AFT-NH Legislative Bulletin (2024-05) Stop School Voucher Expansion

Urgent Action Needed to Stop Universal School Vouchers

Breaking News ~ Stop Universal Vouchers.   Our public school students need your help now. The NH House calendar for next week now includes three bills that would significantly expand the school voucher program, making it universal, will be voted on by your state representatives.  Contact your state representative NOW and ask them to vote NO on these unaccountable and budget busting bills.

These three voucher bills, HB 1561, 1634, and 1665, will expand the state’s school voucher program so that any family, or almost any family, is eligible, yet still relying on the same overburdened taxpayers to fund it. These bills which come with a huge price tag are being presented at a time when they are ignoring the Court’s Con/Val ruling that shows they have been starving our local neighborhood public schools of necessary funds for decades and ignoring their constitutional obligation to provide all students in the Granite State with the opportunity for a robust public education. The extremists in the NH House will also vote on a plan to raid the Education Trust Fund so the money can’t be used to help public school students.

Please let you state representative know it is time to reject this wild voucher scheme and fully fund our local public schools.

Voucher Disaster in Arizona. While many of the bills sponsored this session pose threats to the public education system, we have seen in Arizona how disastrous universal vouchers can be for local neighborhood public schools. In Arizona, the cost of vouchers is nearing $1 billion dollars at the end of one year and is forcing deep cuts in public school budgets and even the closure of some local public schools. New Hampshire students, families, and taxpayers deserve better. The voucher program here has already busted its budget and contains zero accountability.

If we fail to stop this massive expansion, ultra-wealthy people will use vouchers to send their kids to elite private schools and hardworking middle class Granite Staters will suffer. And as a reminder with all of these bills, they apply to students already in private school or who are homeschooled.

Action Needed to Stop Voucher Expansion These are the three bills to be voted on by the full NH House on Thursday, February 8^th. The vote in the House Education Committee was 10-10 so these bills will go to the floor without a committee recommendation.

HB 1561 creates numerous categories for unlimited vouchers including “concern that attending school could lead to the spread of a contagious disease such as COVID-19, the common cold…” It is clear this bill creates universal vouchers, once again a giveaway to the ultra-wealthy. Oppose

HB 1634 Removes any income limit on voucher participation allowing the ultra-wealthy to use our tax dollars meant for students in public schools to pay part of their tuition at Phillips Exeter or St. Paul’s. Oppose

HB 1665 raises the income limit from 350% to 500% or $156,00 for a family of four. Oppose

TAKE ACTION NOW.    Contact your state representative by clicking the following link,

NO TO EXPANDED SCHOOL VOUCHERS.

More Voucher Bills

The House Education Committee also voted 10-10 on these additional voucher bills which will also go to the full House for a vote after next week.

HB 1677 removes the income limit for families within the “geographic area” of a public school with less than 25% proficiency. In addition to draining resources from our schools and students who need them the most, “geographic area” is not defined and could easily be a statewide unlimited voucher system. The student does not have to ever have been enrolled in the low performing school to qualify for a voucher, just live in the “geographic area”.

HB 1652 would create local school vouchers. This bill would take a very bad idea and make it worse. Instead of just covering the state cost of education under a voucher program, this bill requires the amount each municipality pays to educate their students would also go to voucher students. Remember, the vouchers apply to students who are not currently in public schools. This bill would cripple municipal budgets and dramatically raise property taxes.

We need you to draw the line in the sand now with your state representatives and tell them enough is enough on attacking and defunding our public schools. These voucher schemes and unwieldly expansion will hurt students, local schools, and taxpayers. Contact your state representative now and ask them to vote Inexpedient to Legislate on all of these voucher bills.

More House Education Committee Action.   Last week the committee began taking votes on a myriad of bills. The House has a deadline to deal with some bills by the end of February, so a lot of bills needed to be voted on by committee this past week. The bills run the gamut from previously noted voucher expansion to book bans and with an evenly divided House Education Committee many of these bills came out 10-10 which means they will head to the full House for a vote without recommendation.  This makes it ever so important that your state representative is present during the legislative session, has heard from you, and will vote against these anti-public education bills.

Action Needed   

Teacher certification apparently doesn’t matter to the NH State Senate or Representative Glen Cordelli. Now they are proposing hiring uncertified adults to work as teachers as long as they aren’t working more than 30 hours a week.  It is hard to believe but that is correct. No certification, no alternative pathway, or any professional educator requirements other than a criminal background check to do the job of our professional educators.

On Monday, February 5^th, the House Education Committee will hear a companion bill to SB 374 which already passed the Senate and would allow a person to be a part-time teacher in a school up to 30 hours a week without a credential.  HB 1298  is filed under the guise of trying to help the teacher shortage issue we face in this state, but this bill would fill schools with unqualified people teaching our students. Being a teacher is not easy. It requires skill and training, communication, classroom management and unlimited patience. Those things are how we ensure the best education possible for Granite State students. This bill will eliminate standards and lower educational outcomes. If it passes it will harm our students and our profession. Please click the following Contact the House Education Committee to defend the teaching profession and ask them to vote ITL on HB 1298.

Pending Bills to be Heard   HB 1473  which would prohibit any use of social- emotional learning in public schools with a public hearing on Monday. Social and emotional learning helps students learn how to recognize and regulate their own emotions, find ways to talk through interpersonal conflicts, and develop self-management techniques.

There is one bright spot with HB 1162 which will be heard on Tuesday. This bill would repeal the ban on teaching divisive concepts. You may remember, we have a lawsuit in U.S. District Court waiting for Judge Barbadoro’s ruling on whether the law is so vague it is impossible to know what actions will lead to a violation. Also on Tuesday, we have HB 1671 clarifying the complaint process for alleged violations of the Divisive Concepts law and giving school personnel the opportunity to sue and collect damages if falsely accused. This bill would make clear that complaints must be brought through the local district without interference from the NH Department of Education.

Right to Work Public Hearing Scheduled   Wednesday is the continuation of the public hearing on HB 1377 – so-called Right-to-Work. This is plain and simple a union busting tactic aimed at private sector unions. It prevents the union from collecting fees to cover the cost of negotiating and administering contracts for employees who benefit from the contract but do not join the union.  

School Funding One last note, in November Judge Ruoff ruled that the State of NH was chronically underfunding public education, the latest in a three decades long series of court rulings that have found the state is not living up to its constitutional duty to provide the opportunity for a public education that is equally robust in Berlin, Claremont and Franklin as it is in Windham, Bedford and Hannover. The difference is Judge Ruoff actually put a dollar amount to it – the State needs to pay $7,356.01 per student in base aid, plus any differentiated aid – or close to double the current base adequacy of $4,100. That would require $528 million more than the State is currently spending on public education but would allow relief for local property taxpayers who have been unconstitutionally overburdened by having to shoulder the cost of a state responsibility.

Despite the ongoing litigation and court order, the House Finance Committee this week decided on a 13-12 vote to approve a bill that would send an estimated $222 million in “surplus” from the Education Trust Fund to the General Fund at the end of June to be spent on whatever the State Legislature chooses. Let’s be absolutely clear. There is no surplus. That money is owed to the public school students to provide them with a robust education and to the local property taxpayers who have been overpaying to cover what the state has not.

                                                                                   Legislative Action Toolkit

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You can also read written testimony submitted to the legislature at STATE HOUSE NEWS.

We will post next week’s schedule of bills we are monitoring at the end of the weekly bulletin. If you want to find out more information about any bill, you can simply enter the bill at the following link:  FIND A BILL.

We encourage you to take action on other bills. Please note our position is not noted on the current tracker for bills that have already been heard and are now pending executive session action in committee since the period for testimony has passed.

For any of the bills scheduled for a hearing you can register your position on any bill scheduled for a public hearing at the following link: SUBMIT YOUR POSITION ON A BILL.

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