State Plays Shell Game with Ed. Tax Credits

Do you like to play shell games? No? Why not? Because in the end, you lose your money. Well, the state legislature is playing a shell game with your tax money, and finally, after all the deceptiveness has ended, you're going to lose.

Republicans have proposed and strongly support the State Senate's Education Tax Credit bill (SB 372) and its companion piece in the State House (HB 1607). Both bills, which are largely identical, are designed to evade by using a sneaky backdoor mechanism the New Hampshire constitution's prohibition of the use of public funds to support religious institutions. Here's how the gambit works.

Instead of giving public tax money directly to private and religious schools, New Hampshire businessmen would be allowed to make scholarship money available to "scholarship organizations." These businessmen would then be allowed to subtract 75 percent of what they donated from their New Hampshire business profits tax. The scholarship organizations would then give $2500 to students wishing to transfer from public to private schools and $1500 to students who want to be home schooled.

In the long run, taxpayers will be the losers. Here's an example offered by Bill Duncan whose letter to the editor appeared in the Concord Monitor. "For instance, Mary Jones lives in Concord and attends Beaver Meadow School. Currently, the state gives the Concord School District an average of $3,000 in state aid toward her education each year. We pay another $1,000 in statewide education property tax to make up the $4,000 that's called the 'cost of an adequate education.' Then we add more local property tax money and that's the school's budget. (Under the Senate bill), Mary could get a $2,500 scholarship and leave to go to the private school. The state would repay 75 percent of that, a little less than $2,000. Then the state would take back from us not just the $3,000 state aid, but the whole 'cost of adequacy' grant, including the $1,000 that comes from our property tax."

That $1,000 is property tax money from your town going to the state to educate students who live elsewhere. That makes you a donor town! Donor towns have risen from the dead.

What are some other problems associated with these Republican education tax credit bills? Most similar plans proposed in other states target the money for students in "failing" schools. The Republican plan here does not do this. In their deep-seated hostility to all forms of government, including public schools, Free State and Tea Party Republicans pushing these bills arrogantly (and falsely) assume that all New Hampshire public schools are failing. Therefore, any public school student is eligible for the program.

However, ironically, there is no requirement that the private schools perform well in educating their students, nor is there any way to check them to see if they are doing so. In addition, proponents of education tax credits argue that they give a student from a low-income family a chance to go to a private school. However, at present, HB 1607 does not contain a requirement that a student must be of modest means to be eligible for the $2500. Any student could get the money, even those currently attending private schools, who, by the fact that they are already in a private school, must not need the extra money to go there.

The citizens' organization, Defending New Hampshire Public Education, notes in a news release, "In the last session, the Legislature reduced the curriculum required to achieve adequacy, reduced the adequacy calculation, dramatically reduced funding at UNH and community colleges and reduced revenue in many ways, including reducing the cigarette tax. However, the legislative leadership now proposes to use many millions of public dollars to fund 'school choice' for parents who could send their child to private school without the voucher."

These twin Republican bills, SB 372 and HB 1607, are currently in a state of flux in the legislature. However, no matter how the details are changed, two things will remain the same. First, they are a devious attempt to circumvent the New Hampshire Constitution. Second, they are also the product of an implacable dislike by Republican Free Staters and Tea Party members of government in virtually all its forms. including that of public education, a form of schooling they full intend to undermine and emasculate.

As I think back on the wonderful public education I received from kindergarten straight through my undergraduate years at college, I can only shake my head. Thank you Miss Hughes, Miss Stevenson, Miss Fitzgerald, Mrs. Hayward, Miss Turner, Madam Doerfleur, Dr. Townsend, Prof. Maier, Prof. Houghton, and Prof. Fatout for your help. I honor your memory.