School choice is essential to attracting doctors to rural areas in Vermont, one hospital CEO says, as the state’s Town Tuitioning program faces more restrictions.
Vermont has the nation’s oldest school choice program, established in 1869 for residents of towns that don’t have a public school. But the state has made recent efforts to restrict funding and the types of schools parents can choose, much to the dismay of some residents.
Shawn Tester, head of Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital in St. Johnsbury, said his neurologist “read the tea leaves” and decided to leave the state because of the changes.
“She had been here for 12 years,” Tester wrote in VermontBiz. “Her kids were approaching high school age. She was watching the policy landscape in Vermont, reading the tea leaves, and she and her husband made the decision to leave – for lower taxes, lower costs, and a place where the future felt more certain.”
Tester posted her job but has had no applicants in the last year.
Vermont faces challenges such as a high cost of living and cumbersome regulations, “so we had better have something extraordinary to offer,” he said. “We do … our independent schools.”
Tester explained how he grew up in a single-parent home but was town-tuitioned to the private Riverside School in Lyndonville, which set him up for future success.
“I say without hesitation that Riverside changed the trajectory of my life. I would not be sitting in this chair today without it.”
He then criticized lawmakers for continuing to “chip away at independent schools and school choice.”
“Each time, those of us in rural communities have fought back. Each time, we have been told that our concerns are overstated. Each time, the stakes have grown higher.”
Tester added that he’s “not interested in fighting culture wars” but wants lawmakers to respect rural residents.
While school choice opponents often claim rural areas don’t want school choice, he says his region’s independent schools – which serve the majority of town tuitioning students – are “essential threads holding this community together.
“Pull that thread, and you will find out – too late – just how much was attached to it,” he cautions.
State lawmakers passed a law last year that vastly reduces the number of private schools eligible for the program, including restrictions on schools where most students pay tuition.
Two mothers filed a lawsuit against the changes in February, claiming the state exercised “no rhyme or reason” in deciding which schools can participate. The restrictions also ban new and smaller schools, such as microschools, which are gaining popularity nationwide.
“Act 73 puts special interests over the interests of children,” said Jeffrey Schwab, director of litigation at the Liberty Justice Center, which represents the plaintiffs.
“This law limits the ability of Vermont families to meet their educational needs and rescinds a tradition that goes back two centuries. Doing so violates the Vermont Constitution.”
