House kills bill requiring testing score reports for EFA recipients

Rep. Tracy Anne Bricchi, a Concord Democrat, argues in favor of a bill to require the test scores of EFA recipients be reported to the state Department of Education, Feb. 12, 2026. (Photo by Ethan DeWitt/New Hampshire Bulletin)

House Republicans killed a Democratic bill intended to strengthen the reporting of test scores for students in the education freedom account program Thursday, arguing it would place an unfair burden on those students. 

House Bill 1716 would have required parents applying for an education freedom account to allow their child’s standardized test results to be sent to the state Department of Education for compilation and analysis. The House killed the bill, 194-166, with five Republicans joining all Democrats to vote against its defeat. 

Currently, students in the education freedom account program must take annual assessments, which are collected and stored by the private organization managing the EFAs, the Children’s Scholarship Fund.

But the law does not require the CSF to share those results with the state, and the department does not collect or analyze that data. Instead, the CSF is required only to share the test results with the family receiving the EFA.

HB 1716 would require the Division of Learner Support within the department to analyze and compile the data it received from the EFA program to “determine academic proficiency rates.” The bill would direct the department to aggregate that data based on “graduation rate, grade level, gender, race” and for other categories such as free and reduced-price lunch or special education recipients. In a fiscal analysis attached to the bill, the department stated it would need to hire three new positions to compile that data, at a cost of between $342,000 and $427,000 per year. 

The bill revealed long-running disagreements over the EFA program. Democrats, who have long been opposed to the voucher-like program, have argued that the assessment data is needed to determine whether public education funds are being spent on private educational programs that are not producing acceptable educational outcomes. 

Created in 2021, the EFA program allows New Hampshire families to receive the state’s per-pupil school funding share that would go to their child’s public school district, and use it toward private or home-schooling expenses instead. 

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Speaking in favor of HB 1716 Thursday, Democrats noted that the department releases annual aggregated data about standardized test results for public school districts. They argued private EFA recipients should be treated the same. 

“We have heard repeatedly that public education is failing and that simply throwing money at it won’t improve outcomes,” said Rep. Tracy Anne Bricchi, a Concord Democrat. “Test scores are often cited as proof. Yet, we have been spending funds on education freedom accounts for years, and we continue to hear claims that those students are wildly successful. The problem is there is no consistent data to support those claims.” 

Bricchi noted that the bill doesn’t create new assessment methods for EFA students, but simply requires that the existing assessments be reported. “If we are going to spend public funds, we owe taxpayers and families real data, not assumptions or anecdotes,” she said. 

Supporters of EFAs say that under the current system, the accountability for EFA vendors lies with parents, who do see their child’s test score. If parents deem that their child is not excelling in a program, they can withdraw from it and choose a better option, they argue. 

And on Thursday, Republicans argued the bill would create a double standard: Parents of public school students may currently opt out of the state’s assessments, but EFA recipients are not allowed to do so, and those recipients would now have their child’s data reported to the state. They also criticized the lack of an option for EFA recipients to have certain assessments carried out by a private school teacher, and not a public school teacher.

“House Bill 1716 places a burden on 10,000 EFA students that is not placed on 160,000 public school students, while at the same time removing their ability to opt out of an assessment and limiting their choice for an evaluator,” said Rep. Margaret Drye, a Plainfield Republican. 

The EFA assessment debate follows a vow by Gov. Kelly Ayotte to direct the department to look into math and reading testing scores among public school districts and identify districts and programs that are producing good outcomes. 

“Outcomes matter more than anything else, and our math and reading scores need to be much higher,” Ayotte said in her Feb. 5 State of the State address. “We owe it to our kids.”