Vermont tuition program Vermont’s Town Tuition Program (“TTP”) requires school districts that lack a public high school to provide for its residents’ high school education by paying private school tuition. Because Vermont’s constitution guarantees that “no person shall be compelled to support a place of worship,” the Vermont Supreme Court, in a 1999 case ( Chittenden Town ), ruled that TTP funds cannot be used to reimburse tuition at a “sectarian” school unless the school takes steps to safeguard against the government funds being put to religious use. On the basis of that ruling, school districts in Vermont subject to the program have denied funding to religious schools. Now, however, a federal appeals court has halted the exclusion of religious schools from the state’s tuition program. In an opinion explaining its ruling, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the lower court’s conclusion that the practice of denying religious schools TTP funds runs afoul of the First Amendment. The court cited recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions disallowing state practices that base funding eligibility solely on religious status, even if the motivation is to comply with state law that forbids funding religion. Last June (in Espinoza v. Montana […]
