Category Archives: Education

News You Should View: The Empire Strikes Back

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The response to this feature’s debut was overwhelmingly positive, so here we are again. For those just joining us, every week I’m scanning the news coverage of Vermont and pointing out a bunch of items that might have escaped your attention. These could be news stories, essays, blogposts, podcasts, videos, or what have you.

This week’s subtitle is a reference to the second installment in a series, but also to a story that might turn out to be dramatically impactful — but has barely been covered by our mainstream outlets. Probably a matter of time before our own domestic empire strikes back.

The Statehouse Transgender Kerfuffle. This story began in the Vermont Daily Chronicle, the extremely conservative outlet for right-wing opinion and news of questionable veracity. A recent VDC story has gained traction in the wider conservative media ecosystem, which could lead to significant implications for our relations with the Trump administration.

And here it is. On Wednesday, March 12, the Vermont Family Alliance, a conservative activist group, tried to hold an event in the Statehouse promoting “detransition,” the allegedly growing phenomenon of people who’ve had gender affirming care subsequently deciding to return to their birth gender. Transgender activists disrupted the event, leading Statehouse officials to call a halt to the proceedings. This story has been relentlessly followed up by the Chronicle and been amplified by Fox News and other outlets as an example of the oppressive left trampling the free speech views of conservatives.

It’s a stupid story but if it filters up to the Trump White House, we might find ourselves in the crosshairs just like Maine Gov. Janet Mills or the University of Pennsylvania. I may be writing a full post about this, but I did want to spotlight it in this forum.

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A Thoroughly Predictable Outcome of a Subverted Process

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Many, many, many words were spoken in Tuesday’s confirmation hearing for Education Secretary Zoie Saunders before the Senate Education Committee, most of them by Saunders herself. And then, after nearly two hours of jibber-jabber, her nomination was approved on a 5-1 vote, with Senate Majority Leader Kesha Ram Hinsdale on the short end of the ledger.

The full Senate will have the final say (its vote is scheduled for Thursday), but we all know where this is going. Saunders will be confirmed less than a year after the 2024 Senate rejected her on a lopsided 19-9 margin. Immediately following that vote, Gov. Phil Scott effectively overrode the Senate’s power to advise and consent by installing Saunders as interim secretary. And once the Legislature was safely adjourned for the year, Scott named her permanent secretary. That move was challenged, fruitlessly, in the courts, so she continued to serve. And she will continue into the indefinite future.

I can’t really blame the Education Committee for voting yes. It was a profoundly weird situation, having to confirm a nominee who’s already been in office for almost a full year without major missteps or scandals, at least none that we know about. It’s too long a time to suddenly decide she should be here at all, and too short a time for a true accounting of her tenure. (Nor was there any chance to hear from other witnesses who might have offered alternative views of Saunders’ effectiveness.) In a lengthy opening statement larded with the arcane language of bureaucracy, Saunders ticked off a laundry list of initiatives, every one of which was a work in progress with few if any measurables on offer.

Neither is there any evidence, in this very limited hearing, to kick her out. Ram Hinsdale’s vote was more a token protest than anything; it was clear from the opening stages of the hearing that a majority of the committee would approve Saunders. The only other possible holdout, Sen. Nader Hashim, made it clear in his first statement that he would be voting yes “unless something totally bonkers happens in the next 45 minutes.” Committee chair Sen. Seth Bongartz, the third Democrat on the six-member panel, said almost nothing until the very end of the proceedings, and then he opined that “The governor has the right to appoint the people he wants… unless something egregious emerges.” The fix was in, and had been from the moment the Senate’s Committee on Committees created an Education Committee evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, and brushed aside last session’s vice chair, Sen. Martine Laroque Gulick, in favor of the obviously pliant Bongartz.

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Public School Reform As If the Public Schools Mattered

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The House Education Committee has set aside a fair bit of time this week for discussion of H.454, which sets out Gov. Phil Scott’s education reform plan in a brisk 194 pages. It is to be hoped that the committee’s deliberations will be centered first and foremost on what’s best for Vermont’s public school system. Because nobody else seems to be doing so.

Take the governor, for instance. (Please, says Henny.) He pays lip service to improving education, but his focus is clearly on cost containment. Radically centralizing the system is no guarantee of better quality. (It’s no guarantee of savings, either; the move to statewide negotiation of health insurance for public school personnel hasn’t prevented its cost from skyrocketing.) Doing away with local school districts in favor of five massive regional districts is clearly aimed at cutting administrative costs. And don’t get me started on the provision of H.454 setting minimum class sizes at 15 for grades K-4 and 25 for grades 5-12.

Those are minimums, mind you. What would the average class sizes be? 20 in the lower grades, or 25? 30 in the upper? 35? Cautious administrators will want a margin of error above the state-mandated minimums. And what happens when a school dips below the minimum? Does it close down? Put some crash test dummies in desks and hope no one notices?

Frankly, I wonder why any Republican who represents a rural district — which is the vast majority of Republican lawmakers — could support this plan as written. The class size provision alone would trigger a massive wave of consolidation that would hit rural Vermont especially hard. (Maybe that’s why H.454 has a mere five sponsors while H.16, the Republican bill to repeal the Affordable Heat Act, has 55 and H.62, to repeal the Global Warming Solutions Act, has 29. There hasn’t exactly been a stampede among legislative Republicans to sign on to the governor’s plan.)

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“Governor Nice Guy” Is Out There Pickin’ Fights With the Legislature

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Gotta start using air quotes around that appellation for our chief executive, because he seems to be going out of his way to antagonize the Legislature and prepare the fields for another bushel of his administration’s chief cash crop, gubernatorial vetoes. It’s funny, after all that talk about coming to the table and working across the aisle, he’s back in his comfort zone: confrontational mode.

You know, if Phil Scott was a politician — which he continually insists he is not — I’d say he had absorbed the lessons of the 2024 election and decided the path to victory was in demonizing his opponents. It’s smart politics. But it’s anything but nice.

Exhibit A: VTDigger reports that the Scott administration has finally, belatedly, delivered its full public education reform plan in actual legislative language.

On February 25. Almost two months into a five-month session. Three days before the Legislature adjourns for Town Meeting Week. Little more than three weeks before crossover, when any policy bill must have been passed by one chamber if it’s to have any real chance of passing the other this year. It’s just not possible for lawmakers to give due consideration to such a massive reorganization in such a short window of time.

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The Ghost of School Governance Trial Balloons Past Once Again Walks the Earth

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As the Scott administration’s school governance plan vanishes slowly into the Great Lost Swamp of ill-begotten ideas*, it’s time for a history lesson.

*You might think this premature, but Senate President Pro Tem Phil Baruth and the House Democratic caucus have said that universal school choice, a core feature of the Scott plan, is a non-starter.

Confession first: I didn’t remember this event. A reader reminded me of it.

Way back in 2019, then-education secretary Dan French let loose a trial balloon that sank quickly and without a trace. But in every important aspect, it was a precursor to this year’s plan — albeit an even more dramatic rethinking of how the public school system is organized and funded. What it tells me is that the Scott administration has been thinking along these lines for years. And now, likely emboldened by Republican gains in November, the admin is publicly promoting a modified version of the French plan.

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The Governor Cannot Possibly Be Serious About His Education Plan

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The long, slow rollout of Gov. Phil Scott’s education plan took another step yesterday, as Interim Education Secretary Zoie Saunders* testified before the House Education Committee about the governance portion of the plan. Her testimony was met with widespread befuddlement, as reflected in a series of “What the heck does this mean?” questions from majority Democrats on the committee.

*She dropped the “Interim” when she introduced herself to the committee**.

** It has been pointed out that Scott has appointed Saunders permanent secretary. Okay, but her entire appointment is still subject to a court ruling, so it remains to be seen whether she’s permanent or done.

Before we get to the sources of that befuddlement, we must mention the poison pills contained within Scott’s plan. First, it would implement statewide school choice and throw the doors open for unfettered expansion of the current “approved independent schools” system. Every public school student would have to be offered some measure of choice. That’s a nonstarter for Democrats, or it ought to be, because it poses a very real threat to the finances of actual public schools.

Second, it would centralize power over the education system to a remarkable degree. Local school boards would be gone. There would be only five large school districts. Each local school would have a “School Advisory Committee” with very little authority. Most of the state Board of Education’s powers would be assumed by the Agency of Education. And the current “boards of cooperative education services,” created and administered by school supervisory unions, would be replaced by “Education Service Agencies” controlled by the Agency of Education. According to the Scott plan, one of the purposes of this move is “to limit mixed messaging.” In other words, to stifle dissent.

One (anonymous) Democratic lawmaker suggested to me that House committees ought to just send this plan directly to the House floor and watch as Scott and Republican lawmakers — almost all of whom represent small, rural school districts at risk of disenfranchisement and school closures — try to explain themselves, or risk serious injury as they back away from the plan as quickly as possible.

To say this plan is doomed is to indulge in understatement. Besides the presence of poison pills, there are other signs that Scott doesn’t intend for this plan to be taken seriously. What he wants, I suspect, is for the Democrats to reject the plan so he can accuse them of refusing to face the issue. He has asked them to “come to the table,” but he has laid out a buffet of awfulness. It’s not an invitation; it’s a trap.

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The Curious Case of the Senate Education Committee

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I haven’t written about the Legislature’s newly reconstituted committees because there’s been a lot of other stuff going on. But there’s one committee that really caught my eye, and that’s the Senate Education Committee. Since education funding and structure are likely to be the dominant (and most contentious) issues in the new session, this panel will play a key role.

The Senate’s Committee on Committees chose to split the panel right down the middle — three Democrats and three Republicans. It’s pretty unusual. for the majority party to voluntarily relinquish its customary right to occupy most of the seats. Senate President Pro Tem Phil Baruth said the intention was to create a committee that would “put out bipartisan bills.”

Sounds noble. It also puts the Republicans on the spot. They can’t just sit back and vote “No” on Democratic proposals. If they don’t come to the table and negotiate, then nothing will get done.

Still, the Democrats are ceding power when they didn’t have to. Usually, a policy committee would craft bills favoring the majority’s agenda and then see the bills get watered down as they meander through the legislative process. In this case, the compromising will begin immediately. But that’s not what’s bothering me the most about the education panel.

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All in All, Not a Bad Speech

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At the end of my previous post, I looked ahead to Gov. Phil Scott’s inaugural address (which I mistakenly dubbed “State of the State,” sorry) with these words: “We’ll see how much actual ‘coming to the table’ he does, and how much kicking the Legislature he indulges in.”

And now we know. The governor was sworn in and delivered his speech on Thursday afternoon. There was some definite kicking, to be sure. There was also a broad outline of an agenda that emphasized his usual talking points. But the final section of the speech was pure uplift. After ticking off the challenges we face, Scott listed some positive accomplishments not directly tied to anything partisan.

The first one, in fact, was a barely concealed slap at his fellow Republican, Donald Trump. “We’ve received over 1,000 refugees in the last three years and will continue,” Scott said, prompting one of two standing ovations that brought the entire chamber to its feet. (“Entire” as best I could tell watching the livestream, that is.)

His point was that Vermonters can tackle challenges and get hard things done. I may not completely share that optimism, but it was a positive, collaborative message.

At least for today it was. Scott’s budget address two weeks from now will contain the details of his 2025 agenda, and you know where the devil is.

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Jim Douglas Manfully Bears the White Man’s Burden

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I came onto the scene a bit too late to get the full Jim Douglas Experience. Moved to Vermont in 2006 (which, yes, still a flatlander, I know, should I really be allowed to vote?) and didn’t pay much attention to #vtpoli until the 2010 campaign, when Dead-Eyed Jim was on his way out the door and into a fairly inert retirement. I have to admit, I see photos of this guy with his characteristically vacant non-smile, and I just don’t get the appeal. Like, this picture on the cover of his terrible memoir (see below), presumably chosen or approved by the subject, makes him look like he’s contemplating a bit of cannibalism.

But I will say this. If Douglas wanted to find a cause celebre to occupy his Golden Years, it’d be tough to find anything more apropros than defending the good name of a long-dead governor from the merry days of Kipling-style white supremacy. If any modern-day figure seems made to carry the threadbare mantle of those unenlightened times, it’s Jim Douglas. And here he is, spending years and clogging up the courts in his defense of former governor John Mead, whose most infamous contribution to our civic life was his enthusiastic advocacy for eugenics.

Douglas took one for the team last week when a judge issued a decidedly unfriendly ruling in his lawsuit over Middlebury College’s decision to take Mead’s name off the college chapel, the most prominent building on campus. It’s one of those rare stories in our perilous times that made me chuckle over my corn flakes.

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The Scott Administration Would Very Much Like to Convince You That It Cares About Education

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I remember a moment, long ago in a much simpler time, when the Shumlin administration came under scrutiny for hiring communications staffers for multiple state agencies. In fact, hey, here’s the story from Seven Days way back in 2012, reporting that while candidate Peter Shumlin had vowed to cut communications people from state agencies, his administration eventually tried to hire even more of ’em.

Well, now we have a job listing from Gov. Phil Scott’s Agency of Education seeking a “Director of Policy, Strategy, and Communications” at an hourly rate of $40.83, which amounts to an annual salary in the $80,000 range.

Okay, so the idea that comms people are a luxury seems kind of quaint nowadays. But wait, there’s more!

The Director, according to the job description, “will oversee a team of three digital communications and policy specialists.”

Yep, that’s right. The Education Agency doesn’t just need a flack. It needs a gaggle of flacks to handle both external and internal communications. This “team” would not only handle the press, legislative relations and interagency communications — it would also serve as a middleman between AOE leadership and its own people.

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