In a letter on Jan. 4, a reader argued that it is time to end Education Freedom Accounts on fiscal grounds. According to his reasoning, it is a luxury to spend $27 million on 5,000 students, so they can be home schooled or attend private schools. However, he fails to point out that this expenditure, which seems like a large number at first glance, but in reality amounts to $5,400 per student, allows well-meaning, motivated, and inspired parents to educate their children without extracting an average of $20,000 per pupil from local town budgets. The fiscally minded would note that amounts to over $100 million that could apparently be freed from local school budgets, though personally, I do not take this maximalist view and would prefer some remain as an investment in results-proven local school programs.

Nevertheless, that the reader criticizes the investment of $5,400 to avoid $20,000 in local tax burden, while complaining that NH is 50th in the nation in school funding, belays the true “ideological pipe dream,” as he aptly put it, and not fiscal mindedness. I hope that our legislators have the courage to unlock even more creative, family-centered, and de-institutionalized approaches to education by finally instituting a universal Education Freedom program in NH.

Jon Elliott

Plainfield