To the Editor: I can’t believe that I am actually writing this: Less UFOs, more school!
At the same time that the federal government is talking about declassifying UFO files and our state Legislature is weighing a task force to study unidentified objects in the sky, the rest of us here on terra firma are staring down a very real, very terrestrial problem: our kids are way behind in school.
The recently released state education report card shows that the majority of Vermont students are “well below” grade-level goals in both math and English language arts. More than half of our public schools are not meeting performance expectations, and some have been identified for extra support because they are among the lowest-performing in the state.
I mean, come on. Vermont is getting its academic butt kicked by Mississippi and Louisiana. If we can rally federal and state agencies to unearth the secrets of UFOs, surely Vermont can organize a way to spend our education funding for better outcomes.
The mistakes we make on Earth aren’t mysterious anomalies. They are measurable math and reading scores stuck below targets, and limping graduation rates.
Tracking unidentified objects in the sky gets attention because people are curious and because “unexplained” sounds exciting. But in education, we already know what’s unexplained: why so much of our education spending goes toward health care costs for school staff instead of anything remotely instructional.
We need to face the facts. Our students deserve far better results than we are getting. Let’s bring the same energy we use to study aerial mysteries down to Earth, where real students are trying to learn math and English and build strong futures.
We do not need another headline about lights in the sky. Instead, we need daylight on how healthcare costs are tilting our system out of orbit.
Steven Berbeco
Editor, 802 Ed
Winooski, Feb. 24