I’m not really sure what the bottom line of this Times Argus editorial is. What is clear is the author is as unsure about the argument being made as I am. The writer wanders from partisan attacks on the governor, "Douglas probably has his anti-tax diatribe saved on his computer...” and insinuations that wealthy people may be gaining "excessive [ACT 68] rebates for lavish homes by hiding income.” to an apparent desire to expand ACT 68 to include, “pay[ing] for health care for all teachers and staff.”
However, the column ends with this wonderfully non-partisan (yet contradictory) sentence:
“… [S]chools and the taxes to pay for them remain a local responsibility.”
Indeed. Anybody who's ever read the Vermont Constitution
would agree school funding is a local responsibility. The Vermont Supreme Court
justices are just about the only people claiming otherwise.
Don't agree? Consider this:
In the Brigham decision the court quotes section forty of the 1777 Vermont Constitution as saying,
"A
school or schools shall be established in each town, by the legislature, for
the convenient instruction of youth . . . ."
Note the ellipsis at the end of their quote indicating the sources sentence continues. The Court uses this partial-sentence citation to make the argument that in Vermont, education has always been a state, as opposed to a local, responsibility.
Section forty in it entirety reads as follows:
"SECTION XL. A
school or schools shall be established in each town, by the Legislature, for
the convenient instruction of youth, with
such salaries to the masters, paid by each town, making proper use of
school-lands in each town, thereby to enable them to instruct youth at low
prices:--One grammar school in each county, and one university in this
State, ought to be established by direction of the General Assembly."
The state's only constitutionally granted authority over schools is to create one university and one grammar school in each county. The decision to omit the remainder of the citation that refers to the role played by the towns in funding schools can only be seen as an act of intentional deception.
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