The Children’s Scholarship Fund (CSF) operates New Hampshire’s Education Freedom Account (EFA) program with accountability and attention to detail so eligible Granite State families can be empowered to choose the education that best meets their children’s needs.
Recent media coverage of the Department of Education’s Compliance Monitoring Report, in which a sample of 50 EFA applications from the past two years were reviewed for compliance with the state’s rules and regulations for the program, has been distorted.
While CSF welcomed the opportunity to reflect on its procedures as a means to improve them, some coverage of the report has seized on two errors as a way to denounce the EFA program, which helped almost 5,000 children in the 2023-24 school year alone.
For example, the review of 50 applications resulted in 12 applications being flagged for potential compliance issues. While some have reported this as an almost 25 percent error rate in application processing, after further investigation, only two of the 50 applications reviewed were found to be ineligible. Children’s Scholarship Fund has fully returned to the state the $18,162.77 in EFA funding those applicants received.
Both of the EFA applications where the money was returned to the state were cases of “net vs. gross” income, where the family’s net income rather than their adjusted gross income was used to approve the application. Both applications were for children whose parents had extenuating life circumstances, such as a job loss, a divorce, a significant medical challenge, or a death in the family, so CSF was taking into consideration losses of income not reflected on the family’s tax return. As a scholarship-granting organization, providing parents and children with a scholarship in a time of need is at the heart of CSF’s mission. To rectify the situation for these families, CSF provided them with a privately-funded scholarship instead of the EFA grant.
In addition, the Compliance Monitoring Report cited seven applications that needed additional proof of residency beyond a rural New Hampshire post office box. After the department flagged those students, CSF collected additional documentation to reverify the children, and all seven of those children were found to be New Hampshire residents and were so at the time of applying for the EFA.
In order to put any additional questions to rest, CSF is undertaking the process of re-verifying all of the EFA students and is confident the error rate will remain extremely low. CSF has a reputation of attention to detail and appreciated the direct feedback from the Department of Education team on the application processing methodologies and implemented their suggestions. CSF welcomes the department’s oversight to help us to do the best job possible and help make the EFA program a success on behalf of taxpayers and EFA parents (who are also taxpayers).
In short, no taxpayer dollars have been wasted on EFAs and there is not a 25 percent error rate. I hope New Hampshire lawmakers and my fellow citizens alike recognize that rather than tearing down good-faith efforts to help our state’s families, we would be better served by working together to ensure more families have access to a good education for their children.
