Vermont, can we go it alone?

I write about Vermont. Others with greater knowledge than I cover the national landscape. My feelings about how we’re doing as a nation are informed by the writers I follow and by reporting in The Guardian, Al Jazeera, the BBC, and the NY Times which I review daily.

More recently, however, under Trump and the world’s richest man’s leadership, along with their Greek chorus of morally bereft sycophants, I’m watching my country slide into a precipitous decline.

To survive, a dictator must be able to control the educational system, the media, the electoral process, the judiciary, and strike fear in or kill outright media and citizen opposition. Madam Mao Tse Tung, Kim Jung Un, Xi Jinping (Uyghurs), Hitler (Jews), Mussolini, Stalin (Georgians) all chose the latter. And in Russia, people are always falling out their own windows.

Now, Trump has launched all five rockets in preparation for his permanent takeover.

The five life-giving elements in a democracy are its free press and media, an independent judiciary, a flourishing public education system, free speech and civic engagement and free and fair elections. All are under attack in our country.

But true to my self-imposed job description, I’ll focus on Vermont and how we’re managing to sustain the pillars of democracy here and what if any difference our small state can or will make on the national scene.

In general, we have a media array that adheres to the philosophy of freedom of expression, welcoming multiple points of view. That’s not to say, we couldn’t do better.

In for-profit journalism, the lifeblood of the media enterprise is subscription and advertising. Advertising for the most part has migrated to the Internet, where it’s more cost-efficient because it can target declared-interest consumers. This has radically reduced the existence of for-profit news organizations around the country.

In non-profit journalism, the lifeblood is donations, voluntary subscriptions, and philanthropy.  But in either for-profit or non-profit media, the only determinant of success is the relevance of its content for readers/viewers and the commitment of their readers/viewers to support them.

Are editors producing content that is of interest to their audience beyond pictures of their children playing soccer? Could we do better at keeping Vermonters up to speed on the critical beats that affect their daily lives: healthcare, housing, hunger and food systems, public education infrastructure and funding, environmental threats, taxation and regulation, criminal justice? Do editors welcome opinion pieces, commentaries, and letters with all points of view, even ones that might offend their subscribers, funders, and advertisers?

And how can our state and local news sources reach those Vermonters who gather their news from like-minded political echo chambers or social media sites? Are they even reachable? Democracy thrives on committed journalism, but sadly most of our news sources are skating on thin financial ice. We must step up our support.

As to the judiciary, I believe that for the most part we have an independent judiciary and Vermonters trust their courts to follow the law. Our main problem is that we’re woefully short of justices and courts and are denying many Vermonters the benefits of a speedy trial. This then has an impact on our correctional system where too many detainees awaiting trial do so behind bars. How about we shift our funding from building and maintaining jails to advancing the timely administration of justice?

Meanwhile, Vermont’s public education system is under attack by the very leaders who should be sustaining it. The recent civic confusion about the cost-drivers in public education that caused some towns to vote down their school budgets was clarified in a report by the Vermont State Auditor’s office. The principal cost escalators in public education are healthcare and deferred infrastructure maintenance. Since 2010, healthcare costs have escalated from $194M in FY10 to over $300M in FY24, not including retired teachers’ health benefits. We are not overpaying our teachers.

Governor Scott has proposed a wholly new system for public education in Vermont. The devil, of course, is in the details. Vermonters will need to take the time to understand these to have an informed opinion. The plan in its current form claims it will reduce the cost of public education by creating five districts – down from the current 119, and encourages school-choice, thus eliminating $184M from the current $214B cost.

The issues here are many. But using public dollars to pay for religion-affiliated schools is a direct violation of Chapter 1: Article 3 of the Vermont Constitution. The Vermont Agency of Education reported that some $57 million of taxpayer funds went to private and religious schools in the 2024 school year. Unlike public schools, private schools can pick and choose which students they will take based on unpublished criteria. The U.S. Supreme Court is poised to also weigh in on whether States can fund religious public schools.

They key question Vermonters must ask is how will the merger of 119 local school districts into five regional ones affect our vital sense of community connection?

What does the “foundation formula” for funding really mean? The state calculates what districts can spend on their schools and provides grants for that amount. Currently, local voters decide what their school districts will spend when they approve or reject budgets on Town Meeting Day, and the State pays that amount.  Residential property tax rates are then adjusted based on how much each district spends per pupil and then each town’s fair share of Vermont’s more than $2.4B Education Fund is calculated.

On the free speech front, Vermonters have always relished and practiced free speech pretty much undeterred. Civic engagement in our communities survives, but the Internet’s anonymity has potentiated cowardly bomb-throwing.

Growing up in a small town, we all knew each other, met one another while downtown shopping, or at church, town meetings, the dump, or parades. This proximity encouraged civility even though there was plenty of disagreement on local affairs. By contrast, online chatter ignores civility for the most part which only strengthens the deep divisions we’re seeing.

Some good news though… There is a revival afoot to again teach civics in our public schools.

On the whole, I believe Vermonters are adhering to core democratic ideals. The Internet has caused some fraying around the edges of our communities, as in civil discourse and the hollowing out of local retail that e-commerce has produced. My greatest sadness is to drive through the small towns I remember as a child and see old retail storefronts plywooded over with nothing left but a gas station / convenience store selling fossil fuels, tobacco and vaping products, alcohol, lottery tickets, and ultra-processed foods. Luckily, there are signs that Vermonters are beginning to rebel and again “shop local.”

So perhaps the biggest challenge we face will be how we manage to retain our community schools and the vital adhesive value they impart to our identity as a state. Creating a statewide education superstructure is not a good first step.