ICYMI: House GOP Starts to Sour on Ayotte’s Unaccountable Private School Voucher Scheme

ICYMI: House GOP Starts to Sour on Ayotte’s Unaccountable Private School Voucher Scheme

In Case You Missed It, Republicans on the House Education Funding Committee are growing increasingly concerned about the lack of oversight of Kelly Ayotte’s property tax-hiking private school voucher scheme. The lack of transparency about how special education dollars are being spent has caused a “real issue.” School districts currently “choose” the services they provide to students with disabilities. But without real oversight, there’s no way to know for certain what taxpayers are left footing the bill for.

These concerns are just the latest warning sign that Ayotte’s school voucher scheme has been plagued by secrecy and a lack of accountability. State House Republicans have failed to provide basic legislative oversight, allowing the Education Freedom Savings Account Oversight Committee to go more than a year without meeting publicly. Despite mounting questions, Ayotte supercharged the program – doing away with any income cap and saddling taxpayers with an additional $12.3 million to bankroll private school vouchers for wealthy families.

The services special education and disabled students receive in the Education Freedom Account program are not necessarily linked to those student’s needs.
"We do not audit that on a case by case basis," Matt Southerton, Director of Policy and Compliance for the Children’s Scholarship Fund NH, which administers the program for the state, told the Education Freedom Account Oversight Committee Monday.
Committee chair Rep. Rick Ladd, R-Haverhill, had concerns both about the qualification process to receive additional state aid and whether the administrators tracked the students to see if they improve as they do with Individualized Education Plans in public schools.
Southerton said in the EFA program parents are given unrestricted funds. He said they identify the student, make sure the service providers are compliant and verify that the funds were spent on allowable services.
Special education students who leave public schools to join the EFA program waive all their rights to special education services required by federal and state law.
"This gives me a heartache," he said. Somewhere in this country someone is making a decision that a person here in New Hampshire has an eligible disability, Ladd said.
He said he is concerned that there is no statute on disabilities, they currently only exist in rules.

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