After raising issues such as these, the newsletter reviews four goals that VBE believes can help Vermont schools become the best in the country. These include more school choice, improved state standards, norm-referenced assessments, and promoting quality teaching. As for the rest, school choice is only available to those who can afford to move to a different school district or pay tuition on top of the education property tax. Public charter schools are not permitted. This is unfortunate because highly regarded research shows that school choice leads to higher student achievement in participating schools without higher spending.
Practical experience leads to the same conclusion.
In the Rutland area, for example, high schools compete for students from nearby tuitioning towns. The former superintendent of Rutland schools remarked that area high schools are of higher caliber at least in part due to the competition for students from tuition-paying towns. Rutland voters actually approved a measure to extend school choice to all area residents in 1996. But the measure requires legislative approval and our legislature has refused to act on it. Perhaps this will change now that the former superintendent of Rutland schools, David Wolk, is Vermont s new Commissioner of Education.