By William J. Mathis Editor’s note: William J. Mathis is managing director of the National Education Policy Center and vice-chair of the Vermont State Board of Education, and a Goshen resident. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of any organization with which he is affiliated. It was June 26, 1997, when Governor…

By Lee Hamilton I’ll be the first to admit that when it comes to journalism, I’m a traditionalist. Old-fashioned, even. But I don’t think it’s a coincidence that even while confidence in the media drops to new lows and Time magazine feels moved to wonder “Is Truth Dead?” on its cover, huge numbers of Americans…

By Jon Margolis Praising elected officials ought not to be a common practice. They tend to do an adequate job of that themselves, rarely missing an opportunity to tell the world how wonderful they are. There are times, though, when an elected official deserves the approval of his constituents. Right now, Secretary of State Jim…

By Rob Roper  The last thing the Vermont House of Representatives did before leaving town was pass H.R. 15, a resolution “strongly opposing the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement … and recognizing Governor Phil Scott’s enrolling Vermont in the U.S. Climate Alliance.” It passed, 105-31. Hey, look at us! We love the environment,…

By Lee Hamilton Back when I was in Congress, I got a call from a constituent one day. I’d recently voted to raise the nation’s debt ceiling, and the man was more than irate. “Don’t you understand that we’ve got a serious spending and debt problem in this country?” he asked. “Why did you cast…

By Jack Hoffman The Equal Educational Opportunity Act, better known as Act 60, is 20 years old on Monday. On June 26, 1997, at an outdoor ceremony in Whiting, Gov. Howard Dean signed into law Vermont’s unique and groundbreaking education funding system. As we face tensions over school consolidation and who should determine teachers’ health…

By Steve Costello As regular readers may recall, I am a lover of  fables, stories that for generations have carried a message. With the recent news about the purchase of two key downtown buildings by MKF Properties and plans in the work for a variety of projects downtown, I am reminded of one of Aesop’s…

By Lee H. Hamilton The Trump administration, like its predecessors, has shown an apparent appetite for the use of force overseas. The “mother of all bombs” dropped on Syrian troops, saber-rattling toward North Korea, proposed deployments of U.S. forces in 10 or more countries — all of this suggests a growing comfort with the idea…

By Sen. Bernie Sanders The good news is that Vermont has one of the highest high school graduation rates in the country; fully 88 percent of our kids leave high school with a diploma. All of us — parents, educators, community members and, most of all, our hardworking students — should feel great pride in…

By Senator Bernie Sanders President Trump’s budget is morally obscene and bad economic policy.  It would cause devastating economic pain to tens of thousands of Vermonters, making it harder for our children to get a decent education, harder for our working families to get the health care they desperately need, harder to protect our environment,…

By Larry Williams As the numbers of people who participated in the climate march recently showed, Vermonters and Americans across this country are concerned about climate change. Millions of Americans want action. And while the president and his cabinet are busy denying the science behind climate change, states, cities, businesses and individuals are tackling climate…

By Lee H. Hamilton I’ve had a number of conversations recently that convince me our country is divided into two political camps separated by a deep and uncomfortably wide gap. No, I’m not talking about liberals and conservatives, or pro- and anti-Trump voters. I’m talking about people who believe in politics and our political system,…

By Jon Margolis, VTDigger We have seen the enemy: teachers. They are bankrupting the state. They make too much money. Their benefits are too generous. They have too much political power. So, at least, one might think from some of the speechifying and commentating that accompanied the recent (and to be continued) flap over where…

By Mike Smith Race fans at Talladega Superspeedway call it “the big one.” It usually happens toward the end of a NASCAR race when drivers are tense, emotions are high, and the cars are tightly bunched, vying for a win. And then: a wrong move by one driver starts a massive chain reaction crash that…

By Angelo S. Lynn While Gov. Phil Scott’s coup to have the state negotiate teachers’ health care benefits has been the unforeseen show-stopper of this legislative session, that a bill moving toward legalizing marijuana made it to the governor’s desk is one of the session’s biggest surprises. Gov. Scott made it clear early in the…