Randy Hilman: New Hampshire's Legislature is short-changing our schools

To The Daily Sun, 

New Hampshire's Legislature is short-changing our schools. It's why the state's education voucher program has to go.

Every March, townsfolk argue over school budgets like the money is precious. And it is.

So ask why Concord let a so-called "education voucher program" balloon from $30.3 million to $51.6 million in one year while local school boards cut electives.

That's the Education Freedom Account program in one sentence. It's funded from the same Education Trust Fund that funds local public schools. Enrollment has nearly doubled, to over 10,500 students, and income limits are gone.

Six-figure families can draw over $4,200 a year in state money for private tuition, curriculum, even homeschool supplies, no matter how they were already educating their kids. State data show the low-income share is shrinking as costs near $100 million this year.

Supporters call that "savings." Bologna. A family whose kids were never going to public school draws a state check anyway — money that used to flow to the schools most kids attend. That's a subsidy for people who don't need one, funded by shrinking the pot everyone else depends on.

Ordinary Granite Staters — the ones who show up to Town Meeting, who vote the school budget up or down — are the ones short-changed. Local schools lose funding while a runaway entitlement program spends millions on families already paying private tuition. It's a crying shame.

This isn't a small fix — it's a program built to grow without a ceiling, thanks to Gov. Kelly Ayotte's Republican accomplices.

If readers want a legislature that treats public school funding with respect and care, the ballot this November is where the battle begins.

In our neck of the woods, that means voting for Bobbi Boudman, Senate District 3, and Bryan Randolph, House District 3 — Tamworth, Madison, Moultonborough.

Randy Hilman

Moultonborough