Janet Ward lives in Contoocook.

On April 25, the NH Senate Education Committee heard testimony regarding HB 367 and HB 464. Both bills propose the expansion of funding for Education Freedom Accounts, New Hampshire’s school voucher program. This expansion is being considered even though the committee convened to provide oversight of the EFA program has had only one meeting and has not yet produced a report on its findings.

So, expansion of the EFA program is being considered without critical information regarding the efficacy of the EFA program and without knowing what the ultimate cost to taxpayers will be. The EFA program represents a monumental iceberg threatening to sink our public school system.

Here are essential facts that were not acknowledged by those who spoke in support of EFA expansion. Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, was a student of history. He knew that democracies, a form of government that gives a voice to all its citizens, often failed. He had a vision of a united nation, one in which its young citizens would attend publicly financed schools together in order to practice living in a democracy. He saw schools as places where a variety of voices are heard and a facility for listening, learning, and compromising is developed.

Our public schools are not “government” schools. They are schools overseen and supported by their communities. They are meant to serve as places where members of the community come together. Most of New Hampshire’s 165,000 public school students are well-served. For those students whose parents sincerely believe that they are not being well-served, a claim of “manifest hardship” provides a way to seek out appropriate remedies.

However, there are many parents who simply want choice. They may wish to send their children to religious schools or private schools with offerings both academic and extracurricular which they prefer. Some parents may wish to homeschool their children. I respect these choices. I just do not understand why I am being asked to pay for them.

Thomas Jefferson did not propose publicly funded public schools for the purpose of academic instruction alone. He proposed them as places to practice how to live in a democracy, and to learn to listen to and respect one another. The EFA program, if allowed to continue and expand, will end up placing children in an array of different “silos.” Each silo will offer its own unique perspective to its students. Then what will happen to Jefferson’s vision of public schools as places where democracy is practiced, where students experience a variety of perspectives?

The EFA program refuses to acknowledge the true purpose of publicly funded public schools. It attempts to convince us that giving money to parents to educate their children in private educational settings of their choice would achieve Thomas Jefferson’s objectives. It absolutely does not.

Jefferson envisioned the establishment and oversight of public schools, paid for by public taxes, and open without charge to all children, as the responsibility of entire communities. Parental choice was not a consideration. Education Freedom Accounts permit the placing of children into a variety of privately chosen educational “silos” using public tax dollars.

Over time, this steady draining of public dollars from public schools will slowly but surely destroy our public schools, institutions that have served as centers for community life for generations. Without our public schools, what do you think will eventually happen to our democracy, to our united nation?

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