State GOP chair slams Dems for undercutting Education Freedom Accounts

NH GOP Chair Chris Ager (Courtesy)

CONCORD - House Democrats on Thursday voted to strip Education Freedom Accounts after seeing they had a majority late in the day, a move that drew the immediate ire of New Hampshire GOP Chairman Chris Ager.
"It's awfully telling that the first thing Democrats do when they get a short-lived majority in the House is vote to strip Education Freedom from low- and middle-income families, all while passing a bill that will raise those same families electricity costs," he said in a statement send late Thursday afternoon. Granite Staters will remember this shameful act to force kids back into schools that weren't meeting their educational needs."
The bill, HB 430, would take away the EFAs from 80 percent of families that previously qualified.
The House voted, 176-169, to limit taxpayer-paid EFA scholarships to families whose children didn't attend a private, religious or charter school the previous year.
EFAs allow families who earn less than 300 percent of the federal poverty level to get the state's per pupil state adequacy grant and use it on learning alternatives to public schools.
Ager said the GOP-led Senate would reject this bill if it ever gets that far.