Vermont Tuition Program Reveals Incredible Bias 

Photo by Michael Coghlan on Flickr.com

 

Conservatives are used to government programs being unjust against middle-class working Americans.

But we have seen a new level of unfair treatment in recent years where anything that slightly resembles Christian doctrine is being booted from the picture.

It has been happening in our children’s schools, in the workplace, and now through one state’s tuition program on a level that can’t be ignored.

Vermont has government aid called the Town Tuition Program, which helps assist or cover the costs of private schools in towns where a public school isn’t available.

It may be hard to imagine that towns exist that don’t actually have a public school, but they do! And they are called “sending towns.”

The Town Tuition Program provides each student in a sending town with their tuition up to the town’s approved tuition rate.

Schools that are more prestigious, exceeding the approved rate would require parents to just cover the difference in tuition cost.

This program has been a Godsend to families that want to send their children to private schools that fit their core values and beliefs.

That is unless your beliefs are Biblically based.

Rice Memorial High School is considered one of the top schools in Vermont.

Not only are they the best because students score above average on their SAT and ACT scores or because 90% of students go on to attend a four-year college, as the Christian Post reports, but also because they boast a 11:1 student-teacher ratio that’s hard to find in schools.

So what is the problem?

The school is a ministry of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington, and proudly states that faith is the first and most important of their core tenets.

Public and secular private schools have no issue obtaining tuition benefits, Christian Post reports, but any religious private school is not shown the same level of consideration.

Unlike the other secular institutions, Rice Memorial students have been recognized by the Vermont governor for their exceptional public service and sense of citizenship, according to Christian Post.

It would make a little more sense if Rice Memorial was being singled out because the tuition was so high that the state wanted to scoot around paying the tuition, but the prestigious school is actually $5,000-$6,000 less than most private and public schools in the state!

With all these factors considered there is a clear bias against Rice Memorial High School, which is why Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) has taken action.

The organization with a mission to defend our rights and liberties has “filed a lawsuit against the school district and the state Agency of Education on behalf of four families and the Diocese of Burlington,” the Christian Post informs us.

Unfortunately, this kind of bias is not new and the ADF has precedent going into court.

Despite the US Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit agreeing that all schools should have equal access to government benefits without discrimination, the tuition program continues to operate under the bias that religious schools aren’t welcome to the same benefits as secular ones.

The government has gone as far as asking the school to separate anything religious from academic in order for funds administered to not benefit anything religious in nature!

Are you kidding me?!

The Supreme Court has ruled in the past that denying access to public benefits on the basis of religion is unconstitutional.

All of the students at Rice Memorial are there because parents have chosen the school as a good fit for their child’s educational and spiritual needs, and should not be punished for it.

Government agencies and programs have been working hard to eliminate God from society and are now holding children’s education and future excellence ransom.

Let’s hope the precedent of unconstitutional allocation of funds is seen by the Supreme Court so that families who want to send their children to a school that still has some morals left are able to do so uninhibitedly.