The House Education Committee is busy formulating the next steps in what is and has been a long-term, hostile takeover of a cottage child care industry by a state-sanctioned, taxpayer-funded monopoly.
“Where we may have been behind in a lot of our early childhood opportunities, we can take a leapfrog forward, not just accept being average, but really start letting our children thrive and letting these systems thrive and hopefully be that gold standard,” Sununu added.
Vermont is currently following Maine down the “proficiency” path in public education. No more grades as we’ve known them. Instead we would have a proficiency-based system. It is a model favored by the Maine-based Great Schools Partnership, funded largely by Bill and Melinda Gates.
In “The Role of Government in Education,” Milton Friedman argued that basic free-market principles — such as competition and consumer freedom — should be reintroduced into the education marketplace.
Vermont’s fourth celebration of School Choice Week came to the Statehouse on Wednesday, with students sharing stories about the benefits of choice and education policy leaders calling for more action.
In one sentence at a press conference Wednesday, Brad Ferland of St. Albans declared the goal of National School Choice Week: “School choice should be expanded, and not taken away.”
National School Choice Week President Andrew Campanella explains, “We choose everything in this country — the clothes we wear, the cars we drive, the candidates we vote for. Why don’t more parents get to choose the educational environments that are right for their children?”
Polling shows that about 70 percent of Americans support school choice, and an overwhelming majority support scholarship programs that allow parents to send their child to a school other than their local public school.
Students, staff and parents from home schools and private schools are invited to participate in National School Choice Week observations on Wednesday, January 29 at the Capital Plaza, 100 State Street, in Montpelier.
The Supreme Court seemed ready to rule Wednesday that states which subsidize private schools must also extend benefits to those run by churches or religious organizations.
He said that school choice and apprenticeship programs are part of the answer to help students rise above their circumstances to pursue an education and a productive place in society.
The outcome of a Vermont Supreme Court hearing held at Middlebury College on Wednesday will likely decide the fate of Act 46, the state’s controversial school district merger law.