School Choice in Maine

Maine is one of the few states in America that allows thousands of students a choice of schools to attend. How does school choice work in Maine?

What is school choice?

School choice is the term that is most commonly used to describe any program which allows students to attend a school of their choosing, as opposed to attending the school to which they have been assigned by state and local governments. Today, the vast majority of students attend a specific school based on their place of residence. School choice programs are designed to allow families to choose the school their children attend instead.

School choice programs take a variety of forms:

School voucher programs provide school funding directly to families, which they then use to pay tuition to a school of their choice. Voucher programs are primarily found in cities like Milwaukee, Cleveland and the District of Columbia.
Scholarship tax credit programs encourage contributions to private scholarship-granting organizations, which then provide students with scholarships to attend a school of their choice. Scholarship tax credit programs are in place in a number of states, including Arizona, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island.
Special needs scholarship programs are school choice programs targeted at specific populations of students, most commonly students with special needs. Such programs are in place in Florida, Utah, Arizona and Georgia.
Charter schools are public schools which operate independently of the existing school bureaucracy. They are generally given more autonomy and are free from many of the regulatory burdens placed on conventional public schools. Read more about this unique model of schooling on our charter school page.
Magnet schools are special schools that are created around focus areas such as the arts or math and science. Such schools typically have an application process and tough admissions standards. Maine has one magnet school, the Maine School of Science and Mathematics in Limestone.
District-wide choice happens when a school district which operates a number of different schools allows its students to choose from among them. Portland, for instance, allows its students some choice with regard to which of the district's three high schools they attend. Such choice options are limited to public schools only and only to those public schools within the district.
Superintendents' agreements are permitted by Maine law, and simply allow two superintendents to "approve the transfer of a student from one school administrative unit to another if they find that a transfer is in the student's best interest and the student's parent approves." Such agreements might be made, for instance, if a student in one district lives closer to a school in a neighboring district.
Town Tuitioning is the school choice program available in Maine and Vermont. It is described in more detail below.

Which Maine students have a choice of schools?

It is important to remember that all students have the option of home schooling, and families of means have, and have always had, many school choice options. If you can afford to send your child to private school, you have school choice. If you can afford to move to a school district with better schools, you also have school choice.

Students in most families, though, have little choice other than to attend the public schools in the community where they live.

In Maine, though, a law on the books since 1873 requires towns which do not operate their own schools to pay for their resident students to attend a school of their choice, public or private, in another town. The system is called “Town Tuitioning” because the town in which the child lives pays the tuition amount to the chosen school on the student’s behalf.

Which towns in Maine allow school choice under the Town Tuitioning program is more a matter of historical happenstance than any kind of careful planning. In Maine’s early days, most high school educations were provided by the private “Town Academies,” a few of which still remain today. Over the years, many towns built their own schools and no longer “tuitioned” students elsewhere. School choice in Maine suffered a serious blow during the school district consolidation movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s, when many towns either built high schools of their own or joined a school district that had a high school already. The same has happened more recently as a result of state-mandated school district consolidation, which has meant the loss of school choice in several Maine towns.

According to data from the state Department of Education, there are 176 towns in Maine today that do not operate a high school of their own and thus use the tuitioning process to provide high school educations to their resident students. An interactive map indicating the location of those towns can be found here on the GreatSchoolsforME.org website.

So if my town or school district does not operate its own school, my family can choose the school we send our children to?

Not necessarily. Though 176 towns use the tuitioning process, some of those towns use what are called “tuitioning contracts” to limit school choice options. State law allows schools to “contract” for school services with a specific school. Often, towns will use contracts as bargaining tools, negotiating lower tuition rates with a specified school in exchange for sending all their students to that school.

The extent to which such contracts are binding on students is debatable. One section of state statute, Title 21-A, Section 2701, gives towns the right to “contract with another school for school privileges for all or part of its resident students,” while another statute, Title 21-A, Section 5204, states that students “may attend the contract school,” but does not seem to require it.

Towns are required by state statute to forward copies of any tuition contracts to the state Department of Education, but recent inquiries to the Department reveal that most towns have not done this.

As a result of the inconsistent use of tuitioning contracts, questions about the extent to which a town offers school choice are best directed to local school officials. State data on which schools students actually attend using the tuitioning process is available here in the GreatSchoolsforME.org website, on our Maine School Choice Data page.

Can students attend any school they want using Town Tuitioning?

No. The law requires that schools receiving public tuition dollars be approved by the state for that purpose. Existing public schools, because they already receive public funds, are permitted to receive tuition dollars, as are private schools that have been either approved by the state or have received accreditation through the New England Association of Schools and Colleges. A list of private schools approved to receive public tuition dollars is available at the website of the Maine Department of Education.

Because of a 1980 vote by the Maine Legislature, religious schools may not receive public tuition dollars either. Though parents of religious school students challenged the ban in court, it was upheld. The ban was challenged again after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2002 Zelman decision, which held that it was constitutional for religious schools to receive public funds through Cleveland’s school voucher program. The Supreme Court refused to hear the Maine case, however, upholding the lower court’s ruling that the legislature’s ban on public funding for religious schools was constitutional.

Given the Zelman decision, it is likely that were the legislature to ever reverse itself and allow religious schools to receive funds under the public tuitioning system, that would also be held to be constitutional. Until that day, though, public tuition dollars cannot be used for such schools.

Is school choice in Maine under threat?

Yes. As we explained in a 2008 research report, the recent state mandate requiring school districts to consolidate has endangered school choice options. In fact, the creation of the very first consolidated school district, RSU 1 in Bath, meant the end of high school choice for students in Arrowsic, Phippsburg, West Bath and Woolwich. Since then, school choice has been lost or is being slowly phased out in Durham, Pownal, Etna, Dixmont, Carmel, Levant, Minot and Mechanic Falls.

There is some good news. When put to a vote of the public, school choice was saved in Raymond and Orland. Other Maine towns voted down their consolidation plans rather than lose school choice.

The forces of the education establishment, though, oppose school choice entirely. If school choice supporters in Maine don’t organize and act, school choice will continue to wither away. Please visit out Get Involved page to find out how you can help our effort to save school choice.

How do I get Town Tuitioning for my town?

It would take a change to state law. Under current law, if a school district can demonstrate that it is providing though its own public school system the “free and appropriate public education” the law requires, it is under no obligation to tuition students to private schools or schools in other districts. This is why Town Tuitioning exists almost exclusively in towns that do not operate their own schools.

Supporters of broadening school choice options under Town Tuitioning would need to have legislation passed that would require all Maine towns to tuition students to the school of the family’s choice. If you are interested in working with a coalition of like-minded Mainers to expand school choice options in this way, please visit our Get Involved page.

Is there any other way, besides Town Tuitioning, to move my child to another school?

Yes. State law gives school district superintendents relatively broad powers to approve the transfer of a student from one school district to another. Section 5205 of Title 21-A of state statute states that “two superintendents may approve the transfer of a student from one school administrative unit to another if (1) they find that the transfer is in the student’s best interest; and (2) the student’s parent approves.” This obviously gives the superintendents the ultimate say on this issue, and, given the way schools are funded, most superintendents are loath to let a student, and the money attached to that student, transfer to another school district. State law certainly provides this option, however, if parents feel that the school their child is in today is not a good fit. The decisions made by superintendents in these cases, by the way, can be appealed to the Commissioner of Education.

State statute is silent with regard to whether a superintendent can agree to transfer a student to a private school, though this is often done in the case of students in need of placement for special needs.

Individual school districts sometimes allow a choice of schools within the district as well. Portland allows its high schoolers to choose from among its three high schools, for example, and some of the newer, larger RSU's are discussing intradistrict choice as well.

Is homeschooling allowed in Maine?

Yes. Please see our page on Homeschooling in Maine for more information.

What if I am the parent of a child with special needs?

State and federal law provides that appropriate services must be provided to special needs children, and must be provided in an appropriate setting. If a parent can demonstrate that a child’s special educational needs are not being met, the possibility exists that the local school district can be forced to pay for the child to receive schooling elsewhere.

More details on school choice for children with special needs can be found on our Children with Special Needs page.

How can I get involved in efforts to expand opportunities for school choice?

Please visit our Get Involved page.

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