Targeted Aid Solution

Targeted Aid Solution

Finding a Permanent Solution to the Education Funding Dilemma

An Overview of the Targeted Aid Grants Program

The most pragmatic and fair solution for New Hampshire is an education funding program that targets funds to needy communities.

The Coalition has developed a program that is based on common-sense parameters and includes a 5-year transition period so all communities have an opportunity to adjust and plan for a full targeted aid scenario by the sixth year.

We believe the State also should distribute education grants through an educationally sound "Foundation Aid" targeting formula based on national models, and with a practical transition period. Our proposal goes beyond the current law by utilizing income and other pertinent factors to more accurately assess need.

This proposal is by far the best one available.

It was developed by the nation's top education funding experts and represents the most extensive research ever done on education funding in New Hampshire. Although the Legislature in 2003 did not see fit to adopt HB717, we are hopeful it will reconsider and implement our pragmatic and fair compromise to solve the education funding problem once and for all by adopting our updated version in the current Legislature.

The team

Our targeted aid proposal was developed as a result of six months of work by a team led by esteemed economist Dr. Daphne A. Kenyon, the former President of the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy.

Other team members included: internationally known education finance expert and University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor Andrew Reschovsky, our senior advisor on school funding formulas; two NH data experts and technical consultants -- economist Lisa K. Shapiro, who directed the 1999 study "The Economic and Fiscal Impact of a Uniform Statewide Property Tax," and former Office of Legislative Budget Assistant Director Charles Connor; and constitutional expert and legal advisor Martin L. Gross, a senior member of the Concord law firm of Sulloway & Hollis.

Dr. Kenyon and Attorney Gross have worked with our Coalition members to update and fine-tune the proposal for the current Legislature.