With Governor Kelly Ayotte’s signature on Tuesday, New Hampshire became the first state in the Northeast and the 17th state in the nation to enact universal school choice. New Hampshire joins Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming in empowering all parents statewide with a portion of their children’s education funding to select the K-12 education avenue of their choice.

Previously, New Hampshire’s Education Freedom Account program, which began in 2021, was restricted to only families meeting a certain household income threshold. However, during this legislative session, the state House and the Senate took up separate bills to make all students eligible for the program. On March 13, House Bill 115 passed the House by a vote of 198-180, and Senate Bill 295 passed the Senate by a vote of 16-8.

After several more legislative steps, including moving through the House and Senate Finance Committees and adoption into the state’s budget, Senate Bill 295 successfully passed out of the legislature on June 5.

There was great confidence that Gov. Ayotte would deliver by signing the bill into law. In her Inaugural Address in January, she stated: “As a mother, I understand that every child learns differently and that we should give each child the opportunity to be in the education setting that allows them to reach his or her full potential.”

The governor continued: “Public Schools are critical, and I am the proud product of Nashua’s public schools, but they are not working for every child. I applaud the work the legislature has done to expand opportunities for families through education freedom accounts and look forward to strengthening and expanding this program to ensure more families have the freedom to put their children in the learning environment that is best for them.”

The Education Freedom Account funds can be used for private school tuition, tutoring, career and technical education, homeschooling curriculum, and other educational expenses. While the eligibility becomes universal, students from low-income households, students with disabilities, and students and their siblings currently enrolled in the Education Freedom Account program are prioritized.

For the current school year, approximately 5,600 students participated, with an average award of $5,100 per student. This is a mere fraction of the $26,320 that is spent to educate a public school student each year in New Hampshire.

While the funding is significantly less, there is greater accountability for how Education Freedom Account (EFA) funds are used. New Hampshire State Representative Valerie McDonnell (R-Salem) explains, “Every single EFA dollar is audited and publicly available. While local school budgets continue to grow and grow, the EFA program has saved the taxpayers over $266 million in the last five years. Expanding EFAs means more educational opportunities, greater accountability, and stronger outcomes for students.”

According to Jason Bedrick, New Hampshire’s Education Freedom Account program “cost about $27 million last year, which is only about 0.7% of the nearly $4 billion spent on New Hampshire’s public schools.”

A new study from the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy found that New Hampshire public school spending increased $1.25 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars between 2001 and 2024. That’s a staggering 45% despite student enrollment decreasing 26% over the same time period. The increase in spending, combined with the sharp decline in enrollment, resulted in a 96% increase in inflation-adjusted spending.

The nearly doubling of spending did not have a positive impact on student learning. Instead, student learning fell significantly. Student achievement results on the National Assessment of Educational Progress exam scores for reading and math dropped by 21 points. New Hampshire’s student decline was three times that of the national average 7-point score decrease.

The lack of return on investment in the astronomically expensive and inefficient public school monopoly adds to the numerous compelling reasons to empower parents with school choice for their children.

While unfathomable just a few years ago, historic education freedom is becoming a reality, state by state and with great speed. New Hampshire is the sixth state in 2025 to enact universal school choice.

The template has been set for the remaining 33 states yet to grant all parents school choice for the thirteen most formative years of their children’s lives. Which state will be next?

* * *

Dr. Keri D. Ingraham is a Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute, Director of the American Center for Transforming Education, and a Senior Fellow at Independent Women’s Forum.

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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The GOP-led House passed on Tuesday a bill to prohibit noncitizens from voting in local Washington, D.C., elections, overcoming the majority of Democrats who voted against the measure.

A total of 210 Republicans and 56 Democrats supported the legislation, which bars foreign nationals from voting in local contests in the nation’s capital and repeals a measure passed by the D.C. Council in 2022 that allowed it in the first place. Another 148 Democrats voted against it.

“Free and fair elections are a prerequisite for a healthy republic. The radical DC Council’s decision to allow noncitizens — including illegal aliens and foreign agents — to vote in local elections dilutes the voting power of the citizen voter,” said Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX), who introduced the House bill.

“That power must be defended, and I am thrilled House Republicans took action today to do so,” Pfluger added. “Anyone who voted against this legislation, voted for the transfer of political power away from legal voters. With the House passage of my legislation, we are one step closer to restoring the sanctity of the voting process to ensure that only American citizens are voting in our nation’s capital.”

In 2023, the House passed a resolution from Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) to block the enactment of the D.C. measure via the Home Rule Act. However, the Democrats who controlled the Senate at the time did not take up the resolution and the bill went into effect. Last year, the House passed a similar bill from Pfluger, but it met a similar fate.

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Now that Republicans control both chambers of Congress, Democrats have been relegated to voting in the minority on party-line issues and otherwise can voice their dismay when they do not get their way — as did Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District’s non-voting delegate in the House.

“Republicans refuse to make the only election law change D.C. has requested: making D.C. a state so that it can hold elections for voting members of the House and Senate,” Norton said in a statement.

Noncitizens are not allowed to vote in federal elections, but they are allowed to for certain local contests in some municipalities in states like California, Maryland, and Vermont, along with D.C. Republicans in Congress have pushed for legislation requiring individuals to show proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in elections for federal office.

The House also passed on Tuesday a bill from Rep. Andrew Garbino (R-NY) to restore collective bargaining rights for D.C. police officers and reinstate the statute of limitations for disciplinary cases against members or civilian employees of the Metropolitan Police Department.