In response to Carson v. Makin, Maine lawmakers passed legislation that limited the ability for religious schools to gain an exemption from certain nondiscrimination rules while participating in the school choice tuitioning program, prompting a lawsuit on behalf of Bangor Christian School on Tuesday.
Sources at the Vermont State House say the vote on H.483, restricting public school tuition to private schools, has been delayed until at least next Wednesday. It is uncertain why voting on this bill, pushed strongly by a coalition of public school education groups, has been postponed after being placed on the House agenda this week.
On Friday the House Committee on Education passed a bill by a 7-4-1 vote that could make it more challenging for independent schools to receive public support.
Houser cited data reporting that at least 587 kids are restrained or secluded each year in our public schools, and these incidents are likely underreported. Disproportionately, the victims of these practices are children with disabilities and children of color.
Under S.66, Democrats and Progressives would destroy the much-admired Vermont town-tuition system in order to prevent a small minority of parents and students from choosing a religious school under the tuition system.
The results are undeniable that the system of educating our children in Vermont is not working — neither for the kids nor the teachers and staff. This is why expanding this broken system by a year to include full day preschool for 4-year-olds should be absolutely unthinkable.
Vermont must reimburse parents denied state tuition benefits based on their decision to send their children to a religious school, per a settlement approved by a federal judge Thursday.
Vermont’s long history of parental choice in education will come to a crashing end in 2028 if a bill designed and backed by the “Educational Equity Alliance” makes it through the Legislature.
A majority in the Vermont Legislature cling to the myth that putting all students together in the same building and giving them all the same educational environment somehow constitutes equity. Nothing is further from the truth. One-size-fits-all in reality only fits a few.
The Vermont Senate has introduced its long-promised work-around of a U.S. Supreme Court decision requiring towns with no high schools to provide tuition to approved, independent religious schools.
Two of the most critical civil rights issues in modern-day America are parental rights and educational freedom. Our children deserve the best opportunities we can give them, and these opportunities start in schools.
On Friday there will be a rally for school choice — at the Vermont State House and at the Capitol Plaza across the street — of hundreds of friends of parental choice in education, at a time when a majority of the Legislature seems hell-bent on stamping out as much parental choice as possible.