By GARRY RAYNO, InDepthNH.org
CONCORD — Democratic state Sen. Suzanne Prentiss’s reign as chair of the Education Freedom Account Oversight Committee was short-lived, as the three Republicans on the committee voted to remove her at Tuesday’s meeting.
She was replaced by Rep. Rick Ladd, R-Haverhill, who was absent from the previous meeting, when Prentiss was voted in as chair.
Prentiss’s Senate colleague and former committee chair, Sen. Ruth Ward, R-Stoddard, made the motion to vacate Prentiss as chair, and her motion was seconded by Rep. Kristin Noble, R-Bedford, and they moved to make Ladd chair instead.
Prentiss noted that the Senate has often had a minority member chair of committees because of his or her expertise.
“It is not out of order or historical context for a minority party representative like myself to be the chair of this committee,” Prentiss said. “It is unfortunate that when one member of a committee . . . is unable to attend, that it would impact the trust and what I consider the credibility of my ability to do this type of job.”
She noted she has worked in a bipartisan manner since she came to the Senate including with Ward and Ladd. “I’m incredibly disappointed,” Prentiss said and she left the meeting.
The committee, which has oversight over the Education Freedom Account voucher program, had not met this year, although the Legislature approved and Gov. Kelly Ayotte signed Senate Bill 295, which removed any earnings cap for the program, until two weeks ago.
Removing the financial cap increased enrollment in the program from 5,321 students during the 2024-2025 school year, to 10,510 this school year, and increased the cost from $28 million to $52 million.
The program is on course to be $28 million over the $87 million lawmakers appropriated this biennium.
The committee Tuesday on a partisan 3-1 vote approved its yearly report which was due at the end of November, but did not make any recommendations.
Committee member Rep. Peggy Balboni, D-Rye, said she did not see how the committee could make any recommendations for program changes when they had not met all year and not discussed nor analyzed any proposals.
Ladd agreed there should not be any recommendations for legislation in the report but said he was open to suggestions for areas that need the committee’s attention.
Balboni raised the issue of special education students, which in the draft report from Ward noted special education students particularly benefited from removing the cap as their numbers increased 136 percent.
The number of special education students enrolled this year is 890 which is 8.47 percent of the total enrollment and last year 435 students were enrolled which was 7.55 percent of that school year’s total enrollment.
Balboni noted EFA students do not have to go through the same qualifying process as special education students in public schools. A medical professional of any kind can qualify a child as disabled whether the student needs additional services or not under State Board of Education approved rules.
If a child is qualified as disabled under the program, the student’s grant increases $2,185.
“If the child has a certification from a doctor that says that they have a medical disability, that doesn’t exactly mean that they’re a special needs student,” Balboni said, “because there are students in the public schools that have disabilities that aren’t considered special needs students. I find that particular statistic somewhat misleading.”
Ladd said the issue would be before the committee and the special education funding commission as well.
He noted in public schools a child has an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) and once it is met, the student no longer receives additional services and the district no longer receives the differentiated aid.
He said a child has a speech impediment early in his or her education and receives special services, overcomes the problem in three years and no longer needs the IEP.
That doesn’t happen in the EFA program, Ladd noted. In the EFA program once a student qualifies for the differentiated aid, the student’s family continues to receive the additional money until the child graduates or leaves the program.
“That’s one component that is something that I think should be on our horizon and that we address,” Ladd said, “and we get more technical support from both the Department (of Education) and from the (Children’s Scholarship Fund NH) organization.”
Balboni said she still finds the statement misleading saying the additional funding is based on diagnosis and not quantified special educational needs.
She said many students may have ADHD but do not have a corresponding developmental disability and do not receive special services in public schools.
The committee also debated some of the other statistics in the draft report Ladd presented including the number of students who are in the priority category whose families earn less than 350 percent of the federal poverty level that allows enrollment to exceed the 10,000 cap this school year.
The committee members were told the information came from the Department of Education who has to track the numbers of students on the free and reduced lunch program which provides additional aid of $2,392.92 per student on top of the base per pupil grant of $4,266.
The average grant this school year is $4,911 down from $5,265 last school year.
The percentage of students who receive the additional aid for free and reduced lunch has steadily declined since the program’s first year — the 2021-2022 school year — when it was 54 percent of the students.
The percentage of low-income students this school year is 19.19 percent, a precipitous drop from last year’s 39.22 percent.
Ladd went over the changes he made in the draft report submitted by Ward, including clarifying that there are three methods EFA students have to move from grade to grade: a standard achievement test such as the SAT or PSAT, the state assessment test, and a portfolio reviewed by a certified teacher.
He removed “a report card” from a public or non-public school, from Ward’s draft as another method because it is not in the statute as a means of advancing.
Ladd also included a section on ClassWallet, a platform that distributes the grant money to EFA program vendors including tuition payments to religious and private schools, which is the bulk of the money awarded in the program, as well as for homeschooling expenses.
Ladd said there have been reports in the news about the company’s Chinese investment, but he said that was when the company first began and not today when the company provides the same services to many other states with similar programs.
Balboni also suggested the committee’s meeting could be streamed through the legislature’s system noting there is a lot of interest.
The Senate does not automatically live stream non standing committee meetings, and consequently a public education advocacy organization Reaching Higher NH had live streamed past meetings.
Ladd said he had no problem with live-streaming the meetings, but he did not want to have remote meetings where one or more of the committee members attend electronically.
A minority report will also be released done by former committee member Sen. Debra Altschiller, D-Stratham.
Her report states only 3.3 percent, or 343 out of 10,510 students, or “switchers,” left public schools to join the voucher program this school year, the remaining 96.7 percent were never in public schools and were not receiving state tax dollars before they entered the EFA program.
“The stated purposes of the program has now gone far afield and has become a subsidy for families who were never enrolled in a local neighborhood school, public charter school or Virtual Learning academy program,” she said. “This is a clear indication that the program is not meeting its purported intended goals and instead has created a taxpayer-funded subsidy for financially thriving parents.”
The program was originally touted as allowing low-income parents to find an educational alternative for a child if he or she did not do well in the public school environment.
Altschiller’s report also notes a growing cottage industry for the parochial school system of New Hampshire requiring applicants to secure Education Freedom Account or voucher money before submitting an application for financial aid so the schools can continue to grow and flourish at taxpayer expense.
She said the money spent through the voucher program needs to be tracked to ensure it is used for educational purposes.
Altschiller said the state taxpayer grant money has been used to buy toys, summer camp stays and ski passes, all things not available to public school students.
“Growing the EFA voucher program does not save New Hampshire money,” she said. “Sending government subsidies to financially thriving families while the state is not meeting its constitutional obligation and court-ordered adequacy payments is neither responsible nor prudent.”
Committee members were to receive a draft majority report with the suggested changes later Tuesday to review before a final version is written.
Garry Rayno may be reached at garry.rayno@yahoo.com.