Policy Blog NH

The marginal costs of education

The issue of tax credits for private schools is now being debated in the Legislature, with several new bills moving through the State House.

One key question in the debate is: what are the costs or educating a single child, and how do those costs change when that child (or several children) leave a public school? As part of this discussion, the Center was asked to help calculate the marginal costs of public education, as a way of estimating the potential financial impact of such legislation. Our conclusion is that the financial impact of the proposed tax credits would vary considerably depending on several factors, including the size of the school, desired student-teacher ratios, and the magnitude of the changes in public school enrollment that followed the implementation of the legislation in question.

Our full response follows.

A fix for School Building Aid?

New Hampshire's School Building Aid program, which has been subject to dissection and discussion for several years, may finally be getting a makeover. But whether the latest proposal for reform goes far enough to address the program's fundamental problems is uncertain.

Watching the amendments: School funding debate takes center stage again

The Legislature this week returns to the debate over education funding, when it holds hearings on a constitutional amendment on the matter. Predicting the future of that amendment – or the future of two other similar constitutional amendments still before the Legislature – is tricky. But it’s safe to say that, if passed, all of them would fundamentally reshape the state’s long and tangled debate over education funding and would shift the grounds upon which any future education policy is based.

High School Drop-Outs in New Hampshire

Teens who drop out of school are more likely than their graduating counterparts to be unemployed, on public assistance, and be involved in criminal activity.  For the state to prosper socially and economically, we need an educated and skilled workforce.  Drop out rates and NH's drop out policies are changing, but how, and with what impact?