Latest News and Comment from Education

Friday, June 21, 2013

The ‘neovoucher strategy’ (and why it didn’t work in New Hampshire)

The ‘neovoucher strategy’ (and why it didn’t work in New Hampshire):

The ‘neovoucher strategy’ (and why it didn’t work in New Hampshire)

tax“Neovouchers” is the term that Kevin Welner, director of the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education, has given to private school tax credit programs. Earlier this week, a judge in New Hampshire ruled that the part of tax-credit program that allows public money to be used for religious school education violates the state constitution. Here’s a piece by Welner on what happened in New Hampshire that has ramifications beyond that state’s borders.
By Kevin Welner
If I wrote a lousy screenplay, I probably shouldn’t then complain about how awful the play is as I watched the actors reciting their lines. So I was amused to see advocates complaining about how a judge in New Hampshire this week struck down that state’sneovoucher law insofar as it funds religious schools.
Here’s what happened. A year ago, then-governor John Lynch of New Hampshire vetoed a bill (Senate Bill 372) that set up a system whereby money that businesses owe to the state in taxes could be diverted to private organizations that would repackage the money and