Vermont does the right thing

Lisa Rathke of The Associated Press writes that Vermont will not seek millions
in a federal grant program aimed at improving failing schools, joining a
handful of states in dropping out of the “Race to the Top” program despite
strapped education budgets. 

The Obama administration requires states to link teacher pay to student
performance and invest in charter schools, which would require policy and
legislative changes in Vermont.

And Vermont said no to 40 million federal dollars. 

“When we look at it realistically, with limited resources, we have to make sure
we put our energies and our efforts in places that we know we can be successful
in and that fit what the direction of Vermont education is moving in,” said
Armando Vilaseca, Vermont commissioner of education. 

Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas was the first to run to Washington for federal bailout
cash, although we seem to need it less here in New Hampshire and Vermont than
anyplace else. It is a conditioned reflex, felt first in those who do public
budgets: Fed funds are free. It takes time to develop the temperament — possibly
a new generation — to just say no. The new thinking that says states can and
should think for themselves came from a New England tradition and started up
here in Vermont and New Hampshire. But oddly enough, it took root elsewhere. 

Maybe Vermont is finding its old self again under the federal veneer. It is a
better self. Scott and Helen Nearing, among the most rugged of rugged
individualists, left Vermont in the ’60s when city folk started coming in by
the bundles. Scott didn’t like them. One neighbor even forgot to feed his
horse. Vermont was becoming a detached borough of New York City. So they moved
way off into the forest. It is conceivable now that if they were still alive,
they might even begin to think of coming back.

Visit Mr. Quigley’s website at http://quigleyblog.blogspot.com.