Sigh...yes education. Do we all actually think the money actually goes to the teachers? I know it doesn't. My father was a schoolteacher and I saw that there is never any money, ever. I saw how the politicians took the teacher vote for granted. The teachers are always buying supplies for the classroom on their own. The teachers are always passed over for raises. The teachers are always put on the firing line every day as role models, psychologists, coaches and other duties. It is endless. The money simply goes to building very expensive buildings and to redundant principals and administration or, if you dare say, to fund unnecessary programs. School systems never buy new schoolbooks so the children go home and their parents see how old the books are. This is used to get the parents voting to increase school budgets even more!
See the tax system? They have tied it intrinsically to education like a Siamese twin. Every day and every session in Montpelier is only set to delay any meaningful change to it. The statehouse laughs at us, the perceived proletariat. For us to ask a simple question about the tax system or accountability is set up (by design) to put us on our heels. It is quite brilliant actually. To be a critic will yield the accusation of not wanting to help the "children." To be a critic will land you in the same camp with "those right-wing nutjobs."
I don't care what your "wing," if a "wing" is your "thing," but The Valley money simply needs to stop going to Montpelier en masse. This is too much and after these property tax bills, I am glad to go ride this weekend on the mountain to blow off some steam! Maybe Sugarbush should have called the Sneak Preview the "tax steam blowoff weekend" instead!
Andy Paquin
Waitsfield
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