Voucher advocates like to point to Vermont as the nation’s oldest program. When it was started in 1869, it was intended to pay the tuition of students whose town did not have a public school. It has very little in common with the curren voucher movement, which takes its inspiration from the libertarian economist Milton Friedman, who wrote a seminal essay in 1955 proposing that all students should receive vouchers to attend the school of their choice. The group that was fastest to seize upon his ideas was Southern segregationists, who saw school choice as an effective way to keep their schools racially segregated. It took a dozen years until the federal courts and the U.S. Department of Education compelled Southern schools to desegregate their schools.
Meanwhile, Vermont’s voucher program continued undisturbed.
Today as education writer Anne Waldman of ProPublica explains, the voucher program funds a disproportionately large number of students from affluent families who choose expensive private schools, including out-of-state boarding schools like Exeter and Deerfield Academy.
“Vermont’s voucher program is a microcosm of what could happen across the country if school-choice advocates such as Education Secretary Betsy DeVos achieve their vision. By subsidizing part of the cost of private schools in or out of state, it broadens options for some Vermonters while diverting students from public education and disproportionately benefiting wealthier families like the Bowmans.
“Vermont vouchers have been used to send students to ski academies, out-of-state art schools and even foreign boarding schools, such as the Sigtunaskolan School in Sweden, whose alumni include Sweden’s current king and former prime minister. Vermont paid more than $40 million in vouchers to more than 60 private schools last year, including more than $1.3 million to out-of-state schools, according to data received from the state’s education agency through a public-records request.
“Of the almost 2,800 Vermonters who use publicly funded vouchers to go to private schools in state, 22.5 percent qualify for free or reduced price lunch, according to state education data. (The data excludes out-of-state private schools.) By contrast, 38.3 percent of public school students in Vermont have family incomes low enough to qualify them for the lunch discount.”
Voucher advocates in other states will insist that they want vouchers for poor black and Hispanic students or for students with disabilities.
Such claims, however, are the first step towards the goal of making vouchers available for everyone.
Vermont sets no income limit for students who choose to use vouchers. However, the vouchers may not be used in religious schools, because the state Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional in 1999.
Betsy DeVos has said many times that she seeks vouchers for every kind of school, including religious schools. Private and religiousschools set their own admissions requirements, so the schools choose the students. Public schools are required by law to accept all students, regardless of race, religion, family income, sexual orientation, language or disability status.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“When it was started in 1869, it was intended to pay the tuition of students whose town did not have a public school. ”
Which is funny, because that’s exactly where ed reform plans on ending up too!
One of the ridiculous consequences of “choice” in DeVos’ home state of Michigan is the people who ended up with no choice at all! They got a for-profit charter school or nothing.
Oh, well. Unintended consequences and all that. She meant well! That’s all that matters!
LikeLike
DeVos is going to Congress again this week. Let’s see if any of them bother to mention public schools, or if we have yet another DC event focused exclusively on charters and private schools.
I hope she tells those stories she likes, where all the public school graduates end up in prison and all the private school graduates are huge successes.
Those are very “agnostic” I must say. Very scientific and “data based”. She’s just calling balls and strikes, folks! No ideology in THAT propaganda!
LikeLike
Duggan, the mayor of Detroit, said they might be able to make progress now that “the main opponent is in DC”.
He means DeVos. I chuckled.
Maybe some ed reform org can offer her a permanent position in DC. God knows there are enough of them.
LikeLike
When DeVos goes to Congress to advocate on behalf on charters and vouchers, who in that room is an advocate for kids in public schools?
Do they deserve one, or are they just the disfavored default who are mentioned only in the context of expanding “choice”?
I don’t accept that they don’t have an advocate, that they can be dismissed as the “status quo” and then the Administration and Congress get onto the important work, which is their “choice” agenda. I don’t think that’s equitable or fair to them. That situation should be rectified.
They didn’t volunteer for this designation. They were assigned it. It’s not representative of the vast majority of kids and parents in this country. They should be represented.
LikeLike
Not just Vermont. Don’t know current regulations, but an acquaintane from rural Maine went to a relious boarding school, paid for, in part with the Maine voucher for residents of rural areas for high school. This was a few decades ago.
LikeLike
I thought Vermonters had more sense than this.
LikeLike
Yes, & isn’t Rebecca Holcombe still the great Sec. of Ed. she was as touted (I believe in this very blog, &, from what I’d read about her, I agreed)?
Also, I think there was a post entitled, “Is Vermont the Best Education State?” (or something close to it).
So, Vermont blog readers, what’s going on out there?
LikeLike
Q It took a dozen years until the federal courts and the U.S. Department of Education compelled Southern schools to desegregate their schools. END Q
The Brown v. Board of education decision was in 1954. President Eisenhower ordered federal troops to integrate Central High school in Little Rock, Ark in 1957. The Swann v. Mecklenburg decision, compelling cross-town busing was in 1971.
Most (not all) southern public schools were integrated long before the US Department of Education was established October 17,1979.
LikeLike
I should have said the U.S. Office of Education and Congress. Under LBJ’s leadership, the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, putting real teeth into federal enforcement, including the ability to cut off federal funding, of which there was very little at the time. A year later, when a Democratic Congress passed the landmark Elementary and Secondary Education Act, there was federal funding for every district with high levels of poverty. The U.S. Office of Education used the power of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to threaten a cut-off of federal funds to districts that refused to segregate. In addition, the federal courts were incredibly courageous in insisting on genuine compliance with the letter and the spirit of the law. Southern schools in time became more integrated than Northern schools.
Then came Reagan and the end of Reconstruction. The courts and the Feds began to withdraw from enforcing civil rights laws, or declared that the districts had met their obligations and were no longer monitored. The result: segregation is returning. Under Trump, there will be no enforcement at all. The spread of school Choice will encourage new avenues for segregation.
LikeLike
I read the article, and I do not see a problem. Some families in Vermont, for whatever reason, are dissatisfied with their local public school (in some cases, there are no local public schools, in these “choice” towns). These families then choose to enroll their children in alternate schools, and accept a voucher, equivalent to the amount that the state would have spent to pay the costs in a publicly-operated school. The alternate school may be located out-of-state. (Vermont is a small state, geographically, and there are many schools near the state).
The state is spending an amount, to support (or partially support) the educational costs of these children. The state would have spent an equivalent amount at a publicly-operated school, if the family had chosen to enroll the student in a public school, in state. The amount being spent on the child’s education is equivalent: Public-operated school, private school (in-state), private school (out-of-state).
True. some wealthy Vermonters are accepting vouchers, to pay (or at least partially pay) the costs of a privately-operated school. Consider this: If the wealthy family had chosen to enroll the child ,in a publicly-operated school in Vermont, then the amount spent by the state would be equivalent. No one would object to the public “subsidizing” the costs of educating a wealthy child in a public school. How can someone object to the state subsidizing the cost of educating a wealthy child at an alternate school? The amount spent is unchanged.
Bottom Line: Vouchers provide funding to any family that chooses to accept them, in lieu of accepting an equivalent amount to pay the costs of education at a publicly-operated school. Whether poor, middle class, or wealthy, the costs disbursed are the same.
The tactics used by choice/voucher supporters, often involve bringing in a voucher plan, to help poor children, or children of color, or disabled children, or native American children ,or military-dependent children, or children in “failing schools”, or fill-in-the-blank children. The ultimate goal (in most cases), is to bring in choice/vouchers for all. Voucher supporters read Machiavelli, and Clausewitz, and Sun-Tzu.
LikeLike