NH School Funding Fairness Project

Established in 2019, the New Hampshire School Funding Fairness Project (NHSFFP) educates the public about the inequities in school funding that affect students and taxpayers in New Hampshire and advocates for lasting policy change. Over the past few years we have presented to more than 100 different audiences all across New Hampshire, including teachers, parents, business organizations, rotary clubs, elected officials, school boards, and more, delivering data-driven information that helps people understand the root causes of these issues and the actions needed for change. We aim to empower Granite Staters to take action and organize coordinated efforts to drive meaningful and long-lasting change through the legislative process. We advocate for strong, well-funded public schools so that the opportunities available to students are based on their area code, not their zip code.

Learn more at fairfundingnh.org

Educate

Our work begins with educating Granite Staters about how we fund public education in New Hampshire, and the impact that system has on both students and taxpayers. It all starts with this pie chart, which breaks down the revenue sources for the $4 billion spent on public education in the 2023-2024 school year.

New Hampshire relies on local property taxes to fund education more than any other state in the country, and our share of State funding is the smallest of all 50 states. That heavy reliance on local property taxes means the communities with lower property values need to set higher tax rates to raise as much money for their schools as property wealthy communities (and very often still raise less than them).

We bring this pie chart around the state as part of our School Funding & Property Taxes series, and have reached over 1,500 people with our presentations over the past few years, both in person and virtually. We speak at school board and select board meetings, rotary clubs, and to any group interested in understanding how New Hampshire funds public schools (like the 100-plus people in the photo below at Kearsarge Regional High School in January). Last summer, we also reached nearly 150 candidates for State offices when we collaborated with eight other NH non-profits for a Candidate Webinar Series focused on important issues affecting Granite Stat

ers.We also work to educate folks through our newsletter list (sign up for updates here), as well as publishing pieces digging into the issue (like this editorial published in the NH Bulletin) and analytical papers looking at the impacts of our school funding system. Check out our two latest reports on funding for special education and UNH admissions data for public high school stude

nts.Emp

owerOn top of educating people, we aim to empower them to advocate for school funding reform by creating tools and highlighting important moments for people to take act

ion.One of the most powerful moments of people taking action this legislative session was the overwhelming outpouring of opposition to HB 283, a bill which would have gutted the definition of an adequate education and allowed the State to even further cut its funding for education. When people understood what was at stake they acted quickly, and over 30,000 Granite Staters, representing every city and town in the state, registered their opposition to the bill online. At the public hearing 66 people opposed it, while only the bill's sponsor spoke in favor of it. All together, these actions led to the committee unanimously voting to kill the b

ill.Read more: "Universal opposition turns out for change to adequate educat

ion"One of the ways we try to empower people to take action is with our advocacy tools, which allow people to quickly and easily contact a legislative committee or their own legislators about important bills. More than 6,500 individual Granite Staters used our tools to send over 16,000 emails during the past y

ear.Organize &

AdvocateThis legislative session, we've worked to bring Granite Staters together to send a clear message to lawmakers: the State cannot continue to ignore its responsibility to fund public education. Two big achievements in that area were presented as testimony during the Senate Finance Committee's public hearing on the State Budget. We helped organize a letter signed by 438 local elected leaders from 145 cities and towns calling for a budget that prioritizes funding for public education. These local leaders, who serve on school boards, select boards, budget committees, and as mayors, represent over 70% of New Hampshire's public school students, and know firsthand the challenges of budgeting for schools with inadequate support from th

e State.We also collected 1,931 signatures, from people in nearly 200 cities and towns, on a petition telling the legislature that they are long overdue to take action on school