By GARRY RAYNO, InDepthNH.org

CONCORD — Little support was shown for the Senate’s proposal for expanding the Education Freedom Account program to eliminate any income requirement Tuesday.

Senate Bill 295 would drop the current salary cap to be eligible for the program 60 days after the bill is signed into law and would cap the number of students in the program at 10,000 beginning with the next school year.

During the two-hour hearing on the bill before the House Education Funding Committee, the only support for the bill came from a bill sponsor and the Legislative Director for the American Federation for Children, a national nonprofit advocating for school choice based in Dallas, Texas.

Everyone else testifying opposed the bill and expanding the program with a number of people telling lawmakers they need to fix the current inequitable school funding system before even considering any expansion.

Donna Keeley of Pittsfield said she has lived in the community for over 30 years and never had children go to the schools but has supported public schools and has a $14,000 property tax bill.

“That is the price we pay for (the state’s) inadequate funding,” she said, noting her nieces teach in public schools in the Lakes Region and have things they do not have in Pittsfield’s schools and beautiful facilities.

“This bill does not begin to fix the problem, does not lower tax rates and does not help our public schools, the students, the staff or taxpayers,” Keeley said. “Please fix it, please fix it, our taxes are crazy and we need relief.”

Others were concerned about the lack of information available about the program, the list of participating schools and how much each received, how well students were performing, and why state taxpayers’ dollars were supporting religious schools when the state constitution clearly forbids it.

“What about the separation of church and state,” Keeley said. “Did I miss something?”

But bill sponsor, Sen. Victoria Sullivan, whose children participate in the program, said New Hampshire taxpayers and voters made clear they support Education Freedom Accounts.

“Parents come up to me all the time and say they are happy to choose the education environment” that is best for their children, she said, noting the enrollment cap will also provide budget stability for the state.

Parents and students deserve stability and assurances they will continue to be able to use the program and not have the insecurity of a two-year legislative cycle, Sullivan said.

Wealthy parents still send their children to public schools that cost $21,000 per student for free, she said, or they can use an EFA grant of $5,000 to follow the child.

The funds can be used for many purposes, Sullivan said, including going to other public schools.

When public schools were established they were for protestant students and the Bible was read, she said, but when Catholics began to arrive in large numbers, the bigotry and discrimination forced them to open their own schools.

“It is time to end the discrimination and bigotry and segregation of our education system,” Sullivan said.

Others disagreed saying the program is not popular with the vast majority of state residents, with Rep. Hope Damon, noting the House electronic system shows 861 opposing the bill and only 31 supporting it, adding every email she received on the bill was in opposition.

Rep. David Luneau, D-Hopkinton, asked Sullivan with about 5,000 students in the program now, where all of the other students would be coming from.

He said according to the Department of Education, only about 200 students left public schools this year to join the EFA program.

He and many others noted that the vast majority of EFA students were already in religious or private schools or homeschooled when they joined the program and are not leaving public schools and are not saving taxpayers $73 million as outgoing Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut continues to claim.

David Trumble of Weare told the committee in Arizona after that state approved universal vouchers, a survey was done of 100 students joining the program and one was from a low-income household and 28 were from high income households.

That is just what will happen in New Hampshire, he said, if universal vouchers are approved.

“There are no switchers, all the money is going to upper income families just like Arizona,” Trumble said. “There is no savings to public schools and it is indefensible that argument is still being made.”
Former public school teacher Mary Wilkie of Concord told the committee lawmakers are not living up to the fiduciary duty of assuring the appropriate and lawful use of public funds.

She said she could not understand why the majority of the House is in favor of school vouchers when the administrator of the program withholds basic information about where the dollars are going.

The first two years of the program the Children’s Scholarship Fund of NH, which administers the program, published the list of vendors who received EFA grant money and how much, she said, but did not publish those figures for the third year. She said she was told it was because an employee was on leave, but that was 10 months ago.

“Without having any performance audit of program management,” Wilkie said, “I do not understand how the legislature can close its eyes to basic questions, common reasonable accountability measures. It boggles my mind.”
Patrick Graff, the Legislative Director of the American Federation for Children, said of the three plans to expand the EFA program, his organization prefers SB 295 because it moves to universal EFAs immediately and does not wait until the second year of the next biennial budget as the other two do.

Judging from what is happening around the country, he said, the more you “scale up” EFAs, the greater it is for public school competition which improves education for everyone.

He cited Florida where they have had EFAs for 15 years and said the state’s education system is now sixth in the country while New Hampshire is 28, but several representatives challenged his assertion.

Graff said it is much cheaper and effective than increasing funding for public education in improving the overall quality.

Rep. Sallie Fellows, D-Holderness, said it appears in Florida they target low-income students in public schools for the program so the ones that need help the most no longer receive a public education, noting there is no mechanism to determine how well the program in Florida or in other states do when you cannot see the data.

Graff said most EFA programs do not require state testing because the curriculum in the alternative schools do not have to follow the state’s so most require national norm testing or portfolios.

If a parent is unhappy with the program they get feedback and they decide whether to keep their child in the program or return to public schools.

Letting parents decide if their student improved or tracked with others does not sound like a way to measure how well those students are doing, Fellows said.

Parents should be the ones deciding their child’s academics, Graff said.

Former public school teacher Nancy Brennan of Weare said there is “all this talk about choice in education,” but questioned how many families really have choice under the program if they are poor and can’t afford private school tuition, or their child is gay or disabled.

The more affluent will get to choose their child’s education, she said, “while we get to choose what to cut in public schools or what program not to spend on when property taxes skyrocket.”

She said those on EFAs can sign up for “a fairly sketchy $2,000 bonus,” for just being diagnosed as special needs and not having to satisfy public school testing requirements.

This legislature has made the choice to reject town preference and to impose a tax cap on school budgets, to take away the arts council, and not to feed more children in schools, Brennan said, and chooses to ignore the overwhelming public sentiment against school vouchers.

Others were just as direct in their opposition.

“Money is tight, rules that apply to public education should apply to private education when taxpayer dollars are used,” said Sandra Cannon of Atkinson, “and the state should be administrating EFAs so taxpayer dollars are accounted for.”

The committee did not make an immediate recommendation on the bill.

Garry Rayno may be reached at garry.rayno@yahoo.com.

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