Dogmatically Anti-Choice

Rep. Janet Ancel, chair of the House Education Committee, has refused to let a bill out of her committee that would allow public school choice for harassment and bullying victims.  How cruel and heartless is that?  How dogmatically anti-choice, pro-union, and typically party-line is that?

Yesterday, an amendment was offered to a bill that allows pregnant and parenting students to attend teen parent education programs instead of their own public schools.  The amendment would give pregnant and parenting teens choice to attend another public school.  Maybe that other public school has a really good school-to-work program.  Maybe the teen wants the traditional education but wants another social setting.  Maybe the teen parent wants to attend the same school as the other teen parent -- or a different one.  Who knows?  The amendment was crushed. (See Journal for roll call.)

The amendment was not going to open the floodgates to a wave of school choice.  But it exposed the hypocrisy and twisted logic of the majority of our Legislature.  We'll allow these students to attend unaccredited programs but not another accredited public school?

Comments

[Jon Harrison]

This is simply disgusting. Keep shining a light on this behavior and perhaps, in time, it will help to disinfect the HEC.

When will the citizens of Vermont start voting these Bozos out? Why isn't the Republican Party running attack ads featuring this kind of stuff?

[Retta Dunlap]

“We'll allow these students to attend unaccredited programs but not another accredited public school?”

The bill is not about allowing pregnant/nursing teens to attend “unaccredited” programs at taxpayers’ expense. It was about letting the teens attend “approved educational programs” such as teen family centers that specialize in the education of teen moms and using ed fund money to pay for it. In other words, for these “programs” to get ed fund money they will have to become “approved” just like public and independent schools have to be in the state of Vermont. The organization that grants the approval is the State Board of Education. This bill is an attempt to get money to these specialized programs.

The amendment that Rep. Joyce Errecart (R) offered would have allowed the teen to choose beyond these teen family centers, which are classified in this bill as “approved educational programs.” The amendment would have extended the options available to these teen moms to include ANY public or approved independent school as well as these centers. Teen moms have special needs in their educational career that must be addressed if they are to finish high school.

There is a lot of opposition towards choice but I would like to acknowledge that we have a Republican fighting Goliath AND not all is lost. Some of the discussion I heard in committee surrounding Errecart’s amendment did cover school choice. This discussion left the window open for further discussions about Act 150, the public school choice law. Although the amendment lost on the floor, I would say that Joyce Errecart scored a big one! Yeah! She laid a foundation for a later conversation about school choice.

[Curtis Hier]

Given that we're both for school choice, I'm not sure why Retta is trying to correct what I said about being non-accredited. Even if she were right. Which she's not. State-approved is not the same thing. NEASC-accredited means much more than state-approved.

And I would caution Retta about getting too enthusiastic about what the Education Committee says they'll talk about in the future. I wouldn't hold my breath.

[Retta Dunlap]

Curt I am a stickler for using vocabulary found within the statutes and to describe things using that vocabulary within the context of this bill. Maybe I am not right in my assessment? I have been known to be wrong before. However:

What will happen if this bill passes in to law without Errecart’s amendment is that students will be allowed to attend “approved educational programs” in collaboration with the school district of residence but not any “approved independent school” or other public school of the student’s choice. All are State Board approved but not all are accessible to the student. The point is who gets to make the decisions. In this bill it is the school district of residence working with the student not the student’s choice. None of these programs or schools have to be accredited.

The law recognizes approval as the responsibility of the State Board of Ed. Accreditation is merely a way to avoid the evaluation process at the SBE. Accreditation does not replace the need for approval by the SBE.

According to the Vermont Statutes - Title 16 – 166 section (b) states that “Approval may be granted without state board evaluation in the case of any school accredited by a private, state, or regional agency recognized by the state board for accrediting purposes.”

According to the Rules under the State Board of Ed – Rule 2223 – “Approval may be granted without committee evaluation and the approval process in the case of any school accredited by a state or regional agency recognized by the State Board for accrediting purposes.”

If NEASC is indeed on the SBE's list of accreditation entites it would merely be one entity that can do the evaluation for the SBE. Many value the outside entity’s credentials and evaluation process over the SBE’s process especially some of the religious school that seek state-approved status.

The question for me is not whether the pregnant/nursing teen is attending accredited or unaccredited programs or schools. The question is if all of these programs and schools are approved by the SBE why can not the pregnant/nursing teen choose the best program and/or school for her situation?