8/13/2019 Tuitioning Under Attack

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For nearly half a century a controversy has been brewing over an educational

innovation known as “vouchers.” The idea is and was that parents of school-age

children should, on request, receive vouchers that could be used as payment to a

private school. The impetus came from the widely perceived failure of public

education to deliver what it had promised. That perception is far from new. A half

century ago a book with the title Why Johnny Can’t Read  made the best seller listsand was the topic of many a heated conversation. Since that time countless books

have appeared pointing out the all too may failures of public education.

Some focus on race. Schools are racist because they fail to provide bilingual

education. Schools are racist because they do provide bilingual education. They fail

to teach Christian ethical and moral principles or the violate the barrier between

church and state. And how many times have we read that children in Asia or

Northern Europe or somewhere else are better in math or science or something else

that American kids.

We all know the horror stories. We hear about the incompetent New York teacherswho cannot be fired and spend their days on full pay in “rubber rooms” playing

cards, chatting, or just relaxing. Meanwhile the people in Washington or Montpelier

continue to send their  kids to private schools.

In the spirit of full disclosure this writer once published an article attacking the idea

of vouchers for education (The Voucher System—Mainline to Disaster). My

argument was that once government funds were paying for private education the

corrupting influence of government would surely follow. At the time I wrote that

article, I didn’t know that Vermont had such a system since 1869 and I didn’t

suspect that someday I would have children of my own attending a private school,

The St. Johnsbury Academy, at public expense.

Vermont calls the system “tuitioning.” Vermont towns as an alternative to building

and running their own schools can pay the tuition of students from their town in

other purblic or private schools. The Northeast Kingdom is a hotbed of tuitioning.

Students from many local communities are tuitioned to the St. Johnsbury Academy

as well as Lyndon Institute just down the hill from Lyndon State College. Both

schools, which have international reputations, also have large numbers of dorm

students from Asia. A short distance to the North is the town of Coventry that

tuitions students to several schools including Stanstead College, which is not a

college at all, but is a private high school in Stanstead, one of the Eastern Townships

of Quebec.

In spite of the aforementioned risk of government control, the tuitioning system has

been working extremely well in Vermont for nearly a century and a half…until now. 

There were some hints last year when there were some demands from state

education officials that the St. Johnsbury Academy require its teachers to meet state

licensing requirements. The Academy, since its founding in the 19th century, has

based its hiring and retention policies on competence rather than state certification.

8/13/2019 Tuitioning Under Attack

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As a result they have an enviable reputation in the arts having wonderful teachers

who are real working artists. The same is true of their teachers of science and

mathematics.

Now the attack on tuitioning has been mounted again, this time by Vermont’s

outgoing education secretary Armando Vilaseca. The education establishment isresponding to a move by the North Bennington school board to close its public

school so it can reopen as a private school