“There is a time,” Mario Savio once thundered, “when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part; you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels... and you’ve got to make it stop.” That time, for Vermont, is now.
Act 73, the latest effort to consolidate Vermont’s schools into fewer, larger districts, is not just another policy misstep. Instead, it’s a direct attack on democracy itself, and amounts to nothing less than a complete government takeover of our community schools. Act 73 is a radical departure from the very spirit of the law envisioned by Vermont’s founders, who never sought government schools but rather public schools run by and for the people.
We see every day how dysfunctional our political systems have become, and to believe that somehow Vermont will succeed where larger systems have failed is willful blindness.
Let’s face the reality: we have a part-time citizen legislature. They do not have the time nor the expertise to manage even a single school district, let alone the entire state’s education system. That responsibility, by design, has rested for over 200 years with local, elected school boards comprised of community members who volunteer their time to deliberate thoughtfully on behalf of their neighbors. They have performed admirably, and at no cost to taxpayers. And contrary to the false narrative of overspending, they have kept education costs relatively flat as a percentage of our GDP and have been more fiscally conservative than our lawmakers in the State House.
The idea that bureaucrats in Montpelier should strip away the power to govern our community schools and hand it to a centralized state apparatus is not just laughable; it’s dangerous. At this point, any politician or policymaker who still believes in this plan should be considered unqualified to hold public office.
Let’s not mince words: Act 73 must be stopped. If we fail to act now, we risk losing the very soul of Vermont’s communities. We must stand, united, and say clearly: We will not allow a government takeover of our schools. We demand that we keep the public in public education.
This doesn’t mean we think education in Vermont is perfect or that there aren’t any places we might find additional savings. Far from it. However, the best solutions will never emerge from a state bureaucracy. They will come from local school boards, teachers, parents, and students working together to find creative solutions to cut costs without sacrificing the things that make our schools so great.
Let’s be clear – Act 73 fails on every front.
- Act 73 Will Not Save Money or Reduce Property Taxes.
There is no credible evidence that consolidation lowers costs. States that have gone down this path, New York, Maine, Kansas, have all seen the same pattern: consolidation often increases costs, decreases community engagement, and rarely delivers the promised tax relief. Advocates of Act 73 cite rosy projections based on flawed models, ignoring decades of empirical data showing just the opposite. If consolidation truly saves money, show us one state where it has worked. Just one.
2. Act 73 Will Not Improve Student Achievement.
All available evidence shows that academic performance suffers immediately following consolidation – and rarely recovers. Disruption breeds disengagement. Schools should be a refuge for our children, not the target of ill-conceived experiments. Vermont’s small schools nurture belonging and connection, which in turn fuel learning. To destabilize our schools at this time is simply reckless.
3. Act 73 Will Devastate Rural Communities.
Closing schools in small towns has a ripple effect: property values drop, businesses close, civic participation wanes, and families stop moving in. Schools are the beating heart of our rural communities. When they close, towns lose their identity, their youth, and their hope.
This isn’t theory – it’s lived reality. Visit any rural region in America that has consolidated its schools, and you’ll find the same story: economic decline, empty storefronts, and Dollar Generals replacing grocery stores.
Let’s remember who we are. Vermont’s strength has always been its small scale, its intimacy, its sense of neighborly responsibility. Ours is a democracy of geographic proximity, not bureaucracy. The solution to the challenges facing our schools is not to strip local control but to deepen it. That’s The Vermont way.
The Vermont way means investing in our rural communities, not abandoning them. It means building small, beautiful, community schools where children are known by name, where parents and teachers collaborate, and where local builders, not out-of-state contractors, construct spaces of learning and belonging. It means fostering creativity, not conformity; self-reliance, not subservience to common educational standards coming from special interest groups in Montpelier.
We can and should invest in lower-income communities, because poverty – not school size – is the real driver of inequity. Vermont’s schools have long been among the most equitable, safe, and high-achieving in the nation. Our students lead the country in many measures of belonging and well-being. We have the lowest juvenile crime rates and the highest rates of student participation in sports and extracurricular life. Are there challenges? Absolutely. But our public schools are not failing. The narrative that they are is a political fiction designed to justify centralization.
Our founders believed that government derives its legitimacy from the consent of the governed. Act 73 flips that principle on its head. It removes the public from public education and hands control to a state apparatus that answers to no one.
So let us, in the spirit of Mario Savio, place our bodies “upon the gears and upon the wheels” and bring this machine to a halt. Let us reject this false promise of efficiency that will, in truth, deliver only alienation. Let us instead chart a new course – the Vermont way – rooted in trust, local democracy, and love of community.
It’s time to hoist the sails, grab the oars, and start paddling in a new direction. Because if Vermont loses its small, local, community-driven schools, it will lose not just its identity, but its very soul. We can stop this machine. And together, I have no doubt we will.
Henchen lives in Moretown and is a social studies teacher at Harwood.
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