it sure would be nice to have a robust report from the Commission on how to fix this mess.
But wait, the governor and Legislature sidelined the Commission in their rush to Get Something Done This Year, even if it’s not the Right Thing. It still exists, but it’s in a limbo state, with no clear vision of what it’s supposed to accomplish and no institutional backing. Or as VTDigger’s Corey McDonald put it this week:
Now, as education reform proceeds, with only minor input from the body, the future of the commission tasked with studying the future of public education in Vermont is, itself, uncertain.
Well, that’s unfortunate.
For all the wrangling and the weeks of overtime, for all the struggles that split the House and Senate and will certainly divide the Democratic and Republican caucuses on Monday, we are nowhere near consensus on education reform. The governor himself predicted that next year’s debate on education reform will be “just as challenging, if not more” than this year’s. Great.
But hey, the Committee of Conference got its magical handshake moment, and that’s the best they could have hoped for.
Postscript. “Declare victory and go home,” or some variation on that theme, is universally credited to Vermont U.S. Sen. George Aiken. The phrase was a half-serious attempt to bring an end to the Vietnam War.
Except that, well, apparently he never said it. That’s according to Vermont historical journalist Mark Bushnell, who found that Aiken’s actual words were far more circuitous than the punchy, pithy version that now adorns many a QuoteFancy image. Here’s Busnell’s quotation of Aiken from the Congressional Record:
“(T)he United States could well declare unilaterally that this stage of the Vietnam war is over — that we have ‘won’ in the sense that our Armed Forces are in control of most of the field and no potential enemy is in a position to establish its authority over South Vietnam.”
That thing about “in control of most of the field” was a damn lie, and I suspect Aiken knew it. At best, we controlled the big cities and our military outposts.
But that’s not all. Aiken didn’t actually want us to “go home.” He wanted us to take a step back from aggressive military engagement in favor of “intensive reconnaissance,” whatever the hell that means. One of the causes of our defeat in Vietnam was a lack of reliable intelligence: We were incapable of doing effective reconnaissance because of language and cultural barriers, and South Vietnam was a corrupt basket case incapable of much of anything. According to Bushnell, Aiken did not believe the U.S. could or should leave Vietnam.
So much for our favorite wise man. But hey, you know, he’d probably feel right at home in our current education reform debate.
A couple of notes before we begin. First, the person most responsible for our education-reform brinkmanship is Gov. Phil Scott, who has insisted on creating a crisis atmosphere when what we really have is a situation that requires a carefully considered response. I don’t want this narrowly-conceived blogpost to divert attention from that fact.
Second, I like Phil Baruth, the Senate President Pro Tem. I really do.
However… I’ve been Observing Vermont Politics for 12-plus years, and I have never seen a blunder by a legislative leader as consequential as Baruth’s handling of education reform. We have yet to see how this issue will be resolved, but the question here is: Will this mark the end of his Senate leadership?
The thing that might save him, seriously, is the lack of alternatives in this most junior-ish of senior chambers. Well, that and Senate Democrats’ distaste for intra-caucus defenestrations. But it says here that while Baruth might remain Pro Tem for the rest of the biennium, I wonder if he’ll be leading the Senate beyond that.
You know what’s a really great indicator of success? When a legislative body takes on a vital issue, and comes up with a “solution” that everybody seems to hate.
Well, that’s exactly what we’ve got with the state Senate’s education reform plan, which was approved last week by the Senate Finance Committee. Better still: the people who hate it the most are in the Democratic majority. Seriously, the only Senators who have anything good to say about this thing are Republicans.
And their words constitute the very definition of “damning with faint praise.”
Take, for instance, Sen. Randy Brock: “everybody… is coming away somewhat or entirely disappointed,” but “doing nothing is even a worse option.” Senate Majority Leader Scott Beck favors the bill, but warns that it could bring substantial tax increases to economically disadvantaged communities. Great!
Democrats, meanwhile, could barely conceal their contempt. “This bill will be devastating to our education system,” said Sen. Ruth Hardy. “I’m extremely uncomfortable with all of this,” said Sen. Martine Laroque Gulick, about whom more later. Senate Finance Committee chair Sen. Anne Cummings, who held her nose and voted yes, “can’t remember ever feeling as bad about a vote as I do on this one,” and she’s been in office since 1997, so she’s taken a few votes. Sen. Thomas Chittenden, who voted for the bill in committee, said he might well vote “No” on the Senate floor.
To judge by the published comments, it’s quite possible that when this bill gets to the full Senate, it will get more votes among minority Republicans than majority Democrats. Which is a remarkable development for one of the most significant bills of the entire session.
Every spring there comes a moment when you suddenly realize, “Wow, the legislative session is just about over.” For me, that moment came last week, with a bunch of stories about progress on major bills. A look at the calendar made me realize that in many other years,adjournment would have already adjourned. We’re well into overtime already.
We’re also getting a pretty clear idea of what history will make of the 2025 session, and it’s exactly what we all could have predicted last November 6, when Republicans decimated the Democrats’ veto-proof legislative majorities. No longer was the majority secure in its ability to override vetoes.
And they have legislated accordingly, trying to pass major bills that would be acceptable to the all-time record holder for vetoes by a Vermont governor. Scott, meanwhile, has pursued his customary course: Sitting in the balcony, tossing Jujubes at the stage, and emitting a squid-ink cloud of uncertainty around what he’d be willing to accept.
The result is a disappointment to anyone hoping for progressive lawmaking, but an entirely predictable one. What else could the Legislature do, really?
Gov. Phil Scott’s message that we should all take a chill pill regarding Donald Trump’s continuing rampage through the china shop of democracy and good government is starting to look remarkably poorly timed. This week’s Vermont news is loaded with headlines about Trump, and none of them are good. So I have to ask. Is it time to worry at least a little bit? Could our chief executive muster a discreet furrowing of brow on behalf of all the Vermonters having their lives tossed around by Trump?
The worst of all the stories is about the arrival of the feds’ jackbooted immigration regime, which threatens to imminently deport two Nicaraguan high schoolers who are here legally and have done nothing wrong. Adam Bunting, interim superintendent of the Champlain Valley School District, announced the federal action in a letter to the CVSD community. “These students, who have done nothing wrong, are suddenly being told they don’t belong,” Bunting wrote. “To deport these students is not only heartbreaking for those of us who know them personally — it also contradicts the very values Vermonters work to instill in our young people,”
A story by Seven Days’ Alison Novak notes that “Elected officials, including state representatives, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) office and state Treasurer Mike Pieciak, have also reached out offering support” to CVSD.
Hmm. Notice any absences there?
Governor Scott, where the hell are you? Do you agree with Bunting that the federal action “contradicts the very values Vermonters work to instill in our young people”? If not, please explain. If so, then SAY SOMETHING.
These deportation orders, as inhumane as they are and as shocking to our consciences, are only the beginning of this week’s parade of bad news.
Our Beloved GovernorTM seems intent on torpedoing his own reputation as a “Nice Guy,” or maybe he’s giving it a thorough stress test to prove that it’s completely unsinkable. He has issued a statement in response to Education Secretary Zoie Saunders’ latest misadventure that simply oozes smugness and the kind of bland reassurance that could only come from a man in an unassailable position of privilege.
In a few short paragraphs, Scott casts himself as The Wisest Man in Vermont, remaining calm when all about him are unreasonably aflutter over Donald Trump’s assault on democracy and the federal government. And he paints Saunders as the victim of “some activists” who fomented “fear and anxiety throughout our education system.”
Yeah, that’s right, it’s not Saunders, who caused this whole ruckus by ordering all superintendents to attest that their policies and curricula were compliant with Trump administration orders — on Friday night, the worst possible time to distribute guidance on a touchy issue — and then barfed all over her shoes trying to walk it back. No, it wasn’t her fault, it was those damn activists. Whose number includes, among others, the associations representing Vermont school boards, principals, and superintendents, plus the teacher’s union.
Well, either the entire professional educational community is included in Scott’s shitlist of “activists,” or they are all easily duped flibbertigibbets who can be whipped into a lather for no reason by unnamed “activists.”
Welp, Education Secretary Zoie Saunders has gone and stepped into it. Big time.
When news broke of her directive that all Vermont’s public school districts would have to officially attest to their compliance with Trump administration orders against diversity, equity and inclusion policies and curricula, my own Outrage-O-Meter didn’t quite hit the red zone. Saunders’ message was more nuanced than it seemed at first blush; it sought simple attestation rather than any actual changes to policy, program or curriculum. It was kind of a “cover your ass” situation. These days, many a larger and more respected institution than the Vermont Agency of Education has been engaged in similar ass-covering maneuvers.
But man, did it kick up a shitstorm, and Saunders found herself walking the whole thing back, not once but twice, within a few days and with the help of Attorney General Charity Clark. This, after some districts indicated they would not comply and the public education community as a whole reacted with confusion and anger.
And I get it. Saunders’ original missive wasn’t clearly written, it asked superintendents to sign their names to attestations that might or might not satisfy the federal government. Plus the Trump administration’s own “guidance” is a poorly-executed study in opacity.
The real problem is that Saunders’ unforced error played into the perception, warranted or otherwise, that Saunders was imported from Trumpland for the purpose of Floridafying our school system. It reinforced educators’ fears about her true intentions and those of the Scott administration. And that may have repercussions for her ability to lead the public education system in the future.
Hey, anybody know how to get in touch with the gender-nonconforming CHAOS! Dance Troupe? Because they’ve got another prime opportunity coming up this week.
The occasion: A bunch of far-right activists has reserved the Cedar Creek Room on Wednesday at noon for a Parents’ Rights Rally. “Parents’ Rights” (they actually misspell the phrase, but we’ll get to that) is ultraconservative code for cracking down on the allegedly liberal proclivities of public schools and libraries. It’s really about book banning and getting rid of DEI and critical race theory and, most of all, anything having to do with acceptance of gender nonconformity. After all, we’ve got to make those people as miserable as we possibly can, right?
The list of speakers for the event includes prominent ultraconservative culture warriors like John Klar and Gregory Thayer. We’ll get to the rundown, and wow is it a doozy, but I have to begin with one of three lawmakers who will share a lectern with this bunch of bozos.
I’m referring to Sen. Terry Williams, second-term Republican from Rutland County. He has been relatively circumspect in his public profile, and has shown few outward signs of being a far-right nut. But he’s been on my watch list*. And here he is, making common cause with some outrageously far-right figures. Which makes me wonder yet again how in Hell this guy wound up on the Senate Education Committee. I mean, they had to do something with all those Republicans, but if Williams is in the Thayer/Klar ballpark, he should have been shunted to something less crucial like Agriculture or Institutions or the useless Senate Ethics Panel.
*Note: A reader has provided a link to an outrageously telling commentary by Sen. Williams posted on, you guessed it, Vermont Daily Chronicle. See below.
His participation also makes me wonder about his “Yes” vote on Senate Resolution 15, “supporting Vermont’s transgender and non-binary community and declaring Vermont’s commitment to fighting discrimination and treating all citizens with respect and dignity.” This resolution passed the Senate 30-0, and Williams was officially recorded as voting in favor. Maybe someone will bring up his vote in front of the rally crowd. Should be worth a chuckle.
The Vermont Political Observer. 