Tyler Baker is an assistant professor of history at Landmark College in Putney. He is the author of a forthcoming history of Landmark College, published by the University of Vermont Press. Putney is, on the surface, another rural Southeastern Vermont town, but there is more going on in the t own than meets the eye — and has been for nearly a century.  The dirt roads, the rolling hills, and the single general store — they do not give the impression of a place that would reshape American education. And yet, for nearly a century, Putney has been home to an extraordinary concentration of experimental schools and institutions that have had an outsized role in how Americans learn, teach and imagine the purpose of education.  I imagine some Vermonters, and most longtime locals, know bits and pieces of the story.  Fewer know just how interconnected it really is — or how much the identity of the village was, and is, forged by a deep, almost stubborn commitment to educational innovation.  It began with The Putney School in the 1930s, one of the earliest American schools built around progressive ideals: experiential learning, farm-based education, democratic governance and a belief in the social value of the arts. Hickory Ridge School followed, incorporating anti-war activism and cooperative living into its curriculum. The Experiment in International Living brought global immersion and cultural exchange programs into the village, long before “study abroad” became a standard line in college brochures. Antioch University’s Graduate School of Education incorporated an additional dimension, training generations of teachers to rethink teaching beyond what traditional expectation But the most dramatic chapter happened on a hill overlooking town, where the former Windham College campus now houses Landmark College.  When Windham closed in 1978, the campus fell into disrepair. The residents of Putney had reason to be worried. Several proposals were floated for the 125-acre property, none of which sat well with the town — understandably. One proposal would have turned the site into a facility for Cuban anti-Castro refugees. Another plan would have made it a federal prison. A third proposal involved the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi organization, which sought to transform the campus into a Transcendental Meditation university. Each time, Putney residents organized and pushed back. They understood something simple, yet vital: whatever moved onto the outside of town would shape Putney’s future for decades to come.  When Landmark College arrived in 1985, the match between institution and town felt almost inevitable, at least in hindsight. Landmark was the first college in the country created explicitly for students with learning differences — particularly dyslexia — at a time when most colleges did not know how to accommodate, much less fully educate, students with non-typical learning profiles. The college’s founding represented the latest evolution of the same educational impulse that animated Putney for decades: a commitment to redesigning learning from the ground up.  Over four decades, Landmark has expanded its mission to serve students with ADHD, autism, executive-function challenges and other learning profiles. What has remained constant is the college’s core belief that students should not be seen as exceptions in need of accommodation, but as whole individuals whose strengths, challenges and learning styles should shape pedagogy itself. In other words: difference is not a disruption to education — it is a foundation for it.  Putney, quietly and consistently, created the conditions where Landmark could thrive. The college did not sprout from apathetic citizenry. Landmark’s history is tied to the town’s long-standing willingness to support models of education that diverge from the mainstream.  That belief matters now more than ever. Vermont, like the rest of the country, is addressing difficult conversations about retention, mental health, accessibility and the purpose of higher education.  Students who learn differently are enrolling in college at higher rates than at any time in our nation’s history. Disability services offices are overwhelmed. Colleges are struggling to retrofit systems that were never designed for the students they now serve.  But in Putney, a working model has existed for decades. Landmark shows what’s possible when accessibility is designed into an institution from the start — when pedagogy, advising, campus culture and student life are built around human variation rather than standardized expectations.  And it also matters that this is not just a Landmark story. It is a Vermont story.  It is a story about a town that repeatedly chose education over expediency. It is about residents who asked what kind of community they wanted to become, and who recognized that what happens on a campus also happens to the surrounding town. It is a story about a place where innovation was not a buzzword; it was, and continues to be, a civic value.  Putney’s educational legacy is something Vermonters can be proud of.  In a rural corner of the state, generations of educators, students, activists and community members built — and protected — a tradition of progressive education that continues to shape lives far beyond the town’s boundaries.  Read the story on VTDigger here: Tyler Baker: Why Putney is an epicenter of progressive education in America. ...read more read less