By GARRY RAYNO, InDepthNH.org

CONCORD — New Hampshire cannot afford two school systems the Senate Education Committee was told at a public hearing on a bill that would remove any salary cap from the Education Freedom Account program Tuesday.

House Bill 115 passed the House by a slim margin and would increase a family’s income limit from 350 to 400 percent of the federal poverty limit, for the 2025-2026 school year, and then eliminate any income threshold for the 2026-2027 school year and thereafter.

Depending on whose figures you use, the change could cost as little as $20 million over the next biennium or more than $100 million.

The prime sponsor of the bill, Rep. Valerie McDonnell, R-Salem, said the bill is preferred to the Senate’s version, which would eliminate means testing 60 days after it becomes law, but caps the number of participants at 10,000 students, although there is a provision to increase the cap by 25 percent if it appears the limit will be reached in an upcoming school year.

She said her bill allows for rolling admissions, which is the current policy, and would not hurt a child because the parents fail to file an application in time.

McDonnell said there is no means test to attend public schools, so the income of a child’s parents, or their zip code, should not determine the educational opportunities that best fit that child’s needs.

However, the vast majority of people testifying at the hearing and the overwhelming majority of people filing electronically opposed expanding the EFA program by eliminating the income cap.

Deb Howes, president of the American Federation of Teachers-NH, said the only constitutional obligation lawmakers have is to fund a robust education for public district school students.

You are not required as a legislature to fund a separate system based on a parent’s choice, particularly at a time when cuts to business taxes and the elimination of the interest and dividends tax have resulted in painful cuts and continued underfunding of the public education system, she said.

“Why do you want to talk about expanding this program now?” Howes asked. “You cannot afford two school systems in New Hampshire when public schools are open to every student.”
Sarah Thorne of Holderness, a retired public high school science teacher, told the committee she is “very concerned the EFA system is not free and it certainly is not fair.”
Public schools are overburdened and debilitated by the downshifting of so much need from the state budget to the local budget, she said.

“This kind of burden undefined in fiscal impact is tearing our communities apart,” Thorne said. “I hope you are not the legislature that allows universal vouchers to take effect.”

She said she raised two children here and they are now around 30 years old and are asking themselves if New Hampshire is a place where they want to invest themselves and raise a family.

“A bill like this is making them pause,” Thorne said. “They do not see this as the kind of community and future they see for themselves.”
Janet Ward of Hopkinton, who is the vice president of the League of Women Voters, NH, said taxpayer dollars should be able to be tracked to ensure they are used legally and for the stated purchases.

She said she can track that information about her local school district, but it is unavailable for the EFA program, noting the Legislative Budget Assistant is required to do a performance audit on the program, but has been unable to because the organization that administers the program, the Children’s Scholarship Fund NH, will not allow access to the information.

Once the money is awarded, Ward said, there is no appreciable oversight.

“It disappears from taxpayer oversight,” Ward said. “This is taxation without representation.”

And much like the British colonies, the citizens will also eventually rise up and revolt against school vouchers, she said.

Some EFA families can well afford to send their children to private schools without her tax money or anybody else’s, she said.

Unlike at a hearing last week before the House Education Funding Committee, several parents of children in the EFA program did testify in favor of the program.

Alicia Houston of Nashua said the program provides an opportunity for every child to uniquely tailor his or her educational setting to make their dreams become reality.

“Every child is unique,” she said, “and the program empowers parents to find the situation that best suits (their child’s) needs.”
She said in other states there are as many as 60,000 students thriving under similar programs that ensure it is not just the wealthy who have access to a transformative educational choice.

Education should be the great equalizer, Houston said, and under the EFA program, parents, not bureaucrats, become the overseer of their children’s education.

She said EFA programs do not harm public schools as some claim, but rather foster competition which improves all schools.

But Nancy Brennan of Weare said the bill would hurt her town where they struggle every year just to pass the school budget. 

She said she would like to see the money spent on EFAs go to the public school districts that struggle to support public education due to lower property values.

“This isn’t a program we should be supporting,” Brennan said, noting “it really isn’t about choice.” 

If you have disabilities, or receive special education services or are gay, many of the schools approved for the EFA program will not take you, Brennan said. 

Other students whose parents are poor could receive a $5,200 grant and still not have enough money to send their child to an alternative program, she said.

“I don’t understand the choice part of this,” Brennan said. “Most kids are not leaving (public schools);1 most who get EFA grants are already gone.”
Like Brennan, a number of speakers noted the vast majority of students in the program — upwards of about 75 percent — are either in private or religious schools or homeschooled when they joined the program.

Rep. David Luneau, D-Hopkinton, said reviewing the number of school districts that receive the step down payments for students who leave public schools is less than 2 percent of students and the rate has been going down as the income limit has increased.

He said that does not save school districts any money but most of the students going into the program were never in public schools and never cost school districts money. The program is a new expense that will drain the Education Trust Fund dry, he said. 

The fund pays the state adequacy grants to cities and towns and also the state per pupil cost for charter schools as well as EFA grants. The fund had a substantial surplus several years ago but will need to draw on the general fund during the next biennium to cover its obligations.

Patty Long of Peterborough was concerned there is no accounting for how the money for the program was used for the last school year, and raised issues with how some of the funds were spent the year before.

For that year, some of the funds were used for a summer education program, and another item showed a piano purchase, but not lessons.

She said another was for a dance academy. “If you remove the cap from the program, you will bankrupt our state at the same time we defund Medicaid, the colleges and disabled people,” Long said. “You are taking from the poorest of the poor and giving it to the rich.”

She said she and her girlfriend were hiking and ran into some kids during the day and asked how they could be out hiking when most kids were in school.

The kids said they are homeschooled and can do whatever they want, Long said, and they said the state gives them money and they buy skis.
“I have not slept since January,” Long said, “I am so concerned for our state. This is personal for me.”

Kelly Santos of Hudson supported the bill saying program grants help make it possible to find the best educational programs for her two children, ages nine and 13, who are gifted but have learning disabilities.

They tried working with their local school’s special education department for several years before his Individual Education Plan IEP was denied.

They found a private school that worked beautifully for her older son but was not a good fit for her younger son who is now homeschooled.

“My husband and I work tirelessly—he has two jobs, and I am a substitute teacher at James’ school—to provide for our family,” Santos said. “Even so, we depend on EFA and ETC funds to make this work.”

The bill allows state funds to support parents who chose not to navigate the special education system, she said, as they try to find the best education for their children.

“There is no one-size-fits-all solution for education,” Santos said. “Every child deserves a chance to find their glass slipper.”
But others noted despite what advocates say, the program is not popular with the public.

Rep. Hope Damon, D-Croydon, noted the electronic system shows that 95 percent of responders to the bill oppose school vouchers.

This spring, 17 communities overwhelmingly approved a petitioned warrant article urging lawmakers to oppose a universal voucher system, and one community tabled the article, she said.

Under the current financial environment tough choices have to be made, Damon said, but to spend $100 million on expanding the voucher program while hardworking Granite Staters are asked to pay for an affluent families’ child’s education and cutting the university system by $57.5 million is not responsible.

“Do we really want to ignore our voters’ voices?” Damon asked. “The universal message here is not support for vouchers, it is really nearly universal opposition.

“I don’t believe subsidizing the rich is a New Hampshire value we were elected 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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