‘Deeply Connected’ Coverage

[Re “ICE at the Doorstep: A Federal Immigration Raid in South Burlington Would Lead to a Violent, Daylong Confrontation With Protesters and the Detention of Three Immigrants. Here’s What Happened,” March 18]: Thank you for your work covering the story of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid — and many other stories! In a time when good journalism can feel stretched thin, your work continues to stand out: thoughtful, grounded and deeply connected to our community.

Much respect for the reporters and photographers out there (yes, it does feel unreal happening here). Keep up the important work!

Seven Days Is ‘Delicious’

Wow, I did not need another reminder of the pandemic [From the Publisher: “State of the Media,” February 25]. My partner and I both have the worst cold we’ve had since before the pandemic. For us, it is not “feed a cold, starve a fever”; it is feed whichever one you have.

Thankfully, this year’s Seven Days Media Issue was 88 pages, not the 112-pager from 2019, because I read it 26 times in between 7,342 coughs. We both ate nutrient-dense, easily digestible foods and gallons of warm liquids, including Bee Happy honey in hot water.

I know every one of the food ads by heart, too! If we don’t get better soon and run out of food, I may start eating Seven Days’ delicious ads. Maybe that woman who takes photos of food can come to our place [“Food Focused: Brattleboro Food Photographer Clare Barboza Shoots for Myriad Media and Teaches Others the Tricks of the Trade,” February 25]. Bring your camera and the hot food!

Laugh, dream, try and do good — even when you feel lousy.

Satisfying ‘Skewering’

Chelsea Edgar should be canonized for her hilarious skewering of the “small-platification” of Montréal, Burlington and America [“A Hater’s Guide to Small Plates,” March 18]. A simple roast chicken or a bowl of pasta is infinitely more hospitable than those pretentious tiny plates, awkwardly arranged on the table, where you get a couple timid forkfuls of food (being careful all the while to defer to the appetite of your dining companion), after which you emerge not only much poorer but strangely unsatisfied.

More on AI in Journalism

Wayne Maceyka’s recent letter calling for “obnoxious transparency” around artificial intelligence in journalism begins with a reasonable instinct [Feedback: “AI Helped Write This,” March 11]. Readers deserve clarity about how news is produced. But the argument rests on a basic confusion between AI as a broad category of technology and the specific tools now being discussed in newsrooms.

Artificial intelligence has been used in journalism for years. Spellcheckers, automated transcription, recommendation systems and data analysis tools all fall under that umbrella. The newer systems attracting attention (large language models developed by companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Google) are simply more advanced language tools. They generate text in response to prompts; they do not conduct interviews, gather evidence or independently report the news.

Maceyka’s letter repeatedly treats AI as if it were an autonomous journalist capable of producing reporting on its own. That framing obscures what is actually happening in newsrooms. When a reporter uses software to summarize a document or transcribe an interview, the facts, sourcing and editorial judgment still come entirely from the human journalist.

The letter also bundles a long list of concerns (labor exploitation, environmental costs, bias and misinformation) as though they are inherent to any instance of AI-assisted writing. These are legitimate debates about the technology sector broadly, but invoking them every time a newsroom uses language software inflates the issue and clouds the discussion.

Transparency matters. But a useful conversation about AI in journalism should begin with a clear understanding of what these tools are — and what they are not.

Music Men

[Re “Can I Kick It? Musings on the Future of Music Journalism,” February 25]: I read Chris Farnsworth’s recent article on music journalism with more than a little wry bemusement. I’ve spent more than a half century working in the field, and the changes have been incremental but profound. And it occurs to me that the lessening of music journalism’s impact has to do with the fact that music is not so deeply valued in our culture at large anymore. Sad but true. And yet I find that offering analyses and observations on this greatest of all the arts deepens my pleasure(s) as I experience it. The same would seem to be true for Farnsworth, so he deserves great kudos for his pursuit of his passion.

Primary Care Now

Headlines about “advancing” health care reforms would be encouraging if Vermonters weren’t already living the crisis Seven Days documented back in January. Your January 22 episode of “Stuck in Vermont” and follow-up Q&A [“An Apple a Day: Vermonters Are Struggling With the Rising Costs of Health Insurance, and Some Are Choosing to Go Without,” January 28] showed families facing $31,000-plus premiums and exposure above $50,000 — numbers that should have jolted the legislature into action months ago. Instead, we’re now being offered a 10-year glide path and a stack of reports that look more like political cover than real reform.

Kurt Staudter said it plainly in the Vermont Standard: “…towns … asked about universal primary care, and it was supported overwhelmingly. Lawmakers, on the other hand, will once again let the issue die in committee.” That critique feels even sharper today. Vermonters paying three to four times what residents of other states pay don’t need another decade of process. They need clarity, courage and cost relief.

Seven Days’ reporting made the stakes unmistakable: Vermonters are going uninsured, delaying care or rationing treatment because the system is unaffordable. The Senate’s response — a long timeline and vague promises — doesn’t match the urgency of the problem.

There is a better path. Vermont already proved through childcare reform that a small, broad-based payroll tax can fund a major public good quickly and responsibly. Pair that with reference-based pricing to rein in hospital charges, and we could move rapidly toward universal primary care while stabilizing costs.

Vermonters deserve more than obfuscation. They deserve a system that works — now, not in 2036.

Classroom Consciousness

Seven Days education reporter Alison Novak has been busy this winter, covering the legislature’s ongoing attempts to change how Vermonters pay for public schools [“Lawmakers Plan to Tackle Education Reform, Health Care,” January 6]. Whether she is breaking news on her beat [“Students Banned From CVU-Rice Basketball Game,” January 27; “Agency of Education Finds Errors in State Report Card,” March 3] or explaining how we got into this mess [“Empty Desks: Enrollment in Vermont’s K-12 Schools Is Dropping at an Alarming Rate. Communities Are on Their Own to Deal With the Problem,” February 18], her stories command the attention of readers. More than two dozen raised their hands and shared their views.

Credit: File: Diana Bolton

As elected school board members, we are deeply concerned about proposals under consideration by the Vermont legislature that would fundamentally reshape public education. We write as individuals, not on behalf of our boards.

As legislators work to cut costs, we are worried by the unfunded mandates and magical thinking undergirding many leading proposals. Several essential truths must be brought back to the center of this conversation. Vermont’s excess spending threshold penalizes districts that exceed a per-pupil spending limit with steep, escalating double taxation. While districts control some spending, the largest cost drivers — health care costs negotiated at the state level, enrollment fluctuations and new legislative mandates — are entirely outside local control.

Meanwhile, Vermont suspended state funding for school construction during the 2008 recession and never resumed it. When districts seek voter approval for bonds to repair buildings, debt service folds directly into per-pupil spending calculations. The state imposed a spending ceiling, withdrew from construction funding and now penalizes districts for maintaining their buildings.

This is the trap: Districts are told to consolidate, maintain safe buildings and control spending — while the state off-loads costs and penalizes us for addressing them.

The state must decouple debt service and health care costs from per-pupil spending calculations and commit to a concrete plan for resuming state funding for school construction. Without these changes, Vermont’s districts will remain stuck: blamed for costs we cannot control and unable to build a future that serves our students.

Alison Novak’s “Empty Desks” article was of interest, both for what it covered and what it did not. For example, there was no coverage of the damage done by funding education with regressive real estate and sales taxes. Dumping noneducational costs, such as health care and unfunded mandates, on local education budgets is another negative. There is nothing about attracting new workers and employment for them.

Hardworking, tax-paying immigrants come to mind. It is very clear that immigrants are the key to solving our declining school enrollments and low birth-rate demographic problems. Without them, we are likely lost.

This is a real systems problem. Vermont is not attracting new economic activities. Gutting education will create a negative feedback loop. The reliance on regressive taxes is also negative. The cost of energy is another negative. Everything is connected. There are no silos.

There is obviously no one simple fix. I suggest Vermont embrace a stewardship philosophy.

There are so many opportunities for an exciting future — if we are willing to go there. Buckminster Fuller said: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

Does Vermont have the gumption to invent a new model?

My family will soon have three children, an anomaly in a state with a total fertility rate of 1.3, well below the 2.1 needed to sustain a population. Immigration and domestic migration aren’t filling the gap. That leaves one lever: Keep the families we already have and create the conditions for them to want to have more children.

Whether it’s the demographics of our legislature, the link between fertility and political affiliation, or environmentalism that sometimes regards population growth and development negatively, Vermont suffers from cultural resistance to even framing this as a problem worth solving.

We don’t know with certainty what will increase fertility, but we know recent policy hasn’t, and the policies that matter to larger families like mine aren’t the ones Vermont is pursuing.

The call to action is simple: Say Vermont needs more children, and make families with multiple children the lens through which Vermont evaluates policy. Don’t just build more housing, but housing designed for larger families. Don’t just provide childcare subsidies, but subsidies that support all forms of care, including a family member at home. Don’t just create strong public schools, but supported independent schools and homeschooling that meet families where they are. If a policy doesn’t help and empower all families with multiple kids, it won’t solve our demographic crisis or its symptoms: higher property taxes, school consolidation and worker shortages.

Enjoyed the “Empty Desks” article. This story begs another big question. With enrollment declining and school budgets going up like a SpaceX rocket, why can’t high school freshmen read at grade level and do sixth-grade math? Overall, student test scores in Vermont are deplorable. It is readily apparent that the education system is broken. A simple fix is to go back to basics.

Teach the “three Rs,” the basic sciences, biology, chemistry, physics, American history, commercial courses, the trades and physical education five days a week for all who are physically able. Yes, do keep basic special ed for those in need. We also need art and music. Once you achieve proficiency in these areas, then consider expanding your areas of study. We have good teachers and schools. We just have to get them functioning at a level that develops and brings out the best in our student populations.

One more item: No cellphones in school. Students will learn to communicate with each other and with teachers and staff.

Not once did “Empty Desks” mention online and distance learning or technology as part of the solution to the higher-taxes/fewer-students dilemma. Instead, it focused on the 20th-century solutions of closing schools and increasing busing.

The technology for effective online programs is out there, and since the 1990s, the State of Vermont and the state colleges have been using it to deliver education and training. Plus, in the COVID-19 era, numerous districts effectively deployed digital solutions to the problem of closed schools.

Creating systems that rely on instruction beamed to area schools by existing teachers, along with periodic in-person meetings for science fairs, concerts and the like, requires intelligence and goodwill from everyone involved. It’s time for Vermonters to take up the challenge of radically rethinking our antique school system.

“Empty Desks” may not be filling up for reasons other than lack of housing or lower birth rates. Our weather may also be influential. No matter the size of a town, snow totals, windchills, and the expense of clothing, heating, food, gas, car corrosion, snow removal and just getting around have made living in the Northeast harsh and expensive. Sustaining essential services like snow plowing and routine infrastructure and road maintenance are reflected in higher taxes.

Vermont is a beautiful place to visit or own a vacation home, and that’s it for many. Will we eventually have climate refugees escaping a rising ocean and massive heat domes and droughts occurring in the South and West? Probably.

Until then, is it not best that our population grow more naturally and slowly over time? We need to be patient and proceed with caution to be well prepared to manage the environmental and municipal impacts of a growing population. However, the current business community’s emphasis on “If you build it, they will come” may just backfire as the baby boom population bubble dissipates with time.

If we want more young people to stay and start families here, we may want to offer a more supportive future of hope and equity — one that seriously recognizes and works to stem global heating, works for international peace, and distributes the nation’s wealth more equitably. That may fill desks.

As a young schoolteacher in Vermont with a spouse who works for the state, I would love to stay in Vermont and start my family. However, when my spouse and I talk about having children, we recognize that there is no way for us to afford to have a child and remain in the state. The cost of living here is so astronomical that even with two above-average incomes, we would be unable to afford an apartment that would have room for a kid, not to mention the fact that neither of our jobs has guaranteed paid maternity leave.

When considering why birth rates and school enrollment in Vermont are so low, I think we really must focus on affordability. It breaks my heart that I will never be able to afford to raise children in the state I love and that to meaningfully move on with my life — by starting a family or owning a house — I will have to leave Vermont.

I wish lawmakers and Gov. Phil Scott could see that things like mandatory paid parental leave and legislated rent control might make it easier for young people who want to have families in Vermont to do so.

After leaving the Mount Abraham Unified School District, the Lincoln School District was established as a pre-K-12 district, currently with 210 students — not a K-6 district of “around 80” students, as “Empty Desks” states. Moreover, in contrast to its main theme, enrollment at the Lincoln Community School has bounced back after COVID-19 and is projected to continue rising.

This is great news but also should be seen in the context of Mount Abraham Unified School District Superintendent Patrick Reen’s prior use of dire — and, in the end, grossly inaccurate — enrollment predictions to further his school closure plan, a misguided effort that ultimately led to Lincoln’s exit. In fact, LCS enrollment has greatly exceeded these predictions: by 29 percent last year and 38 percent this year. 

Meanwhile, LSD is doing well financially. While Lincoln is by far the smallest supervisory district in Vermont, current fiscal year 2026 per-pupil spending is below the statewide average. Regionally, we have the lowest per-pupil spending and lowest education tax rate of any district in Addison and Chittenden counties. Similar trends are apparent for fiscal year 2027.

Lincoln students also are doing very well academically, considerably above state averages on state assessments, with strengths in local assessments and evaluative measures beyond test scores.

The answer to Reen’s “riddle” is Lincoln. Yes, Vermont can have high-quality education and reasonable tax rates in a small district and community-supported school. 

I was recently reminded that Mississippi, a state that spends much less on education than Vermont, does significantly better at teaching elementary school students to read. I made some inquiries and learned that part of Mississippi’s strategy is to hold students back in the third grade if they don’t read at grade level. Apparently, we prefer not to hold students back in Vermont, and that’s part of the problem.

When you promote a child who hasn’t met requirements, you don’t help anyone. If a child can’t meet the requirements of first grade, how can you expect that child to do well in second grade?

My father-in-law had to repeat first grade because he could barely speak English; his family spoke Yiddish at home, and so he was unprepared for first grade. He went on to get his PhD in nuclear physics and become an award-winning physicist at the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory. If he hadn’t repeated first grade, the outcome might have been different.

When we don’t have strict criteria for promotion, children can graduate from high school without learning the fundamentals. A high school diploma should be something that is earned through diligence and hard work, not a certificate awarded for four years of participation.

Let’s start implementing reasonable standards for promotion to the next grade level, along with other reforms to improve the performance of Vermont students.

Would someone — whether it be a journalist or someone at the Agency of Education — please track the impact of COVID-19 on today’s test scores? It has been found that the average U.S. grade-school student lost 0.7 years of schooling due to the pandemic. Add to that the fact that 11 percent of Vermont grade-school students lacked access to the internet, and it’s no wonder that student scores were better in the 1990s and early 2000s. Failing to track the lasting impact of the pandemic on today’s students is irresponsible on both the part of the Agency of Education and journalists covering the field of education.

The March 11 cartoon by Tim Newcomb was cute and typical political humor found in a liberal publication: Smear the conservative while hoping the truth won’t be revealed. The serious question is: Other than parental input, who in Vermont is responsible for setting the educational standards? It is my understanding that the teachers’ union is overwhelmingly aligned with the Democratic representatives at our Statehouse. Isn’t it the union and its membership, along with their political backers, who establish the policies and practices that produce the “standards”? Maybe it’s not just the students who are failing.

Correction

Last week’s story “Nature’s Harvest” incorrectly described the geographic location of the towns near which “Wild Foods” host Kevin Chap grew up. They’re in central Vermont.

This article appears in March 25 • 2026.

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