By GARRY RAYNO, Distant Dome
The advocates for opening the state’s school voucher program, Education Freedom Accounts, to all students in the state regardless of their parents’ income did a massive public relations and organization effort before the public hearing last week on House 115, which would remove the salary cap from the four-year old program.
While many parents with their children turned out for the public hearing that needed three rooms in the Legislative Office Building to hold the attendees, the people responding electronically —many posting testimony — on the bill were opposed by a more than four-to-one margin, 3,414-791.
Groups like the Koch Foundation funded by Americans for Prosperity sent out at least three email “urgent” messages to its followers encouraging supporters to attend the public hearing.
Department of Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut sent out a press release the day before the public hearing with the headline “New Hampshire’s cost per pupil continues upward trend,” indicating the state’s average per-pupil cost increased from $20,323 last school year to $21,545 this school year and noting the enrollment has been trending down.
In his press release he also noted the average national cost per pupil at $15,591, while noting that New Hampshire’s largest school districts were the cheapest with Manchester at $17,734, Nashua at $18,270, Bedford at $18,498 and Concord at $23,159, while rural Pittsburg, at the very top of the state, has the highest cost at $44,484.
“The taxpayers of New Hampshire have worked hard to support students, families and our public schools, increasing funding by more than $400 million since 2021, resulting in a record high cost per pupil,” Edelblut said. “New Hampshire remains dedicated to continuing efforts to expand educational opportunities and pathways to help every child succeed in a fiscally responsible approach. The persistent trend of declining student enrollment combined with rising costs creates substantial financial strain on school districts, taxpayers and communities, necessitating new and creative approaches to educating our children in a system that can be sustained over the long term.”
In other words these skyrocketing public education costs cannot be sustained, and efforts like the EFA program is the wave of the future for taxpayers and students, although the program offers no guarantees the state money flowing into the program is being used for what it was intended or wisely by parents.
He does not mention that New Hampshire is either 49th or 50th in financial support for K to 12th grade public education, while cities and towns are picking up over 70 percent of the costs of public education and yet their residents are the ones approving the budgets that increased per-pupil spending.
Edelblut also doesn’t mention that the state downshifted the obligation of hundreds of millions of dollars over the last 15 years to school districts, municipalities and counties when it stopped paying 35 percent of the retirement costs for employees, or that he has failed over the last five years to request additional money for the special education catastrophic aid program although costs have been rising substantially further downshifting millions more in costs to local school districts.
And the public hearing on the bill was held on one of the earliest days in the session, which says the Republican leadership wants to separate this bill from the state budget as much as possible.
A trend of declining revenues, the drying up of the federal pandemic aid and past surpluses, along with the elimination of the interest and dividends tax, which is a huge benefit to the state’s wealthiest residents, and business tax rate cuts will make difficult work for lawmakers and new Gov. Kelly Ayotte, who gives her first budget address next month.
The GOP leadership doesn’t want to discuss the $100 million in new expenses in HB 115 when budget discussions hit snags over what to fund.
During the public hearing, a number of parents brought their children with them to talk about the wonderful things they have been able to accomplish by using the state taxpayer money for alternative education settings.
Many also trashed public schools saying they failed their children although the public schools continue to serve about 90 percent of the state’s students.
Some of the parents noted public schools don’t align with their beliefs or political philosophies, which really says they do not want their children to be exposed to different beliefs or cultures.
David Trumble of Weare noted that some of the private and religious schools don’t take LGBTQ+, special education or English-as-a-second language students.
“There is nothing universal about universal vouchers. The only universal option is the public schools because they accept every single child and give every one of them a good education. That is why you have a constitutional duty to fund them. You have no obligation to fund the private schools,” Trumble told the House Education Funding Committee.
“Our first obligation is to fund the public schools.”
Under the EFA program, 75 percent of the students did not attend public schools when they joined the program, meaning that neither the school districts nor the state was paying for their education, their parents were.
In other states where universal vouchers have been approved almost all of the new money goes to families currently sending their children to private or religious schools or being homeschooled, which is a new expense to those states just as it would be in New Hampshire, where the potential for additional costs is over $100 million annually.
The money for New Hampshire EFA program comes from the Education Trust Fund which also provides almost all of the state education aid to public schools including charter schools.
The trust fund once had over a $200 million surplus, but ended the last fiscal year June 30, 2024 at $159 million, and is projected to drop to $125 million at the end of this fiscal year.
If the bill passes, it won’t be long before money is drained and the squeeze is on public education because of the new education system set up by the legislature that many told the committee last week lacks accountability and transparency.
Many of the people in opposition to the bill said the state first needs to meet its constitutional obligation to pay for an adequate education for the state’s children before setting up any new program costing hundreds of millions of dollars.
But universal vouchers are not only a priority for New Hampshire Republicans, it is a priority at the national level as well.
It continues a movement begun in the late 1950s and 1960s advised by James Buchanan, an economist from the University of Chicago, who was influenced by Frank Knight as was Milton Friedman.
The plan was to both develop more conservative Republicans through the education system and through state legislatures.
One of the targets was public education and reforming it into a private system where if you have the money you can receive a good education, but if you don’t, well too bad.
While the EFA program was touted as helping lower income parents find an alternative education setting for their children who did not fare well in a public education environment, it has essentially been a subsidy program for parents whose children were already in private and religious schools or homeschooled.
Many of the parents speaking in favor of expanding the EFA program said they wanted every child to experience what they experienced.
Rep. Ross Berry, R-Weare, told the committee why should the EFA program be means tested, when public schools don’t require wealthy parents to pay for their children to attend.
That was one of the catch phrases uttered several times during the hearing along with “support for the student not the system.”
Someone had distributed the talking points.
But several opponents noted the program would not help eliminate educational inequity, it would exacerbate it, because a lower-income parent would not be able to afford to send their child to one of the private schools where the average tuition is over $20,000 with a $5,200 voucher, while those already able to send their child to a private school will be able to cut their costs by the same amount.
Once again New Hampshire is a great place to live if you have money, if you don’t, not so much.
The EFA program is part of the push for individual rights over the common good. You see it in education where parents want to remove their child from those who do not have the same beliefs or philosophies, you also see in health care with the establishment of specialty and boutique practices where if you have the money you receive the best care, and in the judicial system where if you have enough money you never have to be accountable for your crimes.
If HB 115 passes, and it probably will, the legislature will have created a situation where the public schools including charter schools will face operating with less state aid, not more as the courts said the state needs, and that will impact many sectors including businesses who will not know if the state has a sufficiently educated workforce or not.
The state should not want businesses asking that question.
Garry Rayno may be reached at garry.rayno@yahoo.com.
Distant Dome by veteran journalist Garry Rayno explores a broader perspective on the State House and state happenings for InDepthNH.org. Over his three-decade career, Rayno covered the NH State House for the New Hampshire Union Leader and Foster’s Daily Democrat. During his career, his coverage spanned the news spectrum, from local planning, school and select boards, to national issues such as electric industry deregulation and Presidential primaries. Rayno lives with his wife Carolyn in New London.
