New Dashboard Provides New Hampshire Education Freedom Account Data

By GARRY RAYNO, InDepth NH

CONCORD, NH — If you want to know how many students are eligible for Education Freedom Account grants, you can turn to a new dashboard launched by the program’s administrator, Children’s Scholarship Fund New Hampshire.

As of Aug. 24 at 3 p.m., 13,570 students are eligible for a state tax supported grant, an increase of 2,862 over the recently completed school year.

This year’s cap on the program is 12,500 students, but with student exemptions, the enrollment is 1,030 students more than the limit.

Exemptions to the cap include students who are currently in the program, as well as have siblings enrolled, a student with disabilities or if the parents’ earnings are below 350 percent of the federal poverty level, or $75,740 for a family of two, or $115,500 for a family of four, or $195,020 for a family of eight.

According to the dashboard, the exempted or priority students coming into the new school year are 10,938 with 2,632 non-priority students. The number of priority students is more than the enrollment last year of 10,708.

According to the dashboard, there are 1,070 students on the waitlist.

The dashboard also claims that 10,379 or 76.5 percent of the students qualified due to their parents’ income, which needs explanation, but repeated attempts by email, voice mail and mobile phone to the program’s executive director, Kate Baker, were not answered nor returned.

The dashboard also lists the number of students receiving special needs at 1,384 or 10.2 percent. The special needs designation is controversial, as it does not require the same procedure as a public school developing an Individualized Education Program for a student, but simply requires a medical professional anywhere in the country to state the student has a disability.

The legislative Education Freedom Account Oversight Committee intends to study the issue and propose future changes.

Last school year there were 890 special education students out of the 10,708 enrollment or 8.5 percent so this coming year shows a 56 percent increase in children with disabilities.

The dashboard does not indicate how many of the eligible students qualify for the free and reduced lunch program, used as a poverty indicator in both the state public education adequacy aid formula and in the EFA program.

The free and reduced lunch indicator adds $2,441 to the basic per-pupil adequacy grant of $4,351, and the special education designation adds $2,229 per pupil.

Together with $849 for an English language learner, a student qualifying for all three differential aid boosts could receive a grant of $9,870 for the 2026-27 school year.

Over the course of the five-year program, the percentage of students qualified for special services has grown, while the percentage of students receiving free and reduced lunch aid has fallen.

Why the dashboard does not include the free and reduced lunch information is unknown as no one from the Children’s Scholarship Fund NH has been available to answer questions.

The public dashboard also lists the number of EFA students from each community in New Hampshire running from a high of 1,403 students from Manchester, to a low of one student from Pittsburg, Bridgewater, Shelburne and Benton.

Other communities at the top of participants are Nashua, Concord, Rochester and Dover, which are the five largest cities in the state.

Clicking on the town or city also provides the same information as total program data on the dashboard: number of eligible students, priority/non-priority, qualifying by income, special needs students, the global cap of $12,500 and the number of students from that community on the wait list.

The dashboard uses live ScholaVia program data, so the public can see those numbers change as families enroll and applications are processed rather than relying on periodic snapshots of the program.

ScholaVia was introduced this year as the scholarship fund’s management platform for the application and administrative processes.

“The data tells an important story. Education freedom has expanded, and families in need are the heart of the EFA program. This dashboard gives the public the ability to see that for themselves, while also seeing where need exists and how the program is reaching communities across New Hampshire,” said Baker in a press release announcing the new dashboard.

The information from the dashboard gives the public a current picture of a growing statewide program: thousands of New Hampshire families are choosing education freedom, and the need continues beyond the program’s enrollment cap, she said.

For example, dashboard data for Manchester shows 1,403 eligible students, including 1,152, or 82.1 percent who qualified under the income limits; 171 students with special needs; and 87 eligible students currently on the waitlist.

For Portsmouth, the dashboard shows 129 eligible students, including 73, or 56.6 percent who qualified under the income limits; 14 students with special needs; and 17 eligible students currently on the waitlist. Of the city’s 129 eligible students, 82 qualify for statutory priority status.

The dashboard allows users to see how participation and student needs vary locally while providing the same categories of current program data, fund officials said. Because the dashboard uses live data, these figures will change as families enroll and applications are processed.

The ability to examine individual communities gives policymakers, and residents a way to move beyond statewide totals and see how the program is being used where they live, fund officials said.

Even with universal eligibility, 75 percent of EFA students qualified under the income limits, showing that economically challenged families remain the overwhelming majority even after eligibility expansion last year, officials said.

More families may participate, but the data does not support the mischaracterization that universal eligibility has transformed EFAs into a fundamentally different program serving a fundamentally different population, officials said. Universal eligibility expanded access to education freedom without leaving behind the economically challenged families the program has served, they noted.

“There is no single ‘typical’ EFA student,” Baker said in the press release. “Behind every number on this dashboard is a New Hampshire student and a family making decisions about that child’s education.”

However, much of the growth in the program last year occurred in the more property wealthy communities as more parents took advantage of the program to cover some of the cost of tuition for religious and other private schools and for homeschool programs.

When the earnings cap was eliminated last school year making all New Hampshire families eligible to participate, communities like Bedford saw a significant increase in the number of students, growing from 39 to 161 to 210 this coming year.

Bow saw similar increases going from 33 to 75 to 92 this coming year, while Portsmouth increased from 24 students to 90 to 129 this coming year, and Dover increased from 93 to 233 to 394 this coming year.

The percentage of increase in those more well-to-do communities has been much higher than the increase in poorer communities like Newport which remained at 66 students last year and increased to 75 for the coming year, and Claremont which increased from 77 to 84 to 133 this year facing a fiscal crisis.

What the dashboard does not list is the amount of money the state pays to provide alternative education to what is available in its public schools.

The vast majority of students in the EFA program did not leave public schools to join, but rather were attending religious and other private schools or were homeschooled.

Last school year the program distributed an average grant per student of $4,963, while the scholarship fund may retain up to 10 percent of the grant for administrative costs, which last year averaged between 7 and 8 percent.

If the average grant is similar for the upcoming school year, $68 million will be drawn from the state’s Education Trust Fund to pay for the program. The Education Trust Fund also supplies almost all state public education aid to local school districts and to public charter schools.

The state budget lawmakers passed and Gov. Kelly Ayotte signed includes $73.5 million for the EFA program for the biennium.

Last school year $53.1 million was allocated for the voucher program and with a projected $68 million for this upcoming school year, the cost could total $121.1million for the biennium.

If 75 percent of the participants were eligible under the 350 percent of poverty limit, then 25 percent were not and that group will receive as estimated $30 million of the $121.1 million in grants.

The dashboard can be found here:

https://nhefa.scholarshipfund.org

Garry Rayno may be reached at garry.rayno@yahoo.com.

This story was originally published by InDepth NH.