SPEAKER_01 0:00

Commissioner Edelblut is fascinating because he has no background experience prior to being the commissioner in public school, as far as I know.

SPEAKER_00 0:07

That's very true. Yeah, he homeschooled all of his children. His family homeschooled his children. He was he did not come from education whatsoever. I think he even said before he took the job, he had never even walked into a public school, if I remember correctly.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

And now he's been the commissioner. He's been in charge of education in New Hampshire, which is kind of like making me the commissioner of heterosexuality. It's like I have no background on the matter, but I've got a lot of I've got a lot of feedback and I want to make a lot of changes. Got a lot of thoughts on the matter. It's fine. I would also give five thousand dollars to gay people. Happy Pride Month. Here you go. Five thousand dollars. Welcome to New Hampshire Has Issues. I am your host, Liz Canada. And actually, I'm interrupting my own episode to jump in from the future. Because ever since Christina and I recorded this, and we recorded in early June, a lot has actually changed. So when we talk in the episode about the current law,

Future Liz interrupts the episode

SPEAKER_01 1:21

that's actually the old law now. Because on June 10, Governor Ayotte signed the bill that expanded school vouchers, the education freedom accounts, to everyone, regardless of how much money they make. And they might make a whole lot of money and still be eligible. But instead of asking Christina to rerecord the whole dang episode, I figured I would just jump in and say hi and thank you for listening. If you would like to support the show, you can do so by clicking on the link in the show notes. And of course, if you have any ideas for upcoming episodes, send me an email. New Hampshire has issues at gmail.com. All right, I'm going to head out and pass it back over to me.

Welcome to NH Has Issues

SPEAKER_01 1:58

Welcome to New Hampshire Has Issues, the podcast that dares to ask, how much public tax money is the state willing to give millionaires this year?

SPEAKER_00 2:08

A

SPEAKER_01 2:08

lot. Sorry. A lot. Okay. That's all you need to know, folks. All right, Christina, what do you think? What's your tagline?

SPEAKER_00 2:15

Oh, that's a good question. Man, you know, I do better typing them and then reading them. I'm a typer. Totally. Yeah, I gotta type it out. I'll wait.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

You can just type it and I'll sit here and then you can be like, okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

It's called drafting. Drafting, yes. Yeah, I do. Yeah, we do a lot of it. I've heard it called a voucher scam because of just what it is and And that feels fitting for what they are. I've heard the fraud, the abuse, the misuse, the complete lack of accountability. The scam feels like it fits all of those things. The podcast that dares to ask,

SPEAKER_01 2:52

is it a scam? Is it a fraud? Is it an abuse? What is it? Okay. Yeah, great.

Intro guest: Christina Pretorius

SPEAKER_01 3:12

in New Hampshire when it comes to school vouchers, question mark, education freedom accounts, question mark. So thank you for being here, Christina Pretorius. Thank you. Thank you. Welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. This is so fun. You and I worked together for a few years in the education policy space back when we wrote exciting research articles on things like school funding. Oh, yes. And we haven't worked together since these vouchers have passed the legislature. Like I haven't worked with you since then. So I'm hoping you can catch Education Freedom

Simple question: what are "education freedom accounts"...?

SPEAKER_01 3:58

Accounts I'm like, amazing. Who doesn't love freedom? When I hear accounts, I have no opinion on the matter. When their forces combine, they become education freedom accounts. But my simple question for you is, What are they? What does that mean when you put those three words together?

SPEAKER_00 4:20

Yeah, so education freedom accounts are what the state of New Hampshire calls their statewide school voucher program. So school vouchers are government-funded accounts, taxpayer-funded accounts that people can use to pay for private and religious school tuition, for homeschooling expenses, for, quote, educational expenses, anything that's outside of the public school. for school vouchers, education freedom accounts. That's what the legislature decided to name them. And some folks say it's an education freedom account. It's not a school voucher. It's a school voucher. It's just like the technical statutory term for the school voucher program.

Why do some people NOT want to call them vouchers?

SPEAKER_01 5:00

Why do people make that argument that they're two different things? I see them have what I might refer to as a pretty big fit that these are not. They have a visceral reaction. Yeah, they have a big reaction. Yeah. So what's their explanation and what is real? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

So So their explanation is that they're not school vouchers because the state isn't giving private schools money directly, which is what a traditional voucher program is. Other states have had them for a couple of decades with very mixed results. Education freedom accounts are a style of school vouchers, which are under the education savings account umbrella, notably still a school voucher because it is still government funding, private schools, homeschools, education, other things. With the Education Freedom Account, parents get what's effectively a debit card, and then they can use that at Amazon to pay for tuition, to pay for the tutor down the street. Whatever they choose and whatever the third-party administration company says is okay. So there's a misunderstanding around what a voucher is. A voucher is actually a really big umbrella for a bunch of different programs. Education Freedom Accounts, Education Savings Accounts are under that umbrella. But the push, that reaction that we see from voucher advocates is actually really intentional because the general public, voters, Americans, Granite Staters, don't like school vouchers. They don't like them.

SPEAKER_01 6:27

It's a lot of different groups that are all the same. They're all the same group. People,

SPEAKER_00 6:30

voters,

SPEAKER_01 6:31

Granite Staters, Americans. People don't like school vouchers. All these folks, they don't like them.

SPEAKER_00 6:35

Vouchers are wildly unpopular. And so what voucher advocates do is they try to flip and try to find a little bit of nuance to separate the education freedom accounts from what are effectively vouchers. And so they can say, oh, it's not vouchers. It's not what you know you don't like. This is a different program. It's the same program. It's messaging, really.

Polls show: vouchers are unpopular

SPEAKER_01 6:57

When people find out what an education freedom account is when they're educated about it, they realize that it's actually... free money to wealthy folks to be able to fund what is effectively private school or private programming for their young person and not to public

SPEAKER_00 7:14

schools. That's exactly right. Yeah. I mean, at the top of the thing, we said, hey, education, love it, freedom, love it. But there's a lot of polling. There's a lot of data that we have that show that using these formal words, people are like, oh, I don't really know what that is. I'd like to learn more. I like education. I like freedom. But the more people learn about school vouchers, the more people learn about education, freedom accounts, those who are familiar with it, are opposed. They say, we don't want that. We don't want the expansion. We don't want the program. We don't agree with this policy decision.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

So

How long have they been around? And who gets them?

SPEAKER_01 7:45

the program currently exists. There's already education freedom accounts, school vouchers in New Hampshire. How long have they been around and who actually gets them? What are the qualifications one must have to get this little debit

SPEAKER_00 8:00

card? Yeah, sure. So the school voucher program passed as part of the state budget in 2021. So it began enrolling. Yeah, that was a big year for unpopular policies to be shoved into the state budget. students that fall. And so it's been, I think this is year four, this will be year five this next year. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

And

The 2021 budget

SPEAKER_01 8:42

in 2021, to be clear for folks who are not constantly thinking about New Hampshire policy all the time, the budget in 2021 had the school voucher program, it had the ban on quote unquote, divisive concepts, which has gone to court and the state, I believe, Yeah, they have. They have lost. Yeah. And the abortion ban that was signed is also in that budget. So that budget really had a little bit of everything that this podcast seeks to cover at some point. So it's been around for a few years. Who actually qualifies for education freedom accounts?

SPEAKER_00 9:15

Yeah, so there are a handful of requirements. If you want a school voucher, you have to have a child who is of school age. So between the ages of five and 20, who has not graduated high school, If you have a student with disabilities, there are some laws around with their graduation, with how long they can be in school and all of that. But generally, as young as five, as late as, has not yet graduated, has to be a New Hampshire resident. And there is right now, under current law, an income requirement. It is 350% of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Federal Poverty Guideline, which sounds really wonky, right? It's a lot of words. It's a lot of words.

SPEAKER_01 9:59

A lot of words. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 10:02

Tell

The Federal Poverty Guideline

SPEAKER_00 10:07

me what it really means. school vouchers, it's three and a half times that poverty guideline. So saying federal poverty guideline makes you think, oh, you know, it's only serving low income kids. But in fact, it's three and a half times that rate. So for a family of four, the income level is right around $110,000 per year. Notably, though, the median household income in New Hampshire is about $95,000 per year. So it is serving low and moderate income families right now, or they qualify, low and moderate income families qualify right now what the legislature is trying to do is to eliminate the income requirement so that wealthy families can participate and receive government funding for private schools, educational expenses, ski trips, horseback riding, Legos, you know, whatever the... Those are expensive. We can all agree those things are

SPEAKER_01 11:16

expensive things. It's a matter of who should be paying for them. So to

Free or reduced price lunch

SPEAKER_01 11:20

go back for a moment, because I think that that percentage is really important, especially in comparison to Yeah. Yeah. And so there are three different types of lunches at school. The one being you pay it fully. You have a reduced cost of lunch. And I don't remember what the exact cost is. I think it's like a dollar or something like that. And then there's free lunch that if you make a certain amount of money in your household or below, your kid thankfully gets to eat school lunch for free. What I'm hearing you say is for free or reduced price lunch, 185% free. or below that guideline. is what qualifies a kiddo to be able to eat at school for a lower cost than fully paying for it. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 12:50

universal school lunch programs. It is one of the most impactful policies that we can do, but

SPEAKER_01 12:56

lawmakers refuse to do it. I don't know how many lawmakers have met kids, but they're hungry. They are. All the time. They are hungry. All of the time. And that is true for kids who have families who have plenty of ways to feed them multiple meals a day, snacks and so forth. They're hungry, let alone the kiddos who have families who are working so hard and may have difficulty paying for food. meals and school meals and so forth. So all the kids are hungry. They're all hungry. That's a great policy. Kids are hungry, yeah. All kids eat without having to worry about money.

SPEAKER_00 13:30

Surprise! Fun fact, when kids are fed, they learn better. I don't know if you knew that, but it's hard to learn when you're hungry. You heard it here first,

SPEAKER_01 13:38

folks.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

You heard

SPEAKER_01 13:39

it here first. Breaking news. Breaking news. When kids aren't hungry, they learn more. Hey, hey, hey. And these school vouchers cannot be used to pay for your school lunches at school. That's right. At public school. That's right. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:51

You can't be enrolled in your own public school for the school voucher. We are

SPEAKER_01 13:55

going to do a lightning round soon of who gets the money because I'm really curious to narrow down who exactly gets this money. So we haven't

How much money is *one* voucher?

SPEAKER_01 14:03

even talked about how much money this is actually. That's right. We're like 4,000 years into this episode and I haven't even asked how much money is one of these vouchers, one of these accounts.

SPEAKER_00 14:14

It's an average of about $5,200 per child per year. It's dependent on a number of factors So there's a, quote, base amount that families would receive, and that's right around $4,200 per student per year. If they qualify for the school meal program, they get some additional funding. If their student qualifies for special education services or if they have a documented disability, they get extra funding. If their student qualifies for English language learner services, they get extra funding. But the average is about $5,000. What is

SPEAKER_01 14:53

the

What is the average cost of private tuition in New Hampshire?

SPEAKER_01 14:55

average cost of a year of private school tuition in

SPEAKER_00 15:01

New Hampshire? high tuition schools in New Hampshire, some of your boarding schools, those private academies, those kinds of things that people think of. There's a really wide range, but it's about $20,000 per year. The premise,

SPEAKER_01 15:35

if I'm understanding correctly, the folks who want these to continue or whatever it might be, they say that it's a sort of equalizer, that it helps folks who have lower incomes to be able to access a school that better fits their needs. But I'm no math But if my math is mathing right now, the voucher is $5,000 and the school is $20,000. So how are families who are not ultra wealthy making up the difference there? That's right. And I don't have this $15,000 lying around myself, frankly. Me neither. I wish I did. That'd be great. That would be fantastic. But I definitely do not. So how does that work to get from the $5,000 to the $20,000? Yeah,

SPEAKER_00 16:20

the reality is it just doesn't. Right. It just doesn't work. I think that's just it's a popular talking point. And it just doesn't shake out that way for a number of reasons. One, it wouldn't that $5,000 would not make up for the private school tuition. But on the flip side of that, we aren't seeing a mass exodus from our public schools. 85% of children in New Hampshire, their families choose their public schools and continue to choose their public schools year after year, even with this voucher program in place. So even with this financial incentive to leave their public schools. Families like their public schools. They choose their public schools. They trust their teachers. They trust their school leaders. And so there is a talking point of, hey, you know, this is a great equalizer. But what parents and families are telling us year after year is we don't want a subsidy to leave our public schools. We want you to invest in our public schools to make them the best that they can be because that's where we want. That's what our choice is. You know, vouchers don't give us school choice because we're

SPEAKER_01 17:22

Right.

What's another way we can say subsidy?

SPEAKER_01 17:24

What's another way we can say subsidy? I don't know how sexy that word is for a regular person. Like, how do we describe what subsidy actually is?

SPEAKER_00 17:36

Yeah, that's a great, that's a great point. When I say subsidy, I mean, taxpayer support. So it's effectively it's, hey, taxpayers are now going to support your private school education, your kids' private school education. I think, yeah, the subsidy is a very wonky term. Right,

SPEAKER_01 17:53

right. Yeah. And that is, I'm going to say it's a little odd to do that. When I know from talking to all the different guests that I've spoken to, we have other funding priorities in our state. We have things that are at a crisis point. Burning fires. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

They are. They, yeah,

SPEAKER_01 18:25

it is. It's tough out there. So the current rule program says that you have to have a kid between ages five and 20, can't have graduated high school, can't be in a public school, and you can use it for any except As long as you, your family, your household is 350% or below. That's

New voucher proposal (which took effect 6/10/25!)

SPEAKER_01 18:46

right. So... I have heard maybe some changes are going to happen. What's the buzz, Christina? What are they proposing?

SPEAKER_00 18:52

Well, the hot buzz is that Thursday, both chambers... We're recording this early June. So the Senate is about to vote. That's right. So the Senate will be voting on a school voucher expansion bill. So that would remove the income eligibility cap altogether. So making anyone, regardless of income, qualify for school vouchers. The same day, the House will be voting... on a bill to expand school vouchers. No income eligibility. No income eligibility. That's right. All of them remove the income eligibility.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

So literally a family that makes so much money that when I see them driving their very fancy car that is more than maybe how much my house is worth, they're able to get money from the state of New Hampshire for their kid to go to a boarding school in New Hampshire? Is it allowed for boarding schools?

SPEAKER_00 19:46

Allowed for boarding schools, allowed for out-of-state schools. The school doesn't even have to be in New Hampshire. What? The company doesn't have to be in New Hampshire. It can be anywhere. And there are a lot of out-of-state vendors, approved vendors on the list. But yes, regardless of income, you could have an income of $10 million a year and still qualify for the money. And in other states that don't have income limits, that is the case. Wealthy families overwhelmingly receive the bulk of the money in voucher programs.

SPEAKER_01 20:20

My

Liz's mind is boggled: no income requirement AND out of state vendors

SPEAKER_01 20:21

mind is absolutely boggled because the income alone is really shocking because other programs that the state helps to fund has a financial requirement, you know, means testing and so forth to say like, you can only qualify for this if you are at X amount of income on a monthly basis. So this proposal by, it sounds like the majority in the state house is to make that expansive to literally ultra wealthy folks would be able to get this money. But now you're also saying it could be to out-of-state vendors, out-of-state companies and organizations, which I am very shocked by this. I cannot believe that that is a thing

SPEAKER_00 21:01

that is

Limited limitations in how vouchers can be used

SPEAKER_00 21:02

possible here. It's a shocking fact that not a lot of people recognize. There are very few limitations to what these can't be used for. One of the prohibited uses is a single person trampoline. It's one of the only prohibitions

SPEAKER_01 21:19

So there's a long list of things you can use it, but you cannot use it for a single person trampoline.

SPEAKER_00 21:25

Why not? That's a great question. I'm fascinated by like... Also, you can't use it for knives. No knives. It does not, however, say anything about firearms. And that had been pretty intentional because of lawmakers' desire for firearm training for youth.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

I

Liz's mind is boggled again: knives and trampolines

SPEAKER_01 21:43

don't even know where to go next in the questions, thinking about like, okay, we've made a short list of things you can't use this for. Knives. Knives. Single person trampoline. That's the end of our list so far. We haven't come up with any other things, so we say no to. Yeah. Wow. And public school. You can't use it for public school.

SPEAKER_00 22:03

Oh, so you

Outside of resident public school

SPEAKER_00 22:04

can use it for public school if it is outside of your resident district public school.

SPEAKER_01 22:11

Oh, tell me

SPEAKER_00 22:12

more about that. What does that mean? So that means that you cannot be enrolled in your assigned district public school. So my kids attend the school in my town. If they cannot receive an education freedom account, a school voucher, because they attend our assigned school. They also cannot attend a charter school full-time. Those are the two public schools that they can't attend. But if they were to attend a public school outside, the rules are murky. There's no prohibition against that. If you go to a public school that is outside of your designated area, do you qualify for an EFA? There are public schools who are, quote, approved vendors because there are EFA students They may go to CTE classes, career and technical education courses. They may take an algebra course at their local high school. They can kind of buy pieces of public school. They kind of purchase them. But that's a nuance that I have to say I have been asking about for years and I have not had clarity

Do students go to other public schools?

SPEAKER_00 23:16

on. Do students

SPEAKER_01 23:17

go to other

SPEAKER_00 23:17

schools? So there are actually a number of pathways where students can attend a different school outside of their their resident district. Manifest education hardship. So, you know, if my child is just is having a hard time in the public school in my town or in my district, and I feel as though they would be a better fit at a different school for a number of reasons. You know, if they're being bullied, if the school just isn't meeting their needs, they can actually be assigned to a different public school. I can say, hey, I want them to go here instead. I work with the superintendent with the school board and we make that happen. There are a And at the moment, school boards, superintendents, they want to work with families. They want to make sure that their kids are getting the best education possible. And so they make it happen that way. So would they then qualify? That's actually unclear to me. What else is unclear to me is in the town that I live in, we don't operate a high school. We tuition out to two different high schools. So if my kid goes to one of those high schools, it's not my resident district population. I don't know. And that hasn't been tested yet. And it's been a big interest area of mine of like, where are the lines? Because the law was really written pretty ambiguously. A

SPEAKER_01 24:41

lot of gray area. A lot of gray area.

How many students are in this program now?

SPEAKER_01 24:56

Question two, I had put out a question on social media to be like, what are you interested in learning about? And had some folks ask like, how many of the students who are in it were already in private schools when they first started receiving this from the state? So how many students, how many were already in private school?

SPEAKER_00 25:13

As of this spring, there are about 5,800 students in New Hampshire who received school vouchers at a cost of about $30 million to the state of New Hampshire this year alone. Notably, that has grown from about So in the course of this school year, the program has grown by several hundred students. And we see this really upward trend of students participating, the growth of the program. About three quarters of them were not enrolled in public school. They were already enrolled in private school. They were already homeschooled. So the vast majority of students who are participating weren't enrolled in their public schools. They just, hey, we're already in private school. We're already homeschooled. We can get this money. So, you know, why not? It subsidizes the decisions that we've already made. And so the vast majority of students weren't enrolled in public school. They were already enrolled in private schools or were homeschooled.

SPEAKER_01 26:10

What I'm hearing you say is 75 percent ish around 75 percent of the students and the families who are receiving this free government money to go to private school were already in private school or already being homeschooled. They were already doing that thing. And now the state has just given them money to essentially reward them for not being in public school.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

Yeah, they're paying them to keep doing private school, keep homeschooling. That's exactly right. Other states do have, you know, you have to have been enrolled in a public school for at least a year in order to qualify because when this program started, you know, school vouchers

School vouchers are not unique to NH

SPEAKER_00 26:50

aren't a New Hampshire thing, right? They are all over the country. National interest groups are all over the country. They're pushing them really hard in a number of states. But some states do have this requirement where you have to have been enrolled in a public school for a year, and then you can qualify. New Hampshire does not have that. Some lawmakers have tried to put that requirement in and the majority party for the past several years has shut it down time after time. So it effectively right now does act as, you're already in private school, here's some money. Interestingly, their private schools have relied on EFAs, Education Freedom Accounts, school vouchers, more and more to supplement their own scholarship packages. So as this program has grown, it's becoming part of their scholarship packages.

SPEAKER_01 27:42

How much

How much would this new proposal cost New Hampshire?

SPEAKER_01 27:43

would this new program proposal to allow anyone to receive it, how much would that cost to the state of New Hampshire, and therefore, like, regular people.

SPEAKER_00 27:54

Yeah, so there are about 20,000 kids in New Hampshire who are enrolled in private school or who are home educated right now. And if all of them enrolled in the school voucher program, because they would all be eligible, it would cost the state around $100 million per year, which is a significant amount of money. That's a lot of money. And

SPEAKER_01 28:17

that's just the students who are already... enrolled in private school or homeschooling?

SPEAKER_00 28:23

That's right. Yep. So if all of them were to enroll in the school voucher program, that's right. All of the current private school students, current home-educated students, if this program... There were no income limitations, and they could all then opt into the program. It would cost the state about $100 million per year. And in other states that don't have income requirements, that does happen. That sounds like a really fast growth and a huge, huge program, and it is. And we know that that happens. That happened in Arizona. Their school voucher program has completely broken their state budget. It happens in Florida. It happens in a number of other states.

SPEAKER_01 29:04

But do they allow single person trampolines in Arizona? Is that the problem? They haven't excluded that one thing. And so the state budget is broken now because they didn't say no single person trampolines.

Why wouldn't people apply for school vouchers?

SPEAKER_01 29:19

I guess the question is like, why wouldn't people apply? Like it's free money. You're being rewarded for not being in public school is what it seems like. Like it's like a high five from the government. Here's $5,000 for not going to your public school. You did it.

SPEAKER_00 29:32

Yeah. That is... something that we've tried to tell lawmakers through this entire process of you're opening this up to Everyone, regardless of income, this is what could happen. And they come back and they say, oh, well, you know, not everyone's going to take one. But that feels like writing 10 checks and hoping that only four people cash those checks. Like I'm praying that only four people cash the checks because that's all the money I have.

SPEAKER_01 30:00

If you find out that you can get $5,000 a year per each of your kids that's in private school, like why wouldn't you do that? Because it's just there. It's just available. And I'm very confused. Confused by why this is the thing that is being pushed so hard.

Three interests pushing school vouchers

SPEAKER_01 30:17

So

SPEAKER_00 30:17

there are actually three interests that are pushing these school vouchers.

SPEAKER_01 30:23

Give me the three. Boom, boom, boom.

SPEAKER_00 30:25

I know. It's a lot. So there are Christian... Okay. We're coming in hot. We're coming in hot. going to Christian textbook companies, right?

SPEAKER_01 31:03

So a majority of the school vouchers right now or a lot are going towards Christian schools?

SPEAKER_00 31:09

Yeah, a lot of the money is going to Christian schools. Yep, that's right. So we have the religious interests, right? Christian nationalists, number one. That's right. Then we have folks who just don't believe that government should exist. They see government and they see it as a barrier to their lives. So get government out of schooling. So it's a free state project. There are a number of folks in power right now in New Hampshire who are free staters who just don't believe in government, who believe that government should get out of schools and that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 31:48

They got in government so that they could get government out. That's right. That's what happened. Okay. All right. So we have Christian nationalists. We have folks who don't think the government should exist, okay? That's right. It should exist for as long as they can do things with it. That's

SPEAKER_00 32:04

right. And then the third, as we see it, are people who want to make money off of education. You know, we see ed tech companies. There is a meteoric rise in ed tech companies. I can't tell you how many Facebook ads I get of, you can use an EFA to enroll in our online virtual school out of Ohio, right? Or, you know, use this for the latest AI powered school there's a company which is you know my kid can sit for two hours a day with an AI bot and get all of their education so I can purchase that so there are just and they call themselves edupreneurs so they have a name

SPEAKER_01 32:47

too blended

SPEAKER_00 32:47

word that's right so there are people who are looking to make money off of education

SPEAKER_01 32:56

making $5,000 per student, theoretically. Theoretically,

SPEAKER_00 33:01

yeah. It can be a big business.

SPEAKER_01 33:02

So religious groups, religious schools, folks who are highly skeptical of the government being part of education in the first place, and then education tech folks. And I do think we should be clear. Ed tech is not necessarily a bad thing. There are lots of parts of technology and education that are really great and important. Yeah. I don't know that having your kids sit with an AI bot for two hours is the best. I don't want to judge. I don't want to yuck anyone's yum if they love to have their kid talk to AI. But interesting to have then, again, it's about the public money, the state money, the taxpayer money going to pay for a child to sit with an AI bot for two hours. Yeah. Give that edgerpreneur, edgerpreneur, that ed person, get them money.

SPEAKER_00 33:57

And so just to be clear, like I called out edtech because I think there's just such a huge growth of those kinds of companies and all of that. But there are brick and mortar schools, particularly in other states. They enroll hundreds of students and then they collect the taxpayer dollars. They collect the out your money and then they shut down and they leave those kids in a lurch they collect the money and run there's a lot of predatory companies that take that money and they leave so it can be rough it's This

What about oversight?

SPEAKER_01 34:31

gets to the question of oversight. So you have these organizations, companies, whether they're brick and mortar, whether they're through the comfort of your own laptop camera, what oversight exists to make sure that all of those things are on the up and up for what this program is intended to do?

SPEAKER_00 35:00

The New Hampshire Department of Education has contracted all of that responsibility out to a nonprofit called the Children's Scholarship Fund. It is a New York-based company that has a chapter here in New Hampshire, and they do everything related. So they determine which students are eligible, how much money that student receives, how that family can use the dollars, and they also determine, you know, there is a reporting requirement where the kid either has to take a standardized test, the statewide assessment or complete a portfolio in order to continue to receive the funding. And the Children's Scholarship Fund is the entity that says, yes, you did that. Check the box. You can continue to receive it. The state doesn't get really any of that data. The data that they get is this is how many students the Children's Scholarship Fund says we need money for. And they say, OK, boop, boop, boop. And then they give them the money. There is very little oversight. And it has created a lot of waves. The state auditors are trying to do a performance audit of the Education Freedom Account program, the school voucher program, and they can't get really any data. The Children's Scholarship Fund is a contractor of the state, so the department says, yeah, they're a contractor, so we can't ask for the data. That's

SPEAKER_01 36:17

literally what a contractor is supposed to do? That's how you become a contractor, is you have to follow, okay, that's interesting. That's an interesting argument.

The Department of Education compliance report in 2022-2023 school years

SPEAKER_00 36:26

The Department of Education did a compliance report in the 2020 2022 and 2023 school years, and they audited 50 accounts, 50 voucher accounts, and they found errors in about 20% of them. So we talked earlier about if you have a certain income level, you qualify. If you have a disability, you qualify. They were giving money to parents that didn't actually qualify for it. And they only looked at 50 accounts, and they found this extremely high error rate. And the department did not say, okay, well, we looked at 50, we found this many errors. Let's look at a broader thing.

SPEAKER_01 37:04

They just said, all right, case closed. You know, I listen in on these state budget conversations and things are being nickeled and dimed all over the place. And this is kind of a huge shift away from we have to cut the budget because we don't have enough money is what we hear from folks in Concord.

SPEAKER_00 37:20

On one of the latest floor votes, there was a state rep who proposed an amendment that said, hey, we're not going to expand the school voucher program. We're not going to remove the income limit until the state auditors have done their audit of the program so that we can better understand and make sure that this money is being used appropriately. And they did not pass that amendment. They rejected that amendment. So time after time, we have seen lawmakers try to propose more guardrails for the program to ensure that this taxpayer money is being used effectively is being used as intended. And time after time, lawmakers have voted these down. So they've had the opportunity to put these pieces in and they time after time rejected. It's wild. It's just absolutely wild.

SPEAKER_01 38:09

Recent guests on this show have included... Ken's Nicholson talking about childcare and the absolute need for funding to go towards childcare. And Nick Taylor talking about housing and how it is absolutely critical that we need money for housing. And as far as I know, that money's not happening. Not happening. But the priority is going towards this. That's right. Christina, I miss working with you. I

SPEAKER_00 38:34

miss working with you, too.

SPEAKER_01 38:35

But I will say that this bums me out. I'm not going to lie. This is a pretty big bummer, Christina. All this

SPEAKER_00 38:41

stuff is going on. It is. It is. I have to say, this is the issue area that I've been following most in all of my years in education policy, and it's an upsetting one. It's sad.

SPEAKER_01 38:54

So listeners, if you're feeling down, join us, because we are too. Once again, happy pride. Are you feeling happy? Because have I got news for you. Have I got news for you. It's called Education Freedom Accounts. a

Bonus content: lightning round

SPEAKER_01 39:20

lightning round. Great. Yes, no questions. I want to know if these individuals are able to get school vouchers in the new proposal. If this new one passes, yes or no? Families who are already in private schools. Yes. Private school students who've never been in public school. Yes. Religious school students. Yes. Families who make over a million dollars. They will. Yes. If this passes, yes. Families who make five million dollars. Yes. Yes. This new version. Someone who's only ever been homeschooled. Yes. Someone who's at a boarding school in New Hampshire. Yes. Public school student.

SPEAKER_00 39:58

No.

SPEAKER_01 39:59

No.

SPEAKER_00 39:59

Not in their resident district school.

SPEAKER_01 40:01

Public school student who qualifies for free or reduced lunch.

SPEAKER_00 40:05

No.

SPEAKER_01 40:06

No. No. Okay. Thank you for doing my first ever lightning round.

SPEAKER_00 40:09

The change is literally just allowing wealthy people to receive taxpayer dollars to fund private and religious education and homeschooling. That's the only change. Everything else is already there.

SPEAKER_01 40:23

Okay. Speaking of school choice, that's certainly a choice that we're making here in New Hampshire. That's definitely a choice. And these choices already exist. You can already choose to go to private school. You can already choose to homeschool your kiddo. You can already choose to go to a public school. The question is, who pays for that? And should it be public tax dollars going to Christian schools?