Governor Douglas Putting the Moves on Vermonters -- Again

Did your mother ever warn you about those guys who only wanted one thing, and it wasn’t a good idea to go along for the ride?  Governor Douglas has only ever expressed his desire for one thing from public education – that voters stop supporting their school budgets – even if that means trashing Vermont’s time-honored traditions of educational excellence and local control. 

What else could he mean by proposing level-funding after the announcement of a 4.2% increase in the state block grant revenues that school districts used to calculate their proposals for voters?  And then spending his time after the ballots are printed, as he does every year, urging voters to say no to school taxes while he proposes the largest cost shifts to your property taxes that anyone can remember? 

That’s what happens when the funds go bye-bye but the mandates stay the same.  Governor Douglas wants you to do that one thing he’s been trying to accomplish for years – have you vote down your local budget – and it’s still not a good idea to get in that car. 

I know what this mother wants to say to Governor Douglas.  If you really want to help Vermont’s kids, get out of the backseat where you are up to no good, and move on up to the steering wheel, as our nation’s most progressive Governors have done. How about some leadership in helping our schools transform for the 21^st century like Governor Baldacci in Maine, who committed funds to put laptops into the hands of middle school students?  Or Governor Napolitano in Arizona, who led the effort to revise teacher accreditation standards to insist that our teachers know how to use and teach with technology when they graduate?  Or Governor Easley in North Carolina, who brought education and business leaders together to assess the skills our students need in the global economy – and then devoted resources in the areas of school redesign and teacher professional development to make real change happen?  How about refusing to cut school budgets, like Governor Deval Patrick in Massachusetts, because gutting education is a long-term death sentence for our local, state, and national economy? 

Those are the kinds of Governors I don’t worry about – they are too busy driving in the right direction to be dangerous to my kids.  So Governor Douglas, get yourself out of the backseat, and be the Governor our state’s kids need you to be. 

Amy Werbel is the mother of two boys in Burlington Public Schools, and a Commissioner on the Burlington School Board.