Editorial: School funding priorities

As Vermonters begin to understand the debate around reforming Vermont’s educational system, a few priorities should remain front and center: first, change is needed; second, we shouldn’t be in the business of funding charter or religious schools (which will only further weaken Vermont’s public schools and put an added burden on taxpayers); and third, local control needs to remain a strong component of school governance.

As the nation’s increasingly discredited president continues to sow chaos at every level — domestic and international — it helps to understand what we can of his tactics. A recent piece by Jess Bidgood, a New York Times correspondent, explains how Trump u … (read more)

When Trump issued his ill-considered order to freeze federal funding for thousands of programs across the country, it’s unlikely he and his team didn’t realize it would cause chaos, havoc and fear for millions of Americans. Why Trump and his advisors know … (read more)

The sight of more than 100 area citizens braving sub-freezing temperatures on Middlebury’s Town Green to protest the most egregious of the incoming president’s policies, while championing the work of famed civil rights leader Martin Luther King, is a fitt … (read more)

Of the dozens of executive orders President Trump enacted during his first two days of offices, most are more ordinary than not, some are more vengeful than impactful, others seek to reorder the way government has governed for the past several decades and … (read more)

Early statewide conversations on school funding and housing offer some hope that progress on these two crucial issues will finally occur.

In a written statement released the opening day of the 2025 Legislative session and a day ahead of his fifth inaugural address, Vermont Gov. Phil Scott encouraged Vermont residents to watchdog the Legislature for excessive spending.

It’s big news that Meta, the company that owns Facebook, Threads and Instagram, is dropping its fact-checking program and instigating a system in which the public fact-checks itself.

As 2024 draws to a close and 2025 opens a fresh chapter, the sense of renewal and rejuvenation, of starting with a fresh slate, has a strong cultural pull.

ABC settled a defamation suit in which George Stephanopoulos incorrectly said Trump had been found liable of raping E. Jean Carrol, rather than liable of sexual abuse. There’s a lot to unpack in this story.

Good progress. That’s an apt reflection of the town of Middlebury’s effort to manage its relatively small, and mostly cooperative, houseless population. 

Leading off the front page in today’s Addison Independent is a blaring headline with two stories about two parents who have asked the Mary Hogan Elementary School to ban five books that teach gender issues to kindergarten students.

The task for the Commission on the Future of Public Education in Vermont is straightforward: devise a system that provides equitable, quality public education to all Vermonters — and make it affordable.

Being thankful isn’t always easy. That’s the realization many Vermonters may have post-election with a man unfit for the presidency in so many ways assuming power again, supported by a political party ever-more adjoined to him.

“Housing,” said Nevon Neary, executive director of the Rutland Regional Planning Commission, “doesn’t just pop up out of nowhere.”