A pair of policy goals long-sought by New Hampshire conservatives became reality Tuesday, as Gov. Kelly Ayotte signed into law two bills enumerating parental rights and removing the income-eligibility cap on the state’s voucher-like education choice program.
Both policies were priorities for Republican State House leaders this year, and while groups of liberal protestors filled the hall outside the governor’s office, conservatives inside the room — including Ayotte, Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut and dozens of GOP lawmakers — celebrated.
“This is what we ran on, and it’s important what we are promising to parents of this state,” Ayotte said moments after signing the legislation into law.
Expanding educational choice and making it easier for children to receive instruction outside of traditional public schools has been a focus for Edelblut, who is stepping down after a controversial eight-year run as the state’s top education official. He described the expansion of Education Freedom Accounts as a watershed moment.
“All Granite Staters are united around the value of making sure our children are well, and that we maximize the opportunity for our children to become their best selves,” Edeblut read from notes.
For conservatives active in state education policies, making Education Freedom Accounts available to all school children is a milestone.
“It’s a great day for public education in New Hampshire,” said Drew Cline, who leads the Josiah Bartlett Center, and serves as chairman of the State Board of Education. “Market competition has been shown to create more options and generate better outcomes for students and schools, and universal EFAs move us a significant step in that direction.”
But it’s not the exact step Ayotte herself envisioned. She’d proposed limiting universal eligibility only to students currently enrolled in public schools. Most students now using Education Freedom Accounts never have been, but rather were already enrolled in private school or receiving home schooling prior to getting money through the EFA program.
That’s a point critics of the program often make, and Ayotte’s original push to limit new accounts to public school enrollees was seen as a middle ground. But State House Republicans, emboldened by big majorities in the House and Senate, pushed for more this year.
“I had my proposal, which would have applied to public school students, but this is a very positive bill,” Ayotte said after the bill signing.
She added that she was confident expanding the program by the 10,000 new participants contemplated in the law would cost the state about $86 million over the next two years, which she said the state can afford.
“The Education Freedom Account is a fiscally responsible bill,” she said.
But opponents of the law say expanding the EFA program will drain resources from already-underfunded public schools.
“Limitless vouchers will take millions of dollars out of public schools to subsidize private school education for a few at the expense of nearly 90% of students who attend community public schools,” said Megan Tuttle, President of NEA-NH, the state’s largest union of public employees.
Parental rights bill now law
On Tuesday, Ayotte also signed what backers are calling a Parental Bill of Rights.
The bill, sponsored by House Speaker Sherman Packard, largely codifies rights that already exist in state law and the state constitution, but it does include new requirements for schools to keep parents informed about matters related to the children’s education. It also includes a right of action for parents to sue schools for withholding information about the school or their child.
One provision of the law requires school officials and teachers to provide parents “accurate, truthful, and complete disclosure regarding any and all matters related to their minor child.”
“This legislation gives families real choice and ensures their values are respected,” Packard said.
But critics of the bill, including LGTBQ and civil liberties groups say the parents rights bill effectively requires schools to “out” children to their parents, potentially placing some at risk.
“Politicians chose to insert themselves in conversations between young people, their parents, and teachers, by passing bills that would require teachers to reveal a student’s gender or sexuality, rather than suggest a conversation between the parent and their student,” said Linds Jakows of 603 Equality.
The bill Ayotte signed is one of several measures implicating parent rights on topics that range from proposed bans on gender affirming care and “obscene or harmful sexual materials in schools,” to bills dealing with student risk surveys and library records.
Some of these proposals are almost certain to reach Ayotte’s desk, but on Tuesday she indicated she was mainly focused on the bills she had signed – not the ones she might face.
“Obviously, any other bill that comes to my desk I’ll take a look at, but this was the work that we ran on,” Ayotte told reporters. “We told parents we were going to make sure we got this done, and we did.”
