While Vermont is proposing to reinvent public education, New Hampshire is moving rapidly to de-invent it.
As we suggested in this space a couple of weeks ago, the reach of Vermont’s ambitious reform effort may exceed its grasp, but we take the legislation enacted this year to be a good faith effort to put the public schools on a sustainable educational and financial footing. What the Republican majority in the New Hampshire Legislature seems to be up to, with the support of Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte, is to undermine public education as a force for social cohesion.
That goal is being accomplished through a web of actions and inactions that place onerous burdens on public school systems and local taxpayers while at the same time starving them of resources. Thus is the dream of libertarians becoming a reality.
This may seem to be a surprising assertion given the recent New Hampshire Supreme Court ruling that the state is required to increase aid to education. But we think there is less to that than meets the eye. While the Supreme Court affirmed a lower court ruling that the base amount of “adequacy” aid the state provides, $4,266, is inadequate and that it should be raised to at least $7,356, it overturned the Superior Court’s order that the state immediately start spending that amount. Instead it declared that it is now “incumbent upon the legislative and executive branches to remedy the constitutional deficiency that we have identified.”
We boldly predict that this will never happen so long as the Republican incumbents in the Statehouse and governor’s office remain in power. There is every reason to believe that the Legislature will continue to ignore this mandate, as it has done for more than 30 years since the court’s landmark Claremont decisions in the 1990s. Those rulings said that all students were entitled under the New Hampshire Constitution to an adequate education; that it was the responsibility of the state to provide it; and that it must be funded equitably.
In fact, legislative leaders suggested that they might simply ignore the most recent ruling on the theory that the courts can’t order the legislative branch to do anything. Ayotte responded by noting that New Hampshire is among the top 10 states in per pupil funding. Which is true if you count local, state and federal spending. But a report last spring by the National Education Association found that New Hampshire contributed the smallest proportion of state dollars per student in the country for the 2023-24 school year.
Also worth noting is that the state Supreme Court earlier this year validated the manner in which the statewide property tax for education is administered, even though it has the effect of penalizing the taxpayers in property-poor districts while subsidizing those in property-rich districts. This also glaringly contravenes the original Claremont mandate to pay for an adequate education in an equitable fashion.
As to imposing other burdens, the Legislature during this year’s session enacted a broadened version of the so-called parental bill of rights, which contains instructional opt-outs and information-sharing requirements that promise to make life even more difficult for teachers and administrators.
In 2021, the state enacted a “divisive concepts” statute that attempted to regulate teaching on such matters as race and gender. A federal judge eventually ruled that the law was unconstitutionally vague and invalidated it, but it undoubtedly made teachers gun-shy about addressing pressing societal issues.
During this year’s session, the House approved legislation that would have capped local school budget increases at the rate of inflation unless a supermajority of voters chose to override it. Ultimately, the effort failed but undoubtedly will be renewed.
The Legislature this year also scrapped the income limits on Republicans’ cherished Educational Freedom Accounts, meaning that even the wealthiest parents can divert the basic per-pupil state adequacy grant from local public schools and spend it on private school tuition or home schooling expenses. The first day of enrollment after the income-eligibility cap was lifted saw a surge of 500 new applications. The law caps participation for the first year of expansion at 10,000 students, with provisions to continue to expand it going forward. If the 10,000 cap were reached, the total cost of the program this year would be $50 million, up from $27.7 million last year.
This program is promoted as providing parents with school choice. However, it does not provide a choice to parents who believe in universal public education and object to their tax dollars subsidizing primarily religious schools.
Connecting the dots, these actions chip away at the idea that the shared experience of public education is fundamental to democracy.