Commentary
Is New Hampshire Solving the Problem… or Just Sending the Bill to Towns?
A good state average and large differences between communities can exist at the same time.
Main argument · in the author’s words
New Hampshire’s own funding formula acknowledges that those differences are real. It directs more aid toward communities with higher student needs and weaker tax bases. The unresolved question is whether the state is closing that gap enough.
(opens the full-size image in a new tab)From the article
Stanford also cautions that average achievement reflects opportunities provided by families, neighborhoods and other environments in addition to schools.
So poverty alone does not explain Claremont’s results. Neither does a simple lack-of-spending argument.
The funding formula is therefore doing exactly what one would expect a redistributive formula to do: directing more state cash toward communities with lower property wealth and greater student needs.
None of those facts by themselves tells us whether the policies will improve or worsen educational disparities. But they tell us what to measure.
Is New Hampshire solving the problem? Or is it changing who gets the bill?
What the evidence shows
- Stanford's Education Opportunity Project puts New Hampshire's combined 2022-25 math and reading achievement at 0.13 grade-level-equivalent units above the 2019 national average. Across 102 districts, the article's own calculation from the same data puts the 10th-percentile district about 1.18 units below that reference, the median 0.21 above and the 90th percentile 2.12 above, a spread of roughly 3.3 units.[1]
- Stanford estimates Claremont at 1.52 units below the 2019 national average, against an average of -0.33 for five New Hampshire districts it identifies as similar in socioeconomic status, demographics and size. Claremont's 2022-25 learning rate was 0.78, against 1.10 for those districts and 0.98 statewide. Department of Education data put Claremont's 2022-23 operating cost at about $22,753 per pupil.[1][3]
- In 2024-25 local property taxes supplied about 64 percent of public-school revenue and the Statewide Education Property Tax about 9 percent, roughly 72 percent combined. NHFPI found Adequate Education Aid's share of school revenue fell from 34.9 percent in 2007-08 to 25.6 percent in 2024-25, while local property taxes excluding SWEPT rose from 54.1 to 63.5 percent.[4]
- For SFY 2027 Claremont's calculated student adequacy amount is about $6,216 per pupil. Local SWEPT covers about $1,098 of it, leaving about $5,118 per pupil in adequacy grants from other state revenue before other aid components. Fiscal Capacity Disparity Aid and Extraordinary Needs Grants add aid based on property wealth per student and student need.[5]
- In March Gov. Kelly Ayotte signed HB 1815, which rewrote the adequate-education statute around "shared responsibility" between state and local government. Separately, the Attorney General's Office is asking the New Hampshire Supreme Court to reconsider the Claremont rulings.[6][7]
- The current budget appropriates $87.1 million for Education Freedom Accounts across fiscal 2026 and 2027, against about $49.8 million spent in the previous biennium. HB 1300 puts a local school-tax cap on November ballots, adopted or overridden by a three-fifths vote and limiting annual increases to inflation plus new construction, excluding bonded capital costs.[8][9]
What it does not show
- By the article's own account, none of these facts shows whether HB 1815, the EFA expansion, HB 1300 or the Supreme Court challenge will improve or worsen educational disparities. It sets out what to measure, not the result.
- The district gaps do not isolate school quality. The article notes Stanford's caution that average achievement reflects families, neighborhoods and other environments as well as schools, and that a 3.3-unit spread does not mean one child is three grades ahead of another.
- The finding that roughly half of students in matched districts attend a district below the statewide estimate does not mean half of New Hampshire students individually scored below average, as the article itself says.
- It does not establish what causes Claremont's results or that more aid would close its gap. The article uses Claremont to show that neither poverty alone nor a simple lack of spending explains them.