VERMONT

Constitutional Clause/Language

“Laws for the encouragement of virtue and prevention of vice and immorality ought to be constantly kept in force, and duly executed; and a competent number of schools ought to be maintained in each town unless the general assembly permits other provisions for the convenient instruction of youth . . .” Vt. Const., s. 64.

Major Court Decision: Brigham v. State, 692 A.2d 384 (Vt. 1997).  

Result: Financing System Overturned

Summary: The court holds that the financing system, based on local taxation, violates the state equal protection clause because it treats less wealthy children differently by not affording them an equal opportunity to access educational revenue.

Key Quotes:

“In this appeal, we decide that the current system for funding public education in Vermont, with its substantial dependence on local property taxes and resultant wide disparities in revenues available to local school districts, deprives children of an equal educational opportunity in violation of the Vermont Constitution.”  Id. at 386.

“Whether we apply the strict scrutiny test urged by plaintiffs, the rational basis standard advocated by the State, or some intermediate level of review, the conclusion remains the same; in Vermont the right to education is so integral to our constitutional form of government, and its guarantees of political and civil rights, that any statutory framework that infringes upon the equal enjoyment of that right bears a commensurate heavy burden of justification. The State has not provided a persuasive rationale for the undisputed inequities in the current educational funding system. Accordingly, we conclude that the current system, which concededly denies equal educational opportunities, is constitutionally deficient.”  Id. at 390.

 “... Equal educational opportunity cannot be achieved when property-rich school districts may tax low and property-poor districts must tax high to achieve even minimum standards. Children who live in property-poor districts and children who live in property-rich districts should be afforded a substantially equal opportunity to have access to similar educational revenues. Thus, as other state courts have done, we hold only that to fulfill its constitutional obligation the state must ensure substantial equality of educational opportunity throughout Vermont”  Id. at 398.

Provision of minimally adequate education to all public school students is insufficient to satisfy requirements of common benefits clause of State Constitution; discrimination in distribution of constitutionally mandated right such as education may not be excused merely because some minimal level of opportunity is provided to all.  Id.