Education in Vermont
Encyclopedia
Education in Vermont consists of public and private schools in Vermont
, including the University of Vermont
, private colleges, and secondary and primary schools.
or VSBE, is appointed by the governor with approval by the senate. It administers public education
in the state. Local municipalities and their respective school districts operate individual public schools but the VSBE audits performance of public schools. The VSBE also makes recommendations to state leaders concerning education spending and policies.
and secondary education
: elementary school
, middle school
or junior high school and high school
. School districts are often complex in structure. In some cases, elementary, middle and junior high schools of a single district feed into high schools in another district or overlap with other districts at the high school level.
There are 250 public schools in Vermont. This includes 28 union high schools. Union high schools are those supported by towns with separate school districts for elementary grades.
To promote educational efficiency the state allowed towns to create a higher level school district above the level of each participating town, the union. The main function of the union school was to permit the creation of larger high schools in rural areas. Participating towns elect two school boards, one local, the second at the union level. The local union hires the principal and teachers; the union level hires a superintendent who is expected to supervise all local schools. There are more than 80 such unions in the state, out of 362 total school districts, many of whom fall under the union school districts.
A majority of graduating seniors select out-of-state colleges. This reached a high of 59.4% in 2004 and has ebbed since then.
The high school population is expected to decline 20% from 2009 to 2022, one of the largest drops in the nation. This is attributed to Vermont's low birthrate.
School districts include the Dresden School District
, the first-in-the-nation cross-state school district, which includes Hanover, New Hampshire
. Hanover was once part of the state of Vermont (see below).
The state authorized two more pre-K grades to the school system for the benefit of three and four year olds. Entry to these two grades is capped.
In 2008, there were 19,145 full-time equivalent teachers and 94,114 students in public schools. Teacher-pupil ratio is 11.12:1.
The number of pupils has dropped annually from 2003-2009.
Private schools are less common than public schools. Some private high schools can be perceived as "semi-private.". This means that while it costs money to send children there, towns will make a contract with a school to take children from a town at a slightly reduced rate. Often this is done when it is deemed cheaper to subsidize private tuition than build a whole new school when a private one already exists.
About 90 communities have public school choice.
In 2010, an estimated 2/3 to 3/4 of all schools opened during the last week of August (before Labor Day).
Education Week
ranked the state second in the nation in high school graduation rates for 2007.
In 2008, Vermont high school students achieved the highest five-year increase in the country in Advanced Placement testing. 19.8% of tested students scored a 3 or higher, compared to an average of 15.2% in the rest of the country.
In 2010 the state ranked highest in the nation for achievement of low-income students. In the same evaluation, it ranked the lowest in the county for education reform.States were evaluated for education reform on academic standards, change in proficiency standards, private school choice, charter school law, online learning policies and programs, home-schooling regulations and removing ineffective teachers.
and assessment of students to replace the New England NECAP test. The state intends to use the new standards by 2015. The test will be given in grades 3-8 and at the end of grade 11 (junior year).
By the middle nineteenth century, an expansion in settlement and the population of the state, coupled with increased prosperity, brought grammar schools to all corners of Vermont. Even the most remote Northeast Kingdom had established high-school-level instruction in Brownington, Craftsbury, Danville, Hardwick, and Newport. Many of these established grammar schools and academies, though not entirely public, received funds from area town governments in exchange for education of their students. As a system of public funding for primary and secondary education took root, many of these schools became municipal public schools. Several remained private, becoming private high-school-level academies, and several become colleges; the Orange County Grammar School became Vermont Technical College
, the Rutland County Grammar School became Castleton State College
, the Lamoille County Grammar School became Johnson State College
, and the Addison County Grammar School became Middlebury College
.
In 1892, the state created the town school district system.
," a term based on the French term école normale – a school to train teachers. The grammar schools at Randolph Center (1866), Castleton, and Johnson became normal schools, additional normal schools were established in Concord and Lyndonville. Additional post secondary schools instructing students to become teachers were called seminaries. While several were nominally associated with Protestant churches, none were seminaries in the sense of training ministers. These seminaries also graduated teachers to staff Vermont's growing number of primary and secondary schools.
test. The average SAT score was 519 in critical reading, 521 in math, and 506 in writing. The average total was 1,546. The US average was 1,509.
2,677 students took AP classes; many took more than one; 6,057 AP tests were given.
in 1997 in an attempt to balance taxation for education among towns. It has been controversial.
State spending for K-12 in 2008 was $1.057 billion dollars. The remainder was raised by the individual towns.
In 2010, educators accounted for 70% of a school's cost.
According to one study, enrollment in kindergarten through 12th grade has declined by nearly 10 percent during the 1990s. During the same period total staff numbers have increased by more than 20 percent. Per pupil spending grew from $6,073 in 1990 to $13,664 in 2006. A study by the Census Bureau lists Vermont with the fourth highest expenditure per pupil in the country at $11,835 for 2005. There are several ways to compute per student spending. An alternate computation gives $15,575 per pupil in the 2008-9 school year, third highest in the country. The average effective spending per pupil in Vermont was $11,548 in 2008.
In 2007, state costs for special education was $264 million, more than double what it was in 1998. In 2008, 14% of public school students qualified for special help.
Vermont is 49th out of 50 states in the nation for funding higher education, per capita.
There are three major geographical groups: Northern Vermont Athletic Conference (NVAC), Marble Valley (MVL, and Connecticut Valley (CVL). These in turn are broken into geographical divisions CVC Central, NVAC Lake (near Lake Champlain), Mountain, NVAC East, NVAC Metro (Burlington area), NVAC Capital, CVL, and MVL Divisions A, B, and C. Divisions based on population are I, II, III and IV, with the largest schools in I.
, it has the most expensive community college in the country.
The average Vermont graduate in the class of 2007 owed $24,329, making the state the fourth worst in the country.
several towns on the east side of the Connecticut River
were part of Vermont. This included Hanover
, home of Dartmouth College
. Statehood brought about establishment of the Connecticut River as a natural border. Having lost Dartmouth College, Ira Allen established the University of Vermont
(UVM) in 1791 to complement the smaller college at Castleton. By the mid-twentieth century all but one of the state normal schools, and many of the seminaries, had become four-year colleges of liberal arts and sciences. Experimentation at the University of Vermont by George Perkins Marsh, and later the influence of Vermont born philosopher and educator John Dewey
brought about the concepts of electives and learning by doing. Today Vermont has five colleges within the Vermont State Colleges
system, UVM
, fourteen other private, degree-granting colleges, including Middlebury College
, a private, co-educational liberal arts college founded in 1800, Burlington College
and Champlain College
, both located in Burlington, are the two primary private colleges of Vermont's largest city, the Vermont Law School
at Royalton, and Norwich University
, the oldest private military college in the United States and birthplace of ROTC, founded in 1819.
The state contribution to UVM in 2008 was $42.2 million. Other state college funding was $25.2 million.
s across the state. Additionally, Vermont supports public community college
s in the Community College of Vermont
.
The state stood 42nd in 2006 for high school graduates continuing on to college, 54.5%. It was 50th in the estimated percentage of high school students going to college in their home state, 23.6%. It has the highest cost in the nation for public two-year and four-year colleges. It is second-highest in the nation for adults 25-64 with a high school degree and no college. It is 44th for two-year college completion, but 7th for 4-year college completion.
In 2006, Vermont ranked eighth in the country for high school graduation rate, 82.3%.
Vermont
Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...
, including the University of Vermont
University of Vermont
The University of Vermont comprises seven undergraduate schools, an honors college, a graduate college, and a college of medicine. The Honors College does not offer its own degrees; students in the Honors College concurrently enroll in one of the university's seven undergraduate colleges or...
, private colleges, and secondary and primary schools.
Vermont State Board of Education
The Vermont State Board of EducationVermont State Board of Education
The Vermont State Board of Education supervises, and manages the Department of Education and the public school system. The board makes regulations governing attendance and records of attendance of all pupils; standards for student performance, adult basic education programs, approval of independent...
or VSBE, is appointed by the governor with approval by the senate. It administers public education
Public education
State schools, also known in the United States and Canada as public schools,In much of the Commonwealth, including Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United Kingdom, the terms 'public education', 'public school' and 'independent school' are used for private schools, that is, schools...
in the state. Local municipalities and their respective school districts operate individual public schools but the VSBE audits performance of public schools. The VSBE also makes recommendations to state leaders concerning education spending and policies.
Primary and secondary schools
Education is compulsory from kindergarten through the twelfth grade in Vermont, commonly but not exclusively divided into three tiers of primaryPrimary education
A primary school is an institution in which children receive the first stage of compulsory education known as primary or elementary education. Primary school is the preferred term in the United Kingdom and many Commonwealth Nations, and in most publications of the United Nations Educational,...
and secondary education
Secondary education
Secondary education is the stage of education following primary education. Secondary education includes the final stage of compulsory education and in many countries it is entirely compulsory. The next stage of education is usually college or university...
: elementary school
Elementary school
An elementary school or primary school is an institution where children receive the first stage of compulsory education known as elementary or primary education. Elementary school is the preferred term in some countries, particularly those in North America, where the terms grade school and grammar...
, middle school
Middle school
Middle School and Junior High School are levels of schooling between elementary and high schools. Most school systems use one term or the other, not both. The terms are not interchangeable...
or junior high school and high school
High school
High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....
. School districts are often complex in structure. In some cases, elementary, middle and junior high schools of a single district feed into high schools in another district or overlap with other districts at the high school level.
There are 250 public schools in Vermont. This includes 28 union high schools. Union high schools are those supported by towns with separate school districts for elementary grades.
To promote educational efficiency the state allowed towns to create a higher level school district above the level of each participating town, the union. The main function of the union school was to permit the creation of larger high schools in rural areas. Participating towns elect two school boards, one local, the second at the union level. The local union hires the principal and teachers; the union level hires a superintendent who is expected to supervise all local schools. There are more than 80 such unions in the state, out of 362 total school districts, many of whom fall under the union school districts.
A majority of graduating seniors select out-of-state colleges. This reached a high of 59.4% in 2004 and has ebbed since then.
The high school population is expected to decline 20% from 2009 to 2022, one of the largest drops in the nation. This is attributed to Vermont's low birthrate.
School districts include the Dresden School District
Dresden School District
The Dresden School District was the first interstate school district in the United States. It operates the Francis C. Richmond Middle School and Hanover High School in Hanover, New Hampshire. The Dresden School District is part of the SAU 70, which also operates the Bernice A. Ray Elementary...
, the first-in-the-nation cross-state school district, which includes Hanover, New Hampshire
Hanover, New Hampshire
Hanover is a town along the Connecticut River in Grafton County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 11,260 at the 2010 census. CNN and Money magazine rated Hanover the sixth best place to live in America in 2011, and the second best in 2007....
. Hanover was once part of the state of Vermont (see below).
The state authorized two more pre-K grades to the school system for the benefit of three and four year olds. Entry to these two grades is capped.
In 2008, there were 19,145 full-time equivalent teachers and 94,114 students in public schools. Teacher-pupil ratio is 11.12:1.
The number of pupils has dropped annually from 2003-2009.
Private schools are less common than public schools. Some private high schools can be perceived as "semi-private.". This means that while it costs money to send children there, towns will make a contract with a school to take children from a town at a slightly reduced rate. Often this is done when it is deemed cheaper to subsidize private tuition than build a whole new school when a private one already exists.
About 90 communities have public school choice.
In 2010, an estimated 2/3 to 3/4 of all schools opened during the last week of August (before Labor Day).
Rankings
Vermont was named the nation's smartest state in 2005 and 2006. In 2006, there was a gap between state testing standards and national which is biased in favor of the state standards by 30%, on average. This puts Vermont 11th best in the nation. Most states have a higher bias. However, when allowance for race is considered, a 2007 US Government list of test scores shows Vermont white fourth graders performed 25th in the nation for reading (229), 26th for math (247). White eight graders scored 18th for math (292) and 12th for reading (273). The first three scores were not considered statistically significant from average. White eighth graders scored significantly above average in reading. Statistics for black students were not comparable because of their small representation in the testing.Education Week
Education Week
Education Week is a United States national newspaper covering K-12 education. It is published by Editorial Projects in Education , a non-profit organization, which is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland...
ranked the state second in the nation in high school graduation rates for 2007.
In 2008, Vermont high school students achieved the highest five-year increase in the country in Advanced Placement testing. 19.8% of tested students scored a 3 or higher, compared to an average of 15.2% in the rest of the country.
In 2010 the state ranked highest in the nation for achievement of low-income students. In the same evaluation, it ranked the lowest in the county for education reform.States were evaluated for education reform on academic standards, change in proficiency standards, private school choice, charter school law, online learning policies and programs, home-schooling regulations and removing ineffective teachers.
Standards
The state is participating in a 30-state Common Core State Standards InitiativeCommon core state standards initiative
The Common Core State Standards Initiative is a U.S. education initiative that seeks to bring diverse state curricula into alignment with each other by following the principles of standards-based education reform. The initiative is sponsored by the National Governors Association and the Council...
and assessment of students to replace the New England NECAP test. The state intends to use the new standards by 2015. The test will be given in grades 3-8 and at the end of grade 11 (junior year).
Health
In 2010, the National Association of School Nurses reported that the state has the highest ratio of school nurses to students, in the country, 1:311.Academies and grammar schools
Vermont's 1777 constitution was the first in English-speaking North America to mandate public funding for universal education. This requirement was first met by elementary-level village schools with sessions held in the cooler months to accommodate farm work. Most schools educated similar numbers of girls and boys. Conditions in these schools varied, and the highest level of instruction was tenth grade. By the end of the eighteenth century, grammar schools, instructing students in English, algebra, geometry, Greek, and Latin, had been established at Bennington, Burlington, Castleton, Middlebury, Montpelier, and Windsor. These grammar schools were of a higher caliber than the smaller villages' schools, and the level of education at some was equivalent to college level.By the middle nineteenth century, an expansion in settlement and the population of the state, coupled with increased prosperity, brought grammar schools to all corners of Vermont. Even the most remote Northeast Kingdom had established high-school-level instruction in Brownington, Craftsbury, Danville, Hardwick, and Newport. Many of these established grammar schools and academies, though not entirely public, received funds from area town governments in exchange for education of their students. As a system of public funding for primary and secondary education took root, many of these schools became municipal public schools. Several remained private, becoming private high-school-level academies, and several become colleges; the Orange County Grammar School became Vermont Technical College
Vermont Technical College
Vermont Technical College is a public technical college with two main campuses located in Randolph Center and Williston, Vermont. The College also has nursing campuses in other locations throughout the state...
, the Rutland County Grammar School became Castleton State College
Castleton State College
Castleton State College is a public liberal arts college located in Castleton in the U.S. state of Vermont. Castleton has an enrollment of 2000 students and offers more than 30 undergraduate programs as well as master’s degrees in education...
, the Lamoille County Grammar School became Johnson State College
Johnson State College
Johnson State College is a small public liberal arts college, founded in 1828 by John Chesamore at Johnson in the U.S. state of Vermont. Johnson's president is Barbara E. Murphy and its board chair is Gary M. Moore.- History and governance :...
, and the Addison County Grammar School became Middlebury College
Middlebury College
Middlebury College is a private liberal arts college located in Middlebury, Vermont, USA. Founded in 1800, it is one of the oldest liberal arts colleges in the United States. Drawing 2,400 undergraduates from all 50 United States and over 70 countries, Middlebury offers 44 majors in the arts,...
.
In 1892, the state created the town school district system.
Educating teachers
In the 1860s a shortage of qualified teachers brought the establishment of state "normal schoolsNormal school
A normal school is a school created to train high school graduates to be teachers. Its purpose is to establish teaching standards or norms, hence its name...
," a term based on the French term école normale – a school to train teachers. The grammar schools at Randolph Center (1866), Castleton, and Johnson became normal schools, additional normal schools were established in Concord and Lyndonville. Additional post secondary schools instructing students to become teachers were called seminaries. While several were nominally associated with Protestant churches, none were seminaries in the sense of training ministers. These seminaries also graduated teachers to staff Vermont's growing number of primary and secondary schools.
The one-room school house
The one-room school house, born of small multi-age rural populations, continued well into the twentieth century. Rural towns without a single central village often built two to a half-dozen school houses across their terrain. Much of this came from a lack of transportation and a need for students to return home by mid afternoon for farm chores. By 1920 all public schools, including the one-room school houses, were regulated by the state government. In the early 1930s state legislation established a review and certification program similar to accreditation. Schools were issued regulations about teacher education and curriculum. Education quality in rural areas was maintained through a program called Vermont Standard Schools. Rural school houses meeting certification requirements displayed a green and white plaque with the Vermont coat of arms and the words "Vermont Standard School."Secondary schools
In 2009, 26% of seniors took that ACT test; 70% took the SATSAT
The SAT Reasoning Test is a standardized test for college admissions in the United States. The SAT is owned, published, and developed by the College Board, a nonprofit organization in the United States. It was formerly developed, published, and scored by the Educational Testing Service which still...
test. The average SAT score was 519 in critical reading, 521 in math, and 506 in writing. The average total was 1,546. The US average was 1,509.
2,677 students took AP classes; many took more than one; 6,057 AP tests were given.
Teachers
In 2010, the law changed to require teachers to work until 65 after 30 years of teaching. The former age was 62. Or years spent in the classroom plus the teachers age must now equal 90. A waiver was made for teachers who were "close" under the previous system.Funding
The legislature passed Act 60Act 60 (Vermont law)
In June 1997, the Vermont legislature passed Act 60, known as The Equal Educational Opportunity Act.It was drafted in response to a Vermont Supreme Court decision, in the Brigham vs...
in 1997 in an attempt to balance taxation for education among towns. It has been controversial.
State spending for K-12 in 2008 was $1.057 billion dollars. The remainder was raised by the individual towns.
In 2010, educators accounted for 70% of a school's cost.
According to one study, enrollment in kindergarten through 12th grade has declined by nearly 10 percent during the 1990s. During the same period total staff numbers have increased by more than 20 percent. Per pupil spending grew from $6,073 in 1990 to $13,664 in 2006. A study by the Census Bureau lists Vermont with the fourth highest expenditure per pupil in the country at $11,835 for 2005. There are several ways to compute per student spending. An alternate computation gives $15,575 per pupil in the 2008-9 school year, third highest in the country. The average effective spending per pupil in Vermont was $11,548 in 2008.
In 2007, state costs for special education was $264 million, more than double what it was in 1998. In 2008, 14% of public school students qualified for special help.
Vermont is 49th out of 50 states in the nation for funding higher education, per capita.
Sports
As in most areas, high schools compete in sports in two types of division. One, because of logistical and geographical constraints, is necessarily local. That is, large schools play small ones in the same area. A second division is based on school population and is statewide. Eventually, schools with the best records in this type of division will meet each other for seasonal playoffs. Football division assignments are based on a combination of football wins over the last four years, the number of boys playing the sport and the total boy enrollment in the school.There are three major geographical groups: Northern Vermont Athletic Conference (NVAC), Marble Valley (MVL, and Connecticut Valley (CVL). These in turn are broken into geographical divisions CVC Central, NVAC Lake (near Lake Champlain), Mountain, NVAC East, NVAC Metro (Burlington area), NVAC Capital, CVL, and MVL Divisions A, B, and C. Divisions based on population are I, II, III and IV, with the largest schools in I.
Colleges and universities
In 2008, Vermont has the highest average in-state tuition and fees for 4-year colleges at $11,341, up 8.1% since 2007. The state also has the highest 2-year average tuition and fees at $5,830, up 6% since 2007. In Community College of VermontCommunity College of Vermont
The Community College of Vermont is a two year college founded in 1970 with locations in 12 sites in the state of Vermont. The college is a part of the Vermont State Colleges, a consortium of Vermont's five public colleges governed by a common board of trustees, chancellor, and Council of...
, it has the most expensive community college in the country.
The average Vermont graduate in the class of 2007 owed $24,329, making the state the fourth worst in the country.
History
During the period of the Vermont RepublicVermont Republic
The term Vermont Republic has been used by later historians for the government of what became modern Vermont from 1777 to 1791. In July 1777 delegates from 28 towns met and declared independence from jurisdictions and land claims of British colonies in New Hampshire and New York. They also...
several towns on the east side of the Connecticut River
Connecticut River
The Connecticut River is the largest and longest river in New England, and also an American Heritage River. It flows roughly south, starting from the Fourth Connecticut Lake in New Hampshire. After flowing through the remaining Connecticut Lakes and Lake Francis, it defines the border between the...
were part of Vermont. This included Hanover
Hanover, New Hampshire
Hanover is a town along the Connecticut River in Grafton County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 11,260 at the 2010 census. CNN and Money magazine rated Hanover the sixth best place to live in America in 2011, and the second best in 2007....
, home of Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
. Statehood brought about establishment of the Connecticut River as a natural border. Having lost Dartmouth College, Ira Allen established the University of Vermont
University of Vermont
The University of Vermont comprises seven undergraduate schools, an honors college, a graduate college, and a college of medicine. The Honors College does not offer its own degrees; students in the Honors College concurrently enroll in one of the university's seven undergraduate colleges or...
(UVM) in 1791 to complement the smaller college at Castleton. By the mid-twentieth century all but one of the state normal schools, and many of the seminaries, had become four-year colleges of liberal arts and sciences. Experimentation at the University of Vermont by George Perkins Marsh, and later the influence of Vermont born philosopher and educator John Dewey
John Dewey
John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey was an important early developer of the philosophy of pragmatism and one of the founders of functional psychology...
brought about the concepts of electives and learning by doing. Today Vermont has five colleges within the Vermont State Colleges
Vermont State Colleges
The Vermont State Colleges is the U.S. state of Vermont's system of public colleges. It functions as a governance organization, and was created by act of the Vermont General Assembly in 1961...
system, UVM
University of Vermont
The University of Vermont comprises seven undergraduate schools, an honors college, a graduate college, and a college of medicine. The Honors College does not offer its own degrees; students in the Honors College concurrently enroll in one of the university's seven undergraduate colleges or...
, fourteen other private, degree-granting colleges, including Middlebury College
Middlebury College
Middlebury College is a private liberal arts college located in Middlebury, Vermont, USA. Founded in 1800, it is one of the oldest liberal arts colleges in the United States. Drawing 2,400 undergraduates from all 50 United States and over 70 countries, Middlebury offers 44 majors in the arts,...
, a private, co-educational liberal arts college founded in 1800, Burlington College
Burlington College
Burlington College is a private liberal arts college located in Burlington, Vermont that offers Associate, Bachelor's, and Masters degrees, as well as several professional certificate programs...
and Champlain College
Champlain College
Champlain College is a private, coeducational college located in Burlington, Vermont. It offers professionally focused programs that incorporate an interdisciplinary core curriculum. In addition to its main campus, the College maintains study-abroad campuses in Montreal and Dublin, and offers...
, both located in Burlington, are the two primary private colleges of Vermont's largest city, the Vermont Law School
Vermont Law School
Vermont Law School is a private, American Bar Association accredited law school located in South Royalton, Vermont . The Law School has one of the United States' leading programs in environmental law, and the Law School is currently ranked #1 in Environmental Law by U.S...
at Royalton, and Norwich University
Norwich University
Norwich University is a private university located in Northfield, Vermont . The university was founded in 1819 at Norwich, Vermont, as the American Literary, Scientific and Military Academy. It is the oldest of six Senior Military Colleges, and is recognized by the United States Department of...
, the oldest private military college in the United States and birthplace of ROTC, founded in 1819.
Major universities
The University of VermontUniversity of Vermont
The University of Vermont comprises seven undergraduate schools, an honors college, a graduate college, and a college of medicine. The Honors College does not offer its own degrees; students in the Honors College concurrently enroll in one of the university's seven undergraduate colleges or...
The state contribution to UVM in 2008 was $42.2 million. Other state college funding was $25.2 million.
Other post-secondary schools
Besides the "National Universities", Vermont has several other universities, both public and private. There are about a dozen small liberal arts collegeLiberal arts college
A liberal arts college is one with a primary emphasis on undergraduate study in the liberal arts and sciences.Students in the liberal arts generally major in a particular discipline while receiving exposure to a wide range of academic subjects, including sciences as well as the traditional...
s across the state. Additionally, Vermont supports public community college
Community college
A community college is a type of educational institution. The term can have different meanings in different countries.-Australia:Community colleges carry on the tradition of adult education, which was established in Australia around mid 19th century when evening classes were held to help adults...
s in the Community College of Vermont
Community College of Vermont
The Community College of Vermont is a two year college founded in 1970 with locations in 12 sites in the state of Vermont. The college is a part of the Vermont State Colleges, a consortium of Vermont's five public colleges governed by a common board of trustees, chancellor, and Council of...
.
Concerns
A non-profit organization dedicated to education reform, gave Vermont the lowest ranking in the nation for college readiness programs for high school. It said that the state was doing nothing in four areas: 1) aligning high school standards and graduation requirements with college and workplace expectations, 2) administering a college readiness test to all high school students; 3) developing a data system to track students from kindergarten on; and 4) holding high schools accountable for graduating students who are college and workplace ready.The state stood 42nd in 2006 for high school graduates continuing on to college, 54.5%. It was 50th in the estimated percentage of high school students going to college in their home state, 23.6%. It has the highest cost in the nation for public two-year and four-year colleges. It is second-highest in the nation for adults 25-64 with a high school degree and no college. It is 44th for two-year college completion, but 7th for 4-year college completion.
In 2006, Vermont ranked eighth in the country for high school graduation rate, 82.3%.