Both New Hampshire and Vermont
In New Hampshire, the issue is being played out in two arenas. In the waning days of its last session, the Legislature passed a bill that would have allowed districts to use tax money to send pupils to approved private schools if the district’s public schools did not include their grade. It was vetoed by Gov. Maggie Hassan, on the grounds that it was unconstitutional and did not provide an accountability mechanism to ensure that students would receive their constitutionally-mandated opportunity to receive an adequate education. She also contended that the bill’s effect would be to undermine “the state’s efforts to ensure a strong and robust public education system” for all students.
The constitutionality of such legislation could receive a test as the result of action by the Croydon School Board. Croydon, with a population of about 700, has its own K-4 school but pays tuition for students in grades 5-12 to attend schools elsewhere. Most attend public schools in nearby Newport, but for the past couple of years the board has been paying tuition to send a small number to the private Newport Montessori School. During the most recent school year, the district spent about $32,000 to send four pupils there; it projects that six will be enrolled there for the coming year.
The state Department of Education and the Attorney General’s Office maintain that state law bars such arrangements, and last month a Superior Court judge agreed, issuing a permanent injunction. The School Board in Croydon is asking him to reconsider and contemplating an appeal to the state Supreme Court if the judge denies the request. An appeal might shed light on two issues: whether state law does currently prohibit the practice and, more broadly, whether spending public money on private school tuition is permitted by the state constitution under any circumstances. If not, there’s no sense of the Legislature revisiting the issue. If so, lawmakers could try to meet the accountability and adequacy objections raised by Hassan by requiring private schools to meet standardized testing requirements, for example.
But in any case, there’s a good argument that as a matter of public policy, scarce financial resources ought not to be diverted from the public schools. Proponents of school choice argue that competition makes public schools innovate and get better; it seems more likely that they increasingly struggle when students are siphoned off into private schools and take tuition money with them.
Vermont is one of only two states that allow towns to pay students’ tuition to private schools when the town does not operate either an elementary school or a high school, according to VtDigger. The state Board of Education has now drafted rules that would considerably tighten eligibility standards for accredited private schools. They would have to accept all students, including those with disabilities, just as the public schools do, a requirement that board Chairman Stephan Morse called “dramatically different” from the current standards.
This proposed change was, not surprisingly, applauded by the Vermont School Boards Association, whose executive director wrote that, “Public dollars that support private schools should carry with them the same obligations regarding quality, equity, efficiency, transparency and accountability that apply to public school districts.” We find it hard to disagree with that position, although we do appreciate the concerns of private schools about whether it is feasible or reasonable to expect them to be certified to accept students in all 12 special education categories, especially if Michael Livingston, head of The Sharon Academy, is correct that no school in Vermont serves students in all categories in-house. (His school has recently announced an open enrollment policy and is certified in two of the most common special education categories.)
More generally, selectivity has traditionally been the hallmark of private school education, particularly at the secondary school level, and may even be fundamental to its mission to create a particular kind of educational environment in which a particular kind of student can reach his or her full potential. Using taxpayer money to further that mission is hard to reconcile with society’s interest in offering the best education to all comers, a deeply ingrained American value with a long history.