Well, is it any surprise to see that one of the first acts of Republican Gov. Phil Scott is to begin an attack on the public schools, the public school teachers and the teachers’ unions?
Must the Republican Party be so miserably tedious in their predictability? What is it about the public education system that the Republicans detest with such persistent intensity? The cost? The public education system will never, ever equal the costs of the Republican-generated disasters during the first eight years of this century: the War in Iraq, the War in Afghanistan and the economic collapse of 2008.
Yet, the Republican Party is outraged by the disturbing need to pay teachers, fund programs and maintain facilities for the education of our children. You have chosen to fix something that ain’t broke, Governor. Vermont consistently ranks among the highest-performing school systems in the nation.
The real problems are pathetically low wages and no benefits for Vermont’s working people, the ever-increasing costs of corporate-controlled health care, the prohibitively high costs of college education and a grossly inequitable tax load for working people compared to that of the one percent.
Gov. Scott, the problem is not that public education costs too much. The problem is that the very rich and the corporations, who control the greatest percentage of our national and state wealth, pay too little as their share of taxes. That is why everyone else has to pay a disproportionately high share of taxes to support the public schools.
Millard M. Cox
Ripton