After reading the Nov. 21 Ledger-Transcript article by Jerry Margolis, “School voucher program grows,” I would like to highlight some facts around education funding that our current New Hampshire Department of Education likes to ignore.

First is the necessity of pooling resources and targeting those resources for maximum benefit, or you can think of it as economy of scale. Education, when provided by trained, certified and experienced professionals, in healthy, safe environments, with supplies and materials that support best-practice curriculums, that has the ability to educate all children, costs money. Publicly supported education – or public schools – has been a bedrock of the American experiment since the 1600s for good reason.

Public schools provide the meeting place for children pre-K to 12 to learn, socialize, collaborate, play, perform, engage and consequently grow as a community. For this public investment in America’s future to be sustainable, it requires an investment from all of us. For this investment to be sustainable, the resources (funded by tax dollars) must be targeted, accountable and transparent. Public schools depend on research and training to ensure their educational practice takes their students upwards.

When the funds are spread in many directions rather than invested in one system, both systems must either get much larger investments (through taxes) or offer a much-diminished product due to dispersing funds in many different directions. New Hampshire is now at the front of the voucher (Education Freedom Accounts or EFAs) movement, led by Commissioner of Education Frank Edelblut.

Edelblut sees “a growing demand for educational options,” but what is actually growing are the eligibility limits of who is eligible for payments up to $5,500. New Hampshire’s newly elected governor, Kelly Ayotte, has promised to make vouchers universally available. The $60 million cost of the EFAs are largely for children who have already been enrolled in private schools or homeschooled.

At the same time, the state, before the budget has even been developed, has announced a special education shortfall, leaving local taxpayers to foot the bill. These services are required of public schools for all children, regardless of where they attend school, by both federal and state regulations. Public schools must maintain the standards demanded for excellence in education, as set by the Legislature. These required standards were the basis of the ConVal lawsuit – the state requires the district to provide services it comes nowhere near paying for.

The commissioner had a plan for that – water down the standards that made New Hampshire education rank in the top five in the nation (although state funding is ranked last) to allow education anywhere, anyhow, from anyone, no qualifications needed. This type of education is cheap – good education will always cost and will be available to those who can afford it. The great majority of children are enrolled in public schools. I wonder what the future holds for public schools in New Hampshire.

Jeanine Lesser is a Peterborough representative to the ConVal School Board. Her opinions are her own.