Vermont maintains a Town Tuition Program, which provides a tuition benefit for students who live in towns without public schools. Towns that provide tuition for their students instead of maintaining a public high school are called “sending towns,” and they provide families with the full amount of their student’s tuition, up to the town’s approved tuition rate.
It’s a dream scenario for parents, who can use the benefit to send their kids to whichever school they believe is the best fit for them.
As it turns out, students who wish to attend public or secular private schools have no problem obtaining tuition benefits. But students who wish to attend religious private high schools are being excluded.
And test scores show religious schools in many of these towns are far outpacing other schools.
A good example is Rice Memorial High School. Rice students scored better than average for the state of Vermont on their SATs and ACTs. 90 percent of Rice students go directly to four-year colleges. And Rice is one of only two high schools in the state to offer the prestigious AP Capstone Diploma, as a reward for a rigorous course load.
In response, Alliance Defending Freedom has filed a lawsuit against the school district and the state Agency of Education on behalf of four Vermont families and the Diocese of Burlington, which operates religious schools.
ADF said it did so with heavy precedent on their side all the way up to the supreme court.
Multiple Supreme Court rulings have shown that denying equal access to public benefits is unconstitutional.