Parents’ Rights, School Choice Advocate Kelly Ayotte Wins N.H. Governor’s Race

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This article is part of The 74’s EDlection 2024 coverage, which takes a look at candidates’ education policies and how they might impact the American education system after the 2024 election.

Former Republican U.S. Senator Kelly Ayotte won the New Hampshire governor’s seat Tuesday, giving her a platform to push for the universal school choice and “parental rights” she called for during the campaign.

Ayotte beat Democrat Joyce Craig, the former mayor of Manchester, the state’s largest city, with 53.6 percent of the vote. Ayotte previously served one term in the Senate from 2011 through 2016 after four years as New Hampshire’s attorney general. 

The race gained national attention after Ayotte backed, then criticized; and then again backed iPresident-Elect Donald Trump between 2016 and today. Ayotte’s anti-abortion stance was another sharp difference between her and Craig that attracted attention.

But the candidates also took different positions on school choice issues, mostly centering on New Hampshire’s “Education Freedom Accounts,” a plan the state created in 2021 to give parents money to spend on private school tuition or approved homeschooling expenses.

Similar to vouchers, the accounts give parents $4,100 a year if family income is under 350 percent of the federal poverty level, or $109,000 a year for a family of four. More money is available for families with lower income, English language learners or students with disabilities.

Attempts to expand eligibility for the money this year won some support in the state legislature, but not enough to pass. Ayotte has repeatedly called for choice to be “universal,” not just expanded to some groups. 

“I believe that parents make the best decisions for their children,” Ayotte said when she started her campaign last year. “I’m a strong believer in education freedom…we want to give every child in this state the opportunity to go to the school or the educational setting that is best for them.”

Ayotte’s husband, Joseph Daley is a math teacher at a private school, St. Christopher Academy in Nashua, where students use the accounts.

Her opponent vigorously opposed the accounts, calling them a “voucher scheme” that takes millions of dollars of tax money away from public schools. The American Federation of Teachers – New Hampshire endorsed Craig, calling the accounts a tax on middle class families to help the rich.

Ayotte also pledged to back and sign a “parental bill of rights” if elected. There have been several bills in New Hampshire and nationally. Ayotte’s campaign did not clarify what the bill would include.

The most prominent in New Hampshire, shelved by the legislature last year, required schools to share with parents if students identify as a different gender at school, including using different names. That bill sparked emotional debate last year, with the LGBTQ community saying students have the right to not be “outed” to judgmental parents and parents saying they have a right to raise their children as they want.

The New Hampshire Supreme Court this August backed the Manchester school district policy of withholding gender identity information from parents, the first state supreme court to rule on an issue flaring up in several states.

Ayotte, however, said throughout the campaign and on her campaign website that she will “enthusiastically work to pass and sign the Parental Bill of Rights.”

“Parents have a right to decide what is best for their child – period,” according to her site.

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