Uncapping the Vouchers: A Seismic Shift in New Hampshire Education Policy
For decades, public education in New Hampshire has been both a source of state pride and a contentious political battleground. Now, with the stroke of Governor Kelly Ayotte’s pen, the ground has shifted dramatically beneath the state’s classrooms and families. This week, Ayotte signed into law an expansive overhaul of the state’s Education Freedom Account (EFA) program. Gone are the income-based restrictions that once limited the reach of these controversial vouchers. As the bill takes effect, every family in New Hampshire—whether struggling to make ends meet, solidly middle class, or among the wealthiest—will be eligible for at least $4,265 per child next year to spend on private school tuition or a broad menu of other education-related expenses. Special needs families stand to receive nearly double that amount.
Supporters, mainly in conservative circles, gathered in a triumphant photo op: children clustering near Ayotte, GOP lawmakers cheering, and outgoing Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut calling the expansion “a watershed moment.” Edelblut’s optimism is rooted in a familiar conservative refrain: that injecting market competition will spur every school—public, private, or otherwise—to up its game for the benefit of students. “Our universal EFAs will engage parents in their children’s education and drive innovation,” Edelblut declared, speaking to the crowd outside the capitol building.
A closer look reveals how the change upends the state’s fragile education equilibrium. Under the new law, the EFA program may serve up to 10,000 students next year, with that cap rising if enrollment bumps up near the threshold. Lawmakers built a trigger for rapid growth, potentially diverting tens of millions more from public coffers to private pockets. According to a nonpartisan analysis by Reaching Higher NH, an education policy think tank, the costs of funding universal vouchers could balloon to over $50 million annually if participation rates climb even modestly in the coming years.
The Parental Rights Wave and Its Complications
Eclipsed by the voucher expansion—but no less impactful—the legislature paired its move with a sweeping ‘Parental Bill of Rights.’ The law codifies existing parental rights to be informed about their children’s education and creates new mandates requiring educators to share classroom information with parents. Ayotte and legislative allies paint this as basic transparency and empowerment: “Parents should always know what is happening in their children’s classrooms,” the governor insisted in her signing speech.
Yet for many teachers, students, and progressive advocates, the new law’s requirements ring alarms. Policy experts like Dr. Gloria Reyes, a child welfare researcher at the University of New Hampshire, warn that mandatory disclosure could “put vulnerable students at heightened risk, especially in cases where home environments are unsafe.” National advocacy groups including the American Civil Liberties Union and GLSEN have both pointed to evidence suggesting that forced disclosures can lead to harm for LGBTQ students and those in abusive homes. Critics emphasize the risk is not theoretical: “Every year, teachers are the first line of defense for students suffering from abuse or neglect,” says Megan Finn, president of the New Hampshire Teachers Association. The new rules, Finn argues, may force educators to choose between legal compliance and the safety of the children in their care.
Beyond that, the law sets up an explicit right for parents to take legal action if schools—advertently or not—fail to keep them informed. Legal experts caution this will add a new layer of bureaucracy and legal peril for school districts, already burdened by thin budgets (school resources are already stretched dangerously thin). According to the Education Law Center, districts could find themselves perpetually entangled in litigation, further diverting funds and attention from the core mission of teaching and learning.
“Universal vouchers may sound empowering, but they threaten the very foundation of a fair public education system. When we siphon funds to private schools, we risk deepening inequality and undermining the promise of equal opportunity for every child.”—David Luneau, NH House Education Funding Committee
Funding Promises and Fiscal Reality: Who Pays the Price?
If there’s one recurring concern echoing across the opposition, it’s the prospect of fiscal irresponsibility. Democrats, education advocates, and local officials warn the universal voucher law is poised to siphon off crucial resources from New Hampshire’s already-underfunded public school system. According to a 2023 report from the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute, per-pupil state funding was already trailing the national average. The universal EFA program, critics argue, “amounts to a privatization of risk and a socialization of cost,” drawing sharp comparisons to troubled voucher systems in Arizona and Florida where promised improvements to public schools never materialized—instead, budgets faced increased strain and inequality widened.
How certain are voucher supporters that competition lifts all boats? Not very, if recent history is any guide. In states like Wisconsin and Ohio, two of the earliest adopters of large-scale voucher programs, rigorous independent analysis by Stanford’s CREDO center found that academic gains promised by proponents had not materialized. Instead, larger achievement gaps developed between wealthier and poorer students, particularly those left in chronically under-resourced public schools. In New Hampshire’s case, the absence of meaningful oversight or requirements for participating private schools to meet the same metrics as public schools adds yet another cause for concern.
While Ayotte frames the change as an opportunity story for every child, the reality may look far different on the ground for New Hampshire’s most vulnerable students. Will affluent families use their $4,265 checks to supplement elite private education, while rural or economically disadvantaged families see their local public schools struggle with even fewer resources? The early evidence elsewhere suggests yes.
Fiscally, the expansion could impose hard trade-offs. The New Hampshire state budget, already facing tight constraints, must now fund the new universal program, inevitably at the expense of upgrades, modernized resources, or support for special programs in the public system. At a time when workforce shortages and pandemic learning losses still haunt educators, this risk of an even more inequitable playing field has hardly been addressed by supporters of the voucher law.
The Future: Testing the Limits of “Choice”
The wave of universal voucher programs is hardly unique to New Hampshire—it’s a national trend, with 18 states now offering some version of school choice without means testing. Conservatives champion the movement as a victory for “freedom,” but one must ask: Whose freedom is truly prioritized? As Harvard education sociologist Jennifer Hochschild argues, “School choice rhetoric cloaks a deeper debate about whether we, as a society, believe in the collective project of public education as a public good.”
If the past is prologue, New Hampshire’s public schools are on the brink of even starker challenges: greater funding disparities, mounting competition, and legal complexities that threaten to shift focus from student needs to ideological showdowns. Progressives and public school supporters must stay vigilant in holding leaders accountable for the consequences of choices made today. Failing to do so risks transforming bold promises of “opportunity” into the reality of deepening inequality and fractured community investment in the state’s future.
