Opinion: Lawmakers must resist urge to steal a bright future from our kids

From left to right, Sen. Debra Altschiller, D-Stratham, Sen. Ruth Ward, R-Stoddard, and Rep. Rick Ladd, R-Haverhill, enter a heated discussion over how best to scrutinize education freedom accounts, on Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024.

From left to right, Sen. Debra Altschiller, D-Stratham, Sen. Ruth Ward, R-Stoddard, and Rep. Rick Ladd, R-Haverhill, enter a heated discussion over how best to scrutinize education freedom accounts, on Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024. ETHAN DeWITT

By DEB HOWES

Published: 01-15-2025 1:22 PM

Deb Howes is president of AFT-New Hampshire, a professional union representing public school educators.

State lawmakers should think again before being lured into that old web of rhetoric about the need to dish out millions of dollars for school vouchers so more students might be able to chase the illusive “right fit.” This move would cut support for tens of thousands of public education students — their constituents.

Not to mention that gutting public education funding in favor of private school vouchers wasn’t even on the minds of New Hampshire voters at election time. According to a 2024 University of New Hampshire poll, 36 percent of Granite Staters overwhelmingly named the cost and availability of housing their number-one priority. Voters chose housing five times more than any other issue, including education, immigration, jobs and the economy and the cost of living, each of which garnered seven percent of less of survey respondents’ votes. Expanding school vouchers didn’t even make the list.

Granite Staters happen to love their public schools and have never asked lawmakers to reduce state funding for their neighborhood public schools. Yet here we are at the beginning of a new legislative session with a universal voucher proposal that would cost taxpayers more than $100 million per year. The proposal to remove the existing voucher program’s income cap would bust the state education budget and shift education costs to local property owners seeking any semblance of quality public education in their communities.

Homeowners paying property taxes are the ones footing about three-quarters of the cost of public education in our state, funding supporting students’ access to a robust, well-rounded curriculum, despite the financial burden on individual households. Just one example: Earlier this month, Kearsarge Regional School District voters soundly defeated a proposal to slash the district’s budget, which would have severely hampered programming at many schools and reduced staff positions.

The diversion of millions of state dollars for unaccountable voucher schools would leave in its wake many public schools trying to make do with scraps, enduring crowded classes, offering inadequate academic support, using outdated textbooks and providing no art or music education. The alternative for lawmakers would be to resist the bad bet on vouchers and end the state’s decades-long shirking of its duty to adequately fund public schools. The result would be a game changer for kids: smaller class sizes, lots of individualized attention to students’ needs and art, music and outdoor learning to enhance kids’ imagination and foster a desire to come to school.

Making matters more challenging is the reality that most students with complex special needs are in public schools. Voucher schools are not set up to support these students, nor do private schools and other voucher beneficiaries particularly want to enroll and educate students with complex special needs. Public schools need much more special education funding to serve these students properly.

The 2023 ConVal and Rand court decisions insisted that New Hampshire fix its chronic underfunding of public education. Expanding the current voucher program would exacerbate the situation and violate the state constitution, thrusting public schools into financial and academic chaos and harming the state’s 162,000 public school students. Until the state meets is legal obligation to support its public school children, it has no business spending another dime on more vouchers.

Let’s not rob our kids of a bright future. We need to invest in them so that they are well-prepared for college, their careers and life. Lawmakers shouldn’t be swayed by phony magical promises about vouchers; they should be swayed by what constituents say are their top priorities. Vouchers don’t even make the cut.