Contact Your Senator about the Secretary of Education Appointee!

The move by Phil Scott to appoint a Secretary of Education that has no experience working in schools is an insult to all educators working tirelessly to serve Vermont students. The choice to appoint Zoie Saunders, a candidate with a career in a for-profit charter school management company, reveals Phil Scott’s desire to bring those lessons and moves to Vermont. Public education funding getting redirected to charter schools, gutting resources for public education, is a model no one wants in Vermont. Why are we bringing those skills to the state?

Vermont deeply values our public institutions and we reject any move towards privatization. Wealthy business owners see public schools as an untapped market for making money. The political right is using anti-CRT and anti-LGBTQIIA+ rhetoric to reduce public trust in public education with the purpose of privatizing public education for a profit (read more here). We will not stand by idly and watch our public schools be dismantled. 

We have the power to reject this appointment by speaking out to our State Senators and encouraging them to say no to the appointment of Zoie Saunders in order to preserve and protect our public schools. We demand a pro-public schools Secretary of Education and will accept nothing less. Take action by sending your senator a letter using this template. 

Here are three key attributes we’d expect of any Secretary of Education in Vermont:

1. On the ground direct experience working with students in a teacher or support staff role 

2. Has successfully led a public school or district in ways that supported all students to thrive

3. Actively champions public schools 

Here’s how Zoie Saunders fails to meets these three key attributes:

1. She has no experience working on the ground in schools (Resume)

2. The three months experience she has working in a public school district was in a role closing and consolidating schools (South Florida Sun Sentinel)

3. The majority of her career is in corporate for-profit education which completely contradicts our Vermont values of public education. 

Zoie Saunders spent 7 years working at Charter Schools USA a for-profit charter school management company. National Education Policy Center explains that, “The school privatization movement has branded itself a massive experiment in innovative approaches to education. In reality, it’s primarily been an experiment in how to funnel money from the public sector into the private sector using nonprofit organizations as intermediaries.” Charter Schools USA has charged exorbitant rent for profit and spent over 2 million in lobbying the Florida Legislature from 2007-2017. 
We urge you to show your support for public education by opposing the confirmation of Zoie Saunders as Secretary of Education. We need a candidate with deep experience working in public schools, for example the Maine Commissioner of Education has 20 years experience as a classroom teacher, principal, and assistant superintendent. Take action by sending your senator a letter using this template.