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.
A new umbrella advocacy group comprised of four organizations of Vermont public school educators often at loggerheads was in the State House on Friday, speaking as one for ‘equity and accountability’ in any legislation responding to the U.S. Supreme Court decision requiring tuitioning towns to provide payments to religious private schools.
The House Committee on Education on Wednesday heard from legal and education experts concerning the implications of recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions on public money going to religious schools.
Rather than allow Vermont’s 14 approved independent religious schools to accept tuitioning students, many legislators would rather scrap tuitioning to independent schools altogether. It appears these lawmakers have an ally in the American Civil Liberties Union.
Plaintiffs in Vitale v. Bellows Falls Union High School argue that allowing some parents to choose the best school for their child under Vermont’s “tuitioning” system, while forcing other families to accept a school based on geography, is a violation of equal access to educational opportunity under Brigham.