The Vermont Education Department identified 10 schools Wednesday, including two in Chittenden County, as among the worst performers in the state and dangled $8 million in federal school-improvement grants to those willing to make changes. The money comes with strings, however, and many school officials said they are waiting to see the final language on required conditions before they decide whether to apply for the money.

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It took eight years, but the residents of five Addison County towns took the very step Tuesday that some state officials are advocating to control education costs and shrink school bureaucracy. Residents of Addison, Ferrisburgh, Panton, Vergennes and Waltham voted overwhelmingly to consolidate their four school districts into one system with a 12-member board. Vermont Education Commissioner Armando Vilaseca cheered the move. “It’s wonderful,” he said. Vilaseca is among those who believe the state’s roughly 280 school districts and 1,480 school board members are too many. He’s not alone.

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Vermont Education Commissioner Armando Vilaseca on Wednesday served notice to local school directors that the state’s public school system will have to go through a substantial transformation in order to adapt to diminishing revenues, lower student numbers and ever changing technology. He explained his vision includes expanding education opportunities for students — both in and out of the classroom — within a public school system featuring more technology but fewer school supervisory unions, administrators and teachers. Those larger school districts, Vilaseca said, would ideally include more opportunities for distance learning through computer technology; greater choice, in terms of allowing students to attend specialty programs that could be hosted at different schools throughout a supervisory union; and enhanced school-business partnerships that would give learners hands-on experience in the real world.

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Winooski High School is substandard, the city’s school board agreed Wednesday evening. The school is under increasing state and federal pressure to improve as already grim test scores in the school show recent signs of further slumping. The school district is strapped for cash. More than a third of the students are English language learners who struggle on the standards tests. A large proportion of students come from low-income and transient families, facts that interfere with the children’s learning.

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A new “compact” that aims to increase dramatically the state’s percentage of college graduates was released Tuesday by state legislative and higher-education leaders. How to ensure that the legions of new Vermont students will be able to afford college, however, was among the “challenges” left for another day. The “Compact with the State of Vermont,” drawn up by the advisory Commission on Higher Education Funding, calls for Vermont to raise the share of two-year and four-year graduates from the current 42 percent of the population to 60 percent by 2019.

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The number of low-income students in Vermont’s schools is on the rise, and teachers and administrators reacting to these shifting demographics are struggling to close the achievement gap between low-income students and their higher-income peers. Currently, the only official measure of poverty in schools is the number of students who enroll in the free or reduced lunch program. To qualify for the program, students’ families must meet certain income requirements. According to these measures, a third of Vermont students come from low-income families.

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Writing scores jumped, and a few schools made impressive progress to narrow the achievement gap between low-income students and their peers, but otherwise standardized test scores for Vermont public school students showed little growth in 2009, according to data released Tuesday by the Vermont Education Department. Vermont Education Commissioner Armando Vilaseca said in a prepared statement that improvement in instruction is producing slow but steady results, but that Vermont has more work to do.

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The Vermont Board of Education voted Tuesday to approve a proposal to consolidate the nearly 300 individual school districts around the state, having them serve more students in hopes of offering greater education opportunities to Vermont's children. "The main reason for doing that is to give students more educational opportunities and choice," said Ruth Stokes of Williston, the board's vice chairman.

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Vermont Education Commissioner Armando Vilaseca will discuss “Transforming Vermont Education” on Wednesday, Jan. 20, at 6:30 p.m. at the Town & Country Resort, Mountain Road, Stowe. Vilaseca will speak about opportunities and challenges facing communities and the Legislature, and giving the kids the education they need at a price Vermonters can afford.

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Bellows Falls Union High School physics teacher Harvey Nystrom has been wanting to have his students receive signals from outer space for a few years now. The high school science teacher heard about a program started by NASA that allows schools to pick up radio signals from Jupiter and from the sun, but at a time when school boards are slashing budgets, Nystrom has not been able to find the $5,000 needed to build the antenna, purchase the computer software and attend the training to open the cosmos up to his students. Last year, Nystrom heard about a special grant program started by the Vermont Department of Education using federal stimulus money.

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The Putney School, an industry leader among schools and colleges in its commitment to environmental sustainability through curriculum and practice, has just completed what promises to be the nation's first 'green' net-zero gymnasium-- one that promises to produce more energy than it consumes. Global climate change is among the reasons the Southeastern Vermont school invested $7 million in the 17,000-sq-ft 'smart' building, located in the place once considered 'the cross country ski capital of the nation.' 

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Remember when “social studies” class was as dry as the chalk dust on the teacher’s fingers? Students sat through an explanation of the Teapot Dome scandal in September, only to be rewarded with the fireworks of the General Agreement on Tariff and Trade a few long months later. This semester at Hartford High School, five seniors actually look forward to social studies. That’s because they’re literally putting their town on the map - Google Earth style - in 3-D.

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Weybridge and Ripton education leaders are joining a growing statewide conversation about declining student enrollment and how to maintain vibrant local schools in the face of graying demographics. Vermont’s school-age population was estimated at 107,000 students in 1998; by 2013, that number is expected to drop below 90,000, according to Vermont Department of Education statistics provided by Addison Central Supervisory Union Superintendent Lee Sease.

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The plight of retired teachers across Vermont has improved considerably, so much so that some private-sector workers with sluggish 401(k) retirement plans envy the defined benefit plan that provides Vermont educators with health care for life and up to 50 percent of their pay upon retirement at age 62 or after 30 years of service. Now this benefit, which took decades to negotiate, could shrink under proposals a state commission floated last week in Montpelier.

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Last September Vermont's first magnet schools opened in Burlington. The Sustainability Academy at Lawrence Barnes and the Integrated Arts Academy at H.O Wheeler, both elementary magnets in Burlington's Old North End neighborhood, are intended to attract families from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds.

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