As of March 2022, the Education Trust Fund was spending less than was budgeted due to reduced enrollment, according to a report from the Department of Administrative Services. In one estimate from that time the department had predicted that it would spend $130,000 in the first year and $3.3 million in its second.Įdelblut has repeatedly said the Education Trust Fund, which receives funding from business taxes, the statewide property tax, the tobacco tax, lottery profits, and other sources, is not in danger of being overdrawn by the program. The $22.7 million in cumulative spending is far higher than the department had projected when testifying on legislation to create the program in 2021. “The money spent on vouchers could be helping offset local property taxes, but instead they’re paying for wealthy private and religious schools.”īut Edelblut and school choice supporters counter that the program is saving taxpayers money, arguing that had the 3,025 EFA participants attended public school, local and state taxpayers would have to pay a combined $64.7 million per year, given the average public school tuition of $21,386 per year.Īnd the commissioner has noted that the high percentage of participants joining after the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020 indicates how the pandemic – and the disruption to public schools – has driven some families into school choice programs. “Governor Sununu and Frank Edelblut’s school voucher scheme is wildly over budget and is diverting millions of dollars from public education,” said Jon Morgan, a former Democratic senator and the chair of Amplify NH, a progressive advocacy organization. Those proportions have caused critics to argue that the program is burdening the state by sending much of the money to students who wouldn’t have ordinarily been in the public school system. Of the 42 percent who did, 77 percent left public school after the outbreak of COVID-19 only 23 percent had left public school before COVID-19. The long-term trends are similar: In the history of the program, 58 percent of student recipients had never attended public school before entering the program. The rest were either home-schooled, attended nonpublic schools, or were too young to attend school. Of the students receiving the savings accounts for the first time this year, 27 percent came directly from public schools, the department said. The state’s Education Trust Fund, which contains the state’s funding reserves for public education, spends about $1 billion a year.Ī majority of the students receiving the state funding are entering the program from outside the public school system, according to department numbers. Last year, the program drew around $8 million. This year, the program will draw $14.7 million out of the state’s Education Trust Fund, the department said. That money, which averages $4,857 per student per year for program participants, must be spent on education expenses approved by the private scholarship program that runs the EFA program, the Children’s Scholarship Fund. The education freedom account program allows students in families making up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level to attend private school or be home-schooled and receive the share of state funding that would have gone to their public school. But public school advocates and Democrats argue the higher-than-expected participation rate will strain the state’s budget, noting that most of the students taking the EFAs were not previously enrolled in the public school system.
The rapid rise was hailed by Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut and supporters of the school choice movement last week as evidence of the demand – and need – for different educational opportunities. At the program’s launch a year ago, there were 1,572. Participation in New Hampshire’s education freedom account (EFA) program has doubled in the year since it launched, the state Department of Education said Friday, far exceeding the department’s initial estimates.Īs of September, there are 3,025 students participating at the start of the program’s second academic year, according to the department.
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