House votes down open enrollment as almost two dozen Republicans break with party

Twenty-one House Republicans broke with their party on Thursday to vote down a bill that would mandate open enrollment in the state’s public schools, delivering a significant and unexpected setback to one of the majority party’s signature policy priorities this session.

The vote does not eliminate the possibility that a different version of a universal open enrollment bill could pass this year. The House and Senate are set to negotiate through a process known as a committee of conference.

However, the Republicans’ failure to pass Senate Bill 101 is an indication that the party may not have enough support in the House to get even an amended version through that body this year.

The vote failed, 168-184, with all Democrats voting against it. Republicans currently hold a 214-178 majority in the House. Forty-eight members were not present or didn’t cast a vote.

Both supporters and opponents have said open enrollment could transform public education in New Hampshire. The debate surrounding the proposed legislation has exposed sharply divergent views between the political parties over how to level the academic playing field.

Open enrollment would allow students to enroll for free at any public school in the state with space for them. Currently, students may only enroll at the school in the district in which they reside or in another school that has established its own open enrollment policy.

Republican lawmakers have framed the bill as a way to increase access to high-performing schools for students living in struggling districts and to prompt competition between schools.

“This is not about dismantling public education; it is about strengthening it,” Republican Rep. Kristin Noble of Bedford said. “It’s about the student who needs a different academic program. It’s about the student who would be safer or more supported in another school.”

Democrats and many public education advocates have warned that the proposed law would exacerbate inequalities between districts and students. Under the law, students would be required to arrange their own transportation to a school outside their home district, which some argue is only feasible for certain families.

“A policy meant to increase opportunity should not make access more are unequal,” Democratic Rep. Peggy Balboni of Rye said.

After Republicans worked over the last two months to overhaul the bill, addressing some concerns about how it would be funded, most people on both sides of the issue expected the amended version to pass on Thursday.

“When I saw the vote, it was a bit of a stunner,” Hopkinton Democratic Rep. Dave Luneau said, “but people realize that for voters across the state, this is massively unpopular.”

Earlier this year, residents voted in scores of school district elections and annual meetings to restrict the number of students who could leave their district under the current open enrollment law, which gives school districts control over developing their own policy.

The main concern then was that school districts, particularly those that are already struggling, would be negatively affected financially by losing students.

The previous version of the bill, which was passed by the Senate in January, would have required districts to pay each other directly when students elect to enroll elsewhere. The version voted on by the House Thursday had a different funding model: Under the bill, the state would re-allocate adequacy dollars to the district in which a student enrolls. Districts that enroll open enrollment students would also receive a state grant of nearly $5,000 per pupil.

The vote came as such a surprise that Deborah Howes, the president of one of the state’s educators’ unions, didn’t have a statement prepared. She had spent the morning drafting a pair of written remarks based on the possibility of two different amendments passing.

“I think that enough representatives on both sides of the aisle are listening to their local voters — not just their party,” Howes said in an interview.

Republican Sen. Tim Lang, the prime sponsor of the bill, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on what he planned to do now.

Gov. Kelly Ayotte previously expressed concern about the earlier version of the bill that would have required districts to pay each other directly. Ayotte has not weighed in publicly on the new funding model, which mirrors that of charter schools.

Fourteen of the twenty-one Republican lawmakers who voted against the bill represented districts in Rockingham County. Locally, Rep. Louise Andrus of Salisbury was the only Republican who bucked her party.

Open enrollment is not inherently a partisan issue. Blue states like California and Colorado have relatively robust open enrollment policies.

Some opponents of the bill in New Hampshire say that they support open enrollment in principle but do not believe it is workable here, given that the state relies on local property taxes to fund public education at the highest rate in the country.

“If the state funded our schools like they were constitutionally supposed to, then open enrollment might work,” Democratic Rep. Muriel Hall of Bow said in a press conference following the vote.

In recent weeks, some of the specific criticism of the bill had focused on the unusual way in which special education services would be funded. Unlike other states, where the district in which a student enrolls typically takes responsibility for providing the services, the proposed law would have required the district in which a student resides to remain on the hook for providing or paying for the services.

In some states that have adopted open enrollment, rates of acceptance for students with disabilities have proven much lower than for everyone else, prompting concerns about discrimination.

Supporters of the bill argued that if parents are motivated to transfer their children to another school, they will find a way to do so. In response to concerns about discrimination, they clarified language in the bill about the reasons a school district could deny a student acceptance.

Prior to voting to table the bill, lawmakers narrowly rejected a Democrat-initiated amendment that would have established a commission to study implementing open enrollment.