As a labor union, its goal is to get its members more money for less work, and to expand school employment so more people can be forced into paying dues to the union. Certainly many Vermont teachers are professional educators who do not share this perspective, but the ones who will always rise to positions of union leadership are those most inspired by the dream of ever-larger government, a centrally controlled system of education, promoting liberal causes in the classroom, avoiding clear and potentially damaging accountability for results, and extracting more pay and benefits from taxpayers. Their remedy is to create real choices for parents who want to escape the government education monopoly. When parents have real choices to make, parents pay attention and get involved. When their only choice is to ship their kids off to the local government monopoly school, there is a lot less participation.
Different kids have different needs and respond to different challenges.
Kids deserve the chance to learn where and how they will learn the most and best. Government monopoly systems never work very well. They inevitably cater to the desires of those in the system, not the consumers of the system's products. In education, the system takes care of teachers, superintendents, and educrats. They have little need to pay attention to the consumers - parents and children.