The big news out of last Saturday’s Vermont Republican Party meeting was the resolution calling for all Republican candidates and officeholders to actively oppose single-payer health care. The measure was a clear slap at the state’s most visible (and successful) Republican, Lt. Gov. Phil Scott, who refuses to publicly denounce a plan that hasn’t been unveiled yet.

Yeah, he’s funny that way.

But the meeting also tooted out another resolution — this one on education. It supports independent schools, and opposes former Education Secretary Armando Vilaseca’s call for new limits on independent schools including a ban on public schools going independent.

So blah blah blah, Republicans bash public schools and promote the dilution of the system by encouraging towns to go indy. That’s not news.

What is news, is that the VTGOP’s resolution includes three grammatical errors.

In an official document on education.

You can’t make this stuff up.

Two of the three mistakes are in the very first sentence:

Whereas: Vermont has had a 150 year tradition of sending their students to independent schools

First, and pickiest, is that the verb tense “has had” implies that the tradition is in the past tense, that we no longer have such a tradition. Just drop the “had” and go with “has.”  

Second, the mismatch between “Vermont” and “their.” It should either be “Vermont” and “its” or “Vermonters” and “their.”

The third mistake comes in one of the resolutions:

That changes in the Vermont statutes and regulations proposed The Vilesca Report  will have a profoundly adverse effect on the education of our children and should not be implemented

Ahem. That should be “proposed in the Vilaseca Report.” Unless you meant to say that the changes actually proposed the report.

Just little goof-ups, slips of the pen. But c’mon now. A major party passes an official policy statement at a statewide meeting, and can’t be bothered to get the wording right?

And then posts the statement, mistakes and all, on its website for all to see?

On a resolution about education, of all things?

Ladies and gentlemen, your Vermont Republican Party.