Mountain Times - Volume 48, Number 48: Nov. 27-Dec. 3, 2019

Opinion
14 • The Mountain Times • Nov. 27 - Dec. 3, 2019
OP-ED
Keeping small schools,
small towns: ‘It just comes
down to math,’ Gov. says
By Angelo Lynn
As advocates of small schools and those supporting
school consolidation come to terms with declining enrollments
and rising costs, here’s the conundrum both face:
consolidation is the right short-term answer to cost-cutting
to contain higher and higher taxes, but it’s the wrong
answer to building a stronger, more diverse statewide
economy.
It’s a trickier question when asking which most benefits
the student, because no two people are the same and what
benefit one may not work as well for another.
But no matter how you dice it, as Gov. Phil Scott said in a
meeting in the Addison Independent’s office Monday, Nov.
18, declining student enrollment with escalating costs is
not sustainable. “It just comes down to math,” he said.
But like in so many other areas of American economics,
our collective focus is on the short-term fix, not the longterm
answer.
It’s true that to reduce property tax rates for Vermonters,
which are high and going higher, the most immediate fix is
to reduce school expenses. And that can be done through
consolidation of schools and letting teachers go because
we have declining enrollment in many of Vermont’s rural
schools. (That’s not necessarily true in Chittenden County,
Conservatives argue effectively
that many are the fools who try
to buck the fundamentals of
capitalism and economic growth.
LETTERS
Make America
humane again
Dear Editor,
While at a conference
in D.C., I walked by a
protest where a display
of buttons was being
sold, my eye immediately
catching the button in
big red lettering, “Make
America Humane Again.”
Shortly after leaving
that protest I got word
of the school shooting
in Santa Clarita, Calif.,
where a high school
student killed two of his
or in the few other Vermont communities with higher
growth rates where student population is growing and relative
costs per pupil are less.)
If the short-term goal is to keep taxes contained, consolidation
and cost reduction is the logical process.
But, if the goal is to build a stronger statewide economy
over the long-term, say the next 10-20 years, Vermont
needs to change the metrics.
Bear with me for an explanation. Let’s first establish a
few principles:
• Growth should not be limited to Chittenden County,
and a few other hot spots, but spread across the state. We
need an action plan per county to do just that, and it’s going
to have to have at least one component that relies on a
strong educational system in each county.
• We need to grow in places outside of Chittenden
County for two reasons: we have underused infrastructure
going to waste in counties that have seen a significant
decline in population over the past 30 years, and we’ll have Gun
to build more infrastructure in high growth areas if all the
growth is concentrated there. Neither is the highest use of
violence
current assets.
is not
• To change the underlying dynamics that have caused
current growth trends, you can’t stay with the status quo humane.
and expect rural areas to grow. Significant change has to
be considered. For example, currently state aid is based classmates and then
on a per pupil dollar amount. That benefits schools that himself.
are growing and penalizes all rural schools that have been The conference I was
declining.
attending was a joining
This formula feeds an ever-descending spiral of consolidation.
First, we consolidate the elementary schools; the tee on National Legisla-
of the Friends Commit-
towns without schools eventually wither, and not so long tion (FCNL) who I work
from now, we make a move to consolidate all three union with to pass gun violence
high schools into one. It’s what Vermont Secretary of Education
Dan French noted in our meeting with the governor This administra-
prevention legislation.
and several cabinet members, adding that Addison County tion is not humane,
was a prime candidate for such consolidation.
and gun violence is not
And we are. Absolutely. It makes economic sense. We humane, and these acts
Small schools > 15 Humane > 15
By Rick McKee, Counterpoint
Trump is bad for the environment and your health
Dear Editor,
From 1987–1991 I was
a National Cancer Institute
Epidemiology Fellow
at Columbia University
School of Public Health in
a research group that
is now the Columbia
Center for Children’s
Environmental Health,
studying how air pollutants
cause cancer.
Our research group looked
at various biological markers
of the earliest causes of
cancer, including mutations,
oncogenes, and DNA
adducts (organic pollutants
bonded to DNA leading to
mutations that may cause
cancer).
Our principal investigator,
Frederica Perera, has
been doing ground-breaking
research for 40 years to
understand the interaction
between environmental
exposures, cancer and
toxicity for children. She has
contributed much of the
science that informs and
updates the Clean Air Act.
Dr. Perera and her associates
continue to advocate
for sensible, evidencebased
regulations that are
protective of public health,
especially of children.
Now, President Trump’s
EPA is issuing a new order
that would significantly
limit the use of previously
This is like imposing an
umpire for the umpire
at a baseball game.
published and independently
peer-reviewed scientific
studies of health effects
of pollution. This new rule
will require scientists to
provide all their raw data,
much of which is confidential
medical records and
information, for the EPA to
re-review their studies. The
rule also applies to previously
published studies and
the regulations promulgated
as a result of these studies.
This is like imposing an
umpire for the umpire at a
baseball game.
The amount of time and
money required to execute
this review is huge. Delay
can only benefit polluting
and fossil fuel industries.
This further justifies the
EPA’s rescinding and loosening
of rules, like the Clean
Air Act (1963) and the Clean
Water Act (1972), which
have been so successful in
limiting human exposure to
known toxins and cancercausing
chemicals.
Before President
Trump, the Clean
Air Act also limited
exposure to particularly
dangerous small
particulates known to cause
respiratory distress, such as
asthma and sudden death.
Under the new rules,
when regulations come up
for renewal, the Trump EPA
can reject these regulations
until the EPA has again validated
published research
about the harm from the
resultant exposures. With
regards to children, this will
include regulations about
lead and mercury and their
toxic effects on children’s
developing brains. The
EPA wants to re-evaluate
well-established science.
We should not be sacrificing
another generation of
children to the profit-driven
desires of the chemical and
fossil fuel industry.
EPA’s director, Andrew
Wheeler, responds to
Hazardous> 16