AFT-NH Testimony on SB 525
From Debrah Howes, President AFT-NH
Thank you, Chair Ward and Members of the Senate Education Committee, for reading my testimony.
My name is Debrah Howes. I am the president of the American Federation of Teachers – NH.
I am here to speak on behalf of our 3700 members across the Granite State. Our members include preK through 12 public school educators and support staff, university faculty as well as town employees. We work in school districts with about 30,000 of New Hampshire’s public school students and see what they need to learn, grow and thrive in their neighborhood public schools. I am here today to testify enthusiastically in support of Senate Bill 525.
AFT-NH members overwhelmingly support SB 525. The global problems that we are experiencing in New Hampshire and across the country will be solved by the students within our schools today! We must ensure that every child has a complete, robust, and engaging curriculum that builds their minds, bodies, and characters. All public-school students deserve to learn in their neighborhood public schools the academic content, problem- solving, critical thinking and teamwork skills that will allow them to succeed in a 21st century economy as global citizens. To do anything less would be selling the more than 160,000 Granite State students who rely on public schools short. Indeed, it would be selling our future short.
That is why SB 525 is so important. New Hampshire has what can generously be called a runaway school voucher program. The budget for the voucher program has never been even close to correct. The school voucher program has always cost much more than estimated, currently it is tens of millions of dollars over budget. While the stated purpose of the program is to give lower income families an opportunity for different educational options for students who may be struggling in public schools, we also know that the vast majority of students who use the voucher program did not leave public schools to become a student in the voucher program. Their families were already making other educational choices and paying for them without using taxpayer funds. This out of control, wildly over-budget program is mostly new state spending on education, and not spending that is required under the constitution. This last point is important when you consider the state fails to meet its constitutional obligation to adequately fund public education, and therefore might meet more students needs in their local neighborhood public schools.
Further, supporters of the voucher scheme claim it is targeted to only those neediest families, to allow them more educational options, but that is not exactly true. Without getting into an argument over where to draw the line for which families are considered needy, the voucher program only has means testing in the first year. It does not look at family income level at all in any year after that, yet a student could be in the voucher program for 13 years. While a family may be under 350% when a student starts the voucher program, they could easily be over it any year, or every year, after that. Unlike every other means tested program, these folks will keep getting public funds designed for public schools.
Worse yet is how every study of every voucher program enacted in different states and cities across the country shows that vouchers do not improve student learning. Independent studies have found that children in voucher programs perform far worse than their peers. In fact, education researchers who study vouchers say their negative effects are larger than the negative effects of natural crises like Hurricane Katrina and the learning disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic.
For decades New Hampshire has underfunded our local neighborhood public schools. Property taxes continue to rise and now the courts have said it is time for the State of New Hampshire to finally pay a larger share so that all students in every district have the opportunity for a robust public education. SB 525 is a step in the right direction of reeling in a voucher program whose costs are completely out of control so that public money can go to public schools and make sure all Granite State students are getting a high-quality education.
We urge you to find SB 525 Ought to Pass.