Parents and educators overwhelmingly oppose the New Hampshire voucher proposal, which would be the most expansive in the country. In terms of turnout, voucher opponents outnumber proponents by 6-1. Proponents claim that it is only educators who oppose vouchers, but many parents turned out to testify against the legislation.
Yet the Republican sponsors of the bill are forging ahead, claiming that so few children want a voucher that it would have no impact on the budget. In fact, the bill would have the state pick up the cost of tuition for children currently attending religious and private schools, and would fund homeschoolers as well. Critics estimate the cost at $100 million per year.
As background to the discussion, take a look at the research on vouchers. This report from the Center for American Progress finds that using a voucher is equivalent to missing about one-third of a year in school. Yet 23 states, including New Hampshire, are going full speed ahead to enact a harmful and demonstrably ineffective waste of public dollars.
The Senate’s school voucher bill drew a crowd debating the merits and liabilities of the program that would allow parents to receive state money to find the best educational fit for their child.
But opponents called Senate Bill 130 the latest attempt to privatize education and alleged it would set up a parallel education system with one tier for the well-to-do and the other for those who cannot afford an alternative for their children.
They said the proposal would be the most expansive educational choice program in the country and the most lax, with little accountability or transparency.
Supporters said the pandemic has heightened awareness that every child learns differently and needs options and choices to reach their full potential.They said the program would not only help students, it would save state taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, although opponents claimed it would cost the state that much money.
The House had a nearly identical bill, but the House Education Committee decided to hold the bill for a year to try to improve some of the flaws.The ranking Democrat on the House Education Committee, Rep. Mel Myler, D-Hopkinton, urged his Senate counterparts to either do that or recommend killing the bill...
One of the bill’s sponsors, Rep. Glenn Cordelli, R-Tuftonboro, said the House hearing on House Bill 20 drew 1,100 parents in support showing grassroots support. And he said a recent poll indicates 70 percent of New Hampshire adults approve of vouchers.
He did not say that nearly 7,000 people signed in opposition to the House bill.“On one side you have lobbyists and advocates and on the other side are parents,” Cordelli said. “It is the school units versus the kids.”
Carl Ladd, executive director of the NH School Administrators Association took issue with Cordelli’s statement.“This school system versus student argument implies that advocates for public education are anti-student, that is a real disservice to educators,” Ladd said. “I really take umbrage at that particular characterization…”
The student’s parents would receive the basic state adequacy grant of about $3,700 as well as additional money if the student qualified for free or reduced lunches, special education services, English as a Second Language instruction, or failed to reach English proficiency.
The average grant is estimated to be $4,600.
Will $4,600 be enough to gain admission to an elite private school? No. It will be enough to pay for a low-quality private or religious school that hires uncertified teachers and cannot match the offerings or facilities of the public schools. Or you might think of it as a transfer of public funds to students already in private/religious schools and home-schooled.
The Commissioner claimed that between 0.01 to 2.43 percent of eligible students would use the voucher. So, choose your rationale: either vouchers are wildly popular or hardly anyone will want one.
Commissioner Edelblut’s goal is to wipe out public schools. The people of New Hampshire will have to stop him. He is not a conservative. He is an anarchist.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“A former school voucher advocate who worked for the Arizona equivalent of Americans for Prosperity NH, a Koch Networked funded organization, warned the Senate committee if they pass this bill, school choice advocates will be back for more.
“This is not about school choice and education,” said Charles Siler. “This is really about the role of government in people’s lives and it will cripple education.”
This is absolutely true and I don’t know how any ed reformer can deny it at this point.
They first put in the vouchers and then expand the vouchers every year, and that has happened in every single state ed reformers control.
What’s happened in Ohio is they literally get nothing done OTHER than ed reform privatization bills- every single session is dedicated to this ideological crusade. Public schools are neglected year after year, session after session, while lawmakers hustle to meet ed reform lobbyist’s demands.
Ohio lawmakers haven’t gotten anything accomplished for public school students in years. There’s a Democratic minority in the statehouse who attempt to get some work done on behalf of the 90% of students of students in the state who attend public schools, but they are outnumbered by the lawmakers captured by the ed reform “movement”.
Get used to it, New Hampshire. Your public schools will now be utterly abandoned in favor of whatever privatization scheme the ed reform lobby is selling.
Chiara If these Republicans are anything like the ones in Congress, or Texas, or some other states, they won’t be shamed into doing what is either right for the children or what their parents and teachers want. If not shaming or the polity, then by omission we can ask if it’s only about what their corporate and neo-liberal donors want. What other motivations would there be? CBK
23 states are contemplating voucher bills. I would not be surprised to learn that the template was written by ALEC.
Diane How easy to do one’s job when you can just refer to the neo-liberal script. CBK
“Jane Bergeron-Beaulieu executive director of the NH Association of Special Education Administrators, said state law allows students in private or home schools to use public school services for less than 50 percent of the school day.
“That would set up a situation for dual enrollment,” she said. “A student could get tutoring for half of the day and come back to the public school to finish to get special ed services, but the money and resources have left.”
That might be an interesting question for all the ed reform academics and org employees to ponder. Since public schools are required to provide services to private school students, does the same duty apply to private schools now that private schools will be publicly funded?
Why not?
Not that we’ll ever get an answer, or even get the question asked. The ed reform echo chamber doesn’t do real analysis. They’re professional cheerleaders for privatization schemes. They’re all cheerleading this voucher scheme like they cheerlead all voucher schemes, with no analysis at all. The scheme has the “correct” ideology for ed reform so that’s the end of any analysis.
Several supporters criticized opponents with Department of Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut telling the committee they will hear the same arguments that were made against charter schools and the current tax credit scholarship program but neither one devastated public education or took millions of dollars from traditional public schools.
“This refrain is tired and this refrain is demonstratively not true,” Edelblut said, “and it does a disservice to public schools and to students and parents and taxpayers.”
The public should pay attention to how ed reformers have quietly moved the goalposts over the last 20 years. When these people were originally hired the public was told they would “improve” public education. Twenty years later they defend their work by assuring us they won’t destroy public schools.
That wasn’t what we were sold. We’re now paying thousands of public employees to NOT destroy public schools? What value are they adding? Couldn’t I hire people who work to improve public schools instead?
Is this the ed reform pitch now? “We won’t destroy your schools while in pursuit of our ideological agenda”? I’m supposed to pay them for this?
where the money goes: paying public employees to not hurt the public
“He is not a conservative. He is an anarchist.”
Is there such a thing as a traitorous, fascist anarchist?
My reading is that the proposed bill would give about $4,500 to every single student in NH who go to private school. Wow.