New Hampshire government wants to do away with public education in the state.
The current administration has boldly demonstrated this by:
- Passing legislation that fully puts the responsibility to fund state public education onto property owners. (House Bill 1815)
- Abdicating their responsibility to provide an adequate public education by petitioning the Supreme Court to overturn the Claremont Decisions.
- Cutting tax revenues to benefit the wealthiest individuals and corporations in the state, including many of the legislators who have supported these laws.
- Systematically undermining public trust in public schools by pushing narratives falsely claiming public schools are broadly indoctrinating children with critical race theory in an effort to pass sweeping state restrictions, stoke parental fear and undermine local school boards.
- Draining public school funds to provide vouchers to families who had previously enrolled their children in private and religious schools and calling them Education Freedom Accounts.
By the 2020s, New Hampshire ranked last (50th) in the nation for state-provided public education funding as a percentage of total education revenue, with local property taxes covering roughly 63% to 70% of public school revenues. Property wealth varies widely among New Hampshire towns which means vastly unequal tax property rates. Nothing has been done to alleviate this disparity.
In 1993 and 1997, New Hampshire’s Supreme Court ruled that the state was obligated to fund an adequate education using state-level revenue rather than relying disproportionately on local property taxes. These are known as the Claremont rulings. Due to political resistance, these rulings were never put into effect. Yet right now, New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office and conservative lawmakers are petitioning the Court to formally overturn the Claremont decisions. In May 2026, HB 1815 was signed into law. This law restricts what the state is legally forced to cover. It ensures that the financial burden of public education continues to shift onto local property taxpayers.
Adding insult to injury, and following in the footsteps of the current federal administration, New Hampshire laws have recently been passed radically cutting business taxes and largely benefitting large out of state and multi-national corporations. Further, New Hampshire eliminated its Interest and Dividends Taxes beginning in 2025, benefitting the wealthiest residents of New Hampshire. According to the NH Fiscal Policy Institution, these combined tax cuts resulted in between $795 million and $1.17 billion in forgone state revenue between 2016 and 2024.
So now that the current administration has washed their hands of funding public education, greatly depleted state revenues to benefit the wealthy, and made public education the enemy, they’ve pushed to have a referendum question (Question 2) on the Nov. 3 ballot to give property owners the option to join them in de-funding public education. It rationalizes the cuts by couching it in language that talks about fewer students and too much administration without any guarantee that courses, teachers and essential services won’t be cut as a result. I call that cynical and, at worst, sinister.
I am a property owner in New Hampshire and have no children in the public schools. I benefit from the current tax cuts and will benefit from lower property taxes. I am also a retired public school teacher of 40 years and a parent of young adults who were educated in public schools. I know what it’s like to try to meet student needs through COVID-19, hostile public policies and fewer and fewer resources. I know how weak public schools erode the morale of a community and lower property values.
If Question 2 passes and there is no responsibility or will on the part of the state to support or stipulate an adequate public education, how will public schools survive in New Hampshire? The answer is public schools will not survive. And that is the goal of current Gov. Kelly Ayotte and her “Free Stater” constituents.
Nobody wants to live or conduct business in a state without adequate K-12 public education and a failing state college and university system? Would you?
Jane Walsh lives in New London and is the chair of the New London Democratic Committee.