Vermont Public

Vermont’s private schools have long bristled at the notion that they cherry-pick their students. Those claims come from public education advocates, who say independent schools that benefit from taxpayer funds nevertheless turn away students with higher needs, burdening a financially stressed public system. “When schools that receive public dollars are allowed to create policies and systems that prevent some students from accessing these opportunities, all students in the state suffer,” Chris Young, the president of the Vermont Principals’ Association, said in a recent press release. That accusation is at the heart of a long and bitter dispute over Vermont’s voucher system, known as town tuitioning, which allows students in communities without schools to attend the public or private school of their choice. It has typically been lodged absent any hard data, so Vermont Public requested enrollment figures from the Vermont Agency of Education. An analysis of data for the 2023-24 school year, the most recent available, suggests that the state’s private schools, in general, did enroll students on individualized education programs at lower rates than public schools in Vermont.