Educational Freedom

Act 60 (Gov. Dean) and Act 68 (Gov. Douglas) have lead to the town of Killington trying to secede to New Hampshire. The towns of Manchester, Dorset, Plymouth, and Ludlow are looking into following Killington to New Hampshire. There is a tax revolt going on in Vermont over school taxes.

The solution to this problem isn't more centralized control, but more decentralization. We must restore the control back to the parents, teachers, and local school boards.

Restoring local control is important because it gives teachers and local school boards the power to improve education and reduce costs in their schools. School boards can only tweak a tiny fraction of the school budget. They need to have 100% control over their budgets, teachers, and curricula. Checks and balances on this power will be needed, and that is where parental responsibility comes in.

Currently, 90 towns in Vermont have school choice...because they do not have designated schools. Families in these towns can pick and choose the school their child attends. Not just anywhere in the state, but anywhere in the world. Unless they are rich, this simple choice is denied to families in the remaining 156 Vermont towns. Correcting this inequity will fully realize the goals of the Brigham Decision and is the natural check and balance needed at the local level.

Just as you may stop patronizing a local store if you are unsatisfied with their quality, service, price, or selection, you should be free to send your kids to a different school or homeschool if the one they are in is not working out.

Innovation

• An old idea that has been making a huge comeback is home schooling. More parents are making a larger investment in their child's education and life by choosing to homeschool. A one to one student to teacher ratio, improved self-worth, flexibility, students learn at their own pace, real-life learning, socialization with adults, improved social skills, 30% higher test scores, and huge savings for the tax payers are all compelling reasons to promote home schooling and to ease some of the regulatory burden so make it easier for more parents to become fully involved with their child's education.
• The one room school house - small class sizes and inexpensive to operate at approximately $5,000 per student (as compared to $10,000 per student for our current schools).
  Vermont One Room School House
• Monitoring schools - very large class sizes (100-1000 students) that successfully taught students to read, write, and arithmetic. The teacher acts as a monitor and teacher of the older students then the older students teach younger students thereby reinforcing the lessons for both older and younger students. "The best way to learn a subject is to teach it."
• Distributed classrooms - in the old days it would be called a correspondence course, but now they are online courses. Many colleges offer online courses and Oak Meadow School in Vermont offers online curriculum for homeschoolers.