Educational Choice in Vermont

Since 1869 Vermont has had an educational choice system for students from towns which do not maintain their own public schools or belong to union school districts.

In some 74 (of 246) towns containing about 18% of the state's high school population, the town school board must pay tuition for high school (grades 7-12) pupils to any public or approved private ("independent") secondary school, in or out of the state, selected by the parents. Among the in-state approved high schools are four venerable academies, three relatively new "ski academies", and one nonpublic school managed by a board appointed by the local government. Among the out of state approved high schools are public high schools in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and New York, and a large number of private schools such as St. Paul's School, Northfield-Mt. Herman, and Phillips Andover.

Until 1961, tuition payments were made to Vermont's three Catholic high schools, but this practice was held to be constitutionally impermissible in a decision of the Vermont Supreme Court.

The school board of a so-called "tuition town" must pay the full tuition charged by a public school, but is required to pay to an independent school only an amount equal to the average tuition charge of the state's union high school districts ($5903 in school year 93-94). If the tuition of the selected independent school is larger than this amount, the school district may pay the larger amount, but can not be required to do so. The parents must cover any difference.

Twelve small Vermont towns do not offer grades 1-6. As of 1990 (Act 271), their school boards are allowed to tuition pupils to nonresidential independent elementary schools. Parents do not have a right under Act 271 to have tuition paid at the school of their choice, but it would be highly unusual for a school board to refuse a parent's request if the town maintained no school of its own. There are six non-parochial, non-special ed elementary schools in the State, and these are not necessarily within commuting distance of the tuition towns.

The full Vermont choice system is best illustrated by the Town of Kirby, which operates no schools of its own. For the 1992-93 school year Kirby sent 41 elementary school pupils to four nearby public schools, and three to the independent Riverside School. It sent 11 junior high pupils to three public schools, and two to Riverside. It sent all 26 high schoolers to two adjacent independent academies in St. Johnsbury and Lyndonville.

In recent years Kirby has tuitioned two of its high schoolers to exchange programs in France and Finland. The Town paid approximately $4300 ($1000 less than the then-prevailing tuition at the larger local academy), and the program provided room and board, tuition, and round trip air fare for the pupil.

For more information, contact the Ethan Allen Institute. (Institute President John McClaughry was Vice Chairman of the Senate Education Committee in 1991-92.)