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Since 1869, Vermont has provided tuition for children in rural towns that do not have their own public schools, allowing these children to attend public schools in other districts or private schools. During the 2001-02 school year, the state paid tuition for 7,147 students from about ninety towns in kindergarten through 12th grade to attend public and private schools. Approximately 30% of these students attend about 85 independent schools throughout the state.
Participating towns pay the cost of sending their resident children to a non-religious private school or a public school in a neighboring district or state of choice. The town’s school board pays the students’ tuition expenses. If the student chooses an independent school, the voters of the town school district can decide whether to pay an amount equal to the state’s average union high school tuition, with parents required to make up the difference if this amount is below the actual tuition charged.
The tuitioning program initially included religious as well as non-religious schools; in 1961 and 1999, however, rulings by the Vermont Supreme Court prohibited the inclusion of religiously affiliated schools.
A study of the Maine and Vermont tuitioning programs has identified a range of positive impacts. These include: higher levels of academic achievement in areas where competition for students was greatest; benefits from a competitive environment that were not limited to specific demographic groups; and significant cost savings to Maine and Vermont taxpayers.
Christopher Hammonds, “ The Effects of Town Tuitioning in Maine and Vermont,” Friedman Foundation, 2002. Source: School Choice 2001: What’s Happening in the States Source: Cato Institute Briefing Papers Source: The Heritage Foundation: Introduction to School Choice
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