Commentary: Why can’t Vermont kids read? Left Wing ideology trumped evidence
Earlier this month Seven Days ran a remarkable story titled, Too Many Vermont Kids Struggle to Read. What Went Wrong — and Can Educators Reverse a Yearslong Slide in Literacy? It’s long. 5000 words, but very much worth the time. The piece details how for over two decades our public schools have been using unscientific, non-evidence-based teaching methods born of ultra-Left-wing, touchy-feely ideology resulting in a generation of insufficiently literate Vermonters.
Commentary: Are We Done With Costly CO2 Emissions Reductions?
On December 17, 2014, following a surprisingly narrow reelection victory, Gov. Peter Shumlin announced that he was abandoning his long-pursued legislative priority, enactment of the nation’s first single payer health care system. That date became an historic marker in Vermont’s modern political history.
Commentary: Countering Social Disintegration
Of all the problems facing today’s America, the most seemingly intractable is the intertwined issue of the physically and mentally sick and homeless, family breakdown , drug and alcohol addiction, street violence, retail theft, gang warfare, random shootings, protest riots, unmanageable students in classrooms, and similar afflictions.
Roper on PSD Energy Poll
Last summer the Vermont Public Service Department took a poll on Vermonters’ views on energy. Rob Roper summarized the findings thus: “the kind of energy policy most Vermonters are looking for is affordable, reliable, and with the least possible amount of impact on our natural environment, such as forests, rivers, and wildlife. We don’t particularly care so much if it’s renewable, reduces carbon emissions, or is produced in state – albeit those attributes might be considered nice.”
The New ACLU
If you watch the Story TV Channel evenings you’ve surely seen an intense advertisement for the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU. Its actors tell us how the ACLU is fighting for our rights and urges us to send a contribution right away.
Commentary: Compact Settlements
Kevin McCallum’s article “Climate Retreat” illuminates the dilemma of the Vermont Climate Council’s obsession with Compact Settlements. Its December 2021 Climate Action Plant is all in on the merits of “Compact Settlements”:
German Boilers
The Germans are among the quickest in the world to mandate drastic practices to defeat the menace of climate change. Starting January 1 gas boilers can’t be used to heat apartment buildings. Instead, the owners will have to install electric heat pumps. But Vonovia, Europe’s ‘largest landlord, says heat pumps are too expensive, and in any case it has been unable to connect seventy percent of the heat pumps because the nation’s power grid is too heavily strained.
The Monster that Ate America
One of my favorite news sources is the libertarian magazine Reason, of which I was a contributing editor for quite a while. In each monthly issue its editors devote a page to nuggets of wisdom from its 60 years of publication. In the current issue, November, they pulled out a quote from an article I wrote in 1983 about the power of the Federal Reserve System, modestly titled The Monster That Ate America.
Commentary: PUC Stands for People Utterly Clueless
The legislature passed the Clean Heat Standard (S.5) into law in the Spring of this year (over the governor’s veto) with a provision that Vermonters can start banking the so-called “Clean Heat Credits” – earned by installing heat pumps, insulating buildings, etc. – retroactive to January 1, 2023. The program itself doesn’t go into full effect until 2025. So, the geniuses in Montpelier created a situation in which folks, in order to get their early credits, are supposed to somehow file paperwork that doesn’t exist with a bureaucratic entity that is not yet in place following rules that have not been written. What could go wrong?