Distant Dome: Voucher Advocates Seek National Solution

By GARRY RAYNO, Distant Dome

Traditional American institutions that underpin the greatest policy experiment in history are under attack – from social security to food regulations, from the judicial system to the environment.

The drive to question and even reject these long-standing pillars of our society is ultimately intended to destroy the foundations of government and create a new order in which the wealthy enjoy ever greater benefits while everyone else fights for the plutocrats’ crumbs.

Currently, the main target of the fight to transform democracy into oligarchy is the public education system.

The first blow to New Hampshire’s public school system was the push to create charter schools, which are still public schools but no longer have the regulations and requirements that traditional public schools must meet.

Charter schools have had to ask the state for increasingly larger per-pupil grants to stay afloat, an amount that is about twice the per-pupil grants of traditional schools.

Charter schools that found their niche have found success, but many have failed over the years, even as the Trump administration has provided federal grants to help start up and expand.

Until recently they had not ventured into the stream of Christian nationalism which was widely promoted by Hinsdale College in Michigan and adopted by some states.

Then came the idea of ​​education vouchers, sold as a way to help low-income families find a more appropriate educational environment for students who did not do well in public schools.

After several failed attempts, supporters including Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut and State School Board Chairman Drew Cline successfully approved the Education Freedom Account as an addition to the 2022-23 biennial operating budget after it failed to pass the House of Representatives and was retained.

Since then, attempts to expand parental eligibility by raising the income limit were made two sessions ago but failed in the recently concluded session.

Instead of helping low-income families by providing them with access to education, the program largely became a subsidy program for parents whose children were already attending religious or private schools and were being homeschooled.

Only about 10 to 15 percent of the money from the increasingly expensive Education Trust Fund went from public schools to alternative education programs.

Ultimately, supporters of the program are calling for a “universal program” that would be available to every student in New Hampshire, regardless of their parents’ income, although a similar program nearly bankrupted Arizona and put public schools at risk in Ohio, where it is the subject of a lawsuit.

New Hampshire is not the only state seeking to eliminate public education as we know it.

A number of national figures, such as Betsy DeVos and Edward Bennett, who want to privatize education; CEOs of organizations pushing for privatization; former federal and state governors; sitting governors from virtually every Southern state; two state education commissioners, including Edelblut; and elected state officials, most from Republican-controlled states, were sent a letter to Republican congressional leaders saying, “The task before the next Congress is clear and unequivocal: to provide educational freedom to the millions of students across America who desperately need it!”

The letter also touts the GOP platform endorsed at the recent national convention “to cultivate great K-12 schools, provide a safe learning environment free from political interference, and restore parental rights. We are committed to an education system that empowers students, supports families, and promotes American values… Republicans believe that families should have the ability to choose the best education for their children. We support universal school choice in every state in America.”

The platform claims political interference is where “lessons about American values ​​have been displaced by current political and cultural trends,” not to mention that several states recently required Bible teaching in public schools.

Children who are Muslim, Buddhist, or Native American may view the biblical requirements of these states as political interference.

Universal voucher supporters want Congress to do what some state legislators, including Texas, have failed to do: authorize universal private or religious education at public expense.

The drive to eliminate public education seeks to discredit what has always been a great equalizer by claiming that schools are failing, teachers are indoctrinating students, and hiding information from parents.

You might think that public schools are a vast conspiracy to destroy family values, while ignoring the fact that 90 percent of students attend public schools and many of them are very successful.

New Hampshire public schools ranked sixth in the nation this year, falling from second place five years ago.

The numerical rankings were created before the success of education privatization, helped by Gov. Chris Sununu, who put Edelblut and Cline where they are, in positions in charge of the state’s public education system, even as both seek to limit its reach.

Edelblut focuses on the disparity in educational attainment between affluent school districts and low-performing ones, where real estate isn’t expensive enough to support schools in the same way that real estate-rich communities do, which is driving the search for alternatives.

However, when the state system of financing education is cited as a potential cause of this disparity, Edelblut is quick to dismiss this issue as something completely different, although it is not.

One of the major problems with the Education Freedom Program, the Business Tax Scholarship Program, and charter schools is the lack of accountability.

How can taxpayers know their money is being spent wisely when there is no way to determine whether students are receiving an “adequate education,” as the state Supreme Court has ruled?
Attempts to increase accountability in the Republican-controlled Legislature have failed.

Meanwhile, Cline’s column this week in The Broadside praises a state that, according to its latest rankings, is doing quite well when it comes to education entrepreneurs.

“There’s more that can be done to make New Hampshire a more free-for-all for educational entrepreneurs who want to start small, decentralized, and unconventional learning environments, but so far the state is doing better than most,” Cline said.

The ranking is based on the Educational Entrepreneurs’ Freedom Index published by yes.every kid.foundation.

It should come as no surprise that, according to Wikipedia, “Yes. Every Child. (YEK) is a 501(c)(4) advocacy group that is part of the Koch Network. YEK, founded by the Charles Koch-funded organization Stand Together in June 2019, supports the privatization of education. The organization is a supporter of the school choice movement, advocating for subsidized private school vouchers and charter schools.”
The Koch Foundation has long advocated ending public education and introducing a private education system where you pay for what you get. It’s not exactly the great equalizer.

Cline believes New Hampshire should look to support more private education providers.

“States with more lenient homeschooling and nonpublic school laws/regulations tend to do better because it’s easier for entrepreneurs to start businesses there,” he notes.

Cline and the Koch organization propose relaxing state requirements for nonpublic schools, as well as zoning laws, to make it easier for educational facilities, including child care providers, to be located by allowing education to be conducted in all zones within a municipality.

“Although New Hampshire lost a point on a law requiring state approval to operate nonpublic schools, the state could become much friendlier to education entrepreneurs, the study authors concluded, primarily by relaxing some child care and local regulations,” Cline wrote.

Education Freedom Accounts advocates like to say that the best responsibility is for parents to be happy with the education their children are receiving. We hope so. So why would you leave your child in an unsatisfactory educational environment?

But that’s not what the state Supreme Court said in its Claremont I decision. It said the state has an obligation to provide an appropriate education to every student in the state and pay for it. Parents have a choice, but the state defines an appropriate education.

The state has not yet met its responsibilities, and allowing these children to bypass religious and private schools and be homeschooled is constitutionally unfair to them.

If you think public education in this state is failing, you should start by looking at those at the very top: the governor, the commissioner and the chairman of the state board of education.

Their priority is not public education.

Garry Rayno can be contacted at [email protected].

Distant Dome by veteran journalist Garry Rayno explores the broader perspective of the State House and state events for InDepthNH.org. Over the course of his three-decade career, Rayno has covered State House events for the New Hampshire Union Leader and Foster’s Daily Democrat. During his career, his coverage has spanned the spectrum of news, from local planning, schools and selectboards to national issues such as electric deregulation and presidential primaries. Rayno lives in New London with his wife, Carolyn.