Education Freedom Accounts (EFAs) will allow, us – real New Hampshire families in need – to use the state portion of education funding already allocated for our children to pay for a variety of educational options, including tuition, tutoring, textbooks, curricular materials, educational therapies, and more.
Education Freedom Accounts are for our children. The children of single moms or dads that need to work in person to survive. They are medically fragile children that cannot go into a classroom setting now. They are the bullied children that need a different school building, special needs children, or kids that are below grade level that need a smaller school setting.
We believe we should have the power to spend the taxes we pay for education to get the education we know will work for our children.
Critics of Education Freedom Accounts have expressed concerns about the effects on our school districts. After all, if there are a few students that need to leave their district assigned school, could the school continue to operate? Fortunately, we have the facts. In no state has there been a huge departure from district assigned schools, but rather there is evidence that education freedom policies have the net effect of improving public education, helping children in need, saving taxpayers money, and improving outcomes.
Critics have also expressed concerns about possible fiscal impact of funding our children, but here again the evidence is clear. According to a study by the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, the Education Freedom Account program will save taxpayers $6.65 million in its first two years and generate $12.9 million in economic benefits.
EFAs allow us to direct only the state portion of our child’s education funding – an average of $4,600. That’s less than a quarter of the nearly $20,000 that New Hampshire public schools spend per pupil, on average, but it will mean the world to us! If, we, the parents, need to move our child from an assigned school to a different option to meet their needs, the local taxes, that we pay remain with our school district school. That means our district school is left with more per-pupil funding, not less.
If the goal of our education system is to meet the needs of individual students and to prepare them to be productive, well-rounded members of our society, then we must realize that achieving this goal will take different means for different students. EFAs will empower us, to choose the education option for our children – whether public, private, independent or homeschool – that is best-suited to their learning needs.
We believe we should have the power to spend the taxes we pay for education to get the education we know will work for our children and we thank you for supporting Education Freedom Accounts.
Sincerely,
NH Moms
Shalimar Encarnacion – Manchester; Kimberlee Hebert – Hooksett; Alison Dyer – Nashua; Meg Donohue – Warner; Abbey Clegg- Manchester; Amy Shaw – Rochester; Emily Seppala – Rindge; Kim Spencer – Manchester.
