There’s more that can be done to make New Hampshire a freer state for education entrepreneurs looking to start small, decentralized, and unconventional educational environments, but so far the state is doing better than most.
That’s according to the Education Entrepreneur Freedom Index released by the yes. every kid. foundation.
Of 10 possible points that a state could earn, only three states attained the high score of seven. New Hampshire finished with six points, one of only 10 states with at least six or more points in the Index.
The Index measures the extent to which regulations affect education entrepreneurs in each state, the imagined environment of which is a small, non-religious educational setting with school-age learners from a group of families participating in educational activities for part of the week.
The Index evaluates each state according to 10 questions that account for the following five regulatory areas: business registration, homeschool laws/regulations, nonpublic school laws/regulations, child care laws/regulations, and occupancy codes. The questions are:
- Can the educational environment operate without getting a state business license under state law?
- Does the state allow for unlicensed, unregistered, unaccredited, or unapproved non-religious, nonpublic schools?
- Does the state allow nonpublic schools to operate without imposing educational requirements on teachers?
- Does the state’s homeschool law support or facilitate the operation of the educational environment?
- Can the educational environment operate in accordance with the state’s homeschool law without registering?
- Does the state allow homeschool instruction without imposing educational requirements on instructors?
- Does the state allow child care facilities to operate without imposing educational or qualification requirements on administrators/supervisors/teachers?
- Do the state’s child care laws and regulations provide a clear exemption for “Drop In/Open Door” programs?
- Do the state’s child care laws and regulations provide a clear exemption for educational programs for school-age children?
- Does the state adapt the application of occupancy code requirements in recognition of the existence and needs of small learning environments?
States with more relaxed homeschool and nonpublic school laws/regulations score higher, as entrepreneurs have an easier time getting started in these states.
Child care regulations represent a near ubiquitous obstacle to alternative learning environments, and occupancy codes are disproportionately burdensome to small learning environments, the authors noted in a presentation upon the study’s release.
Though New Hampshire lost a point for rules requiring state approval for nonpublic schools, the state could become much more friendly to education entrepreneurs, the study’s authors conclude, primarily by relaxing some child care rules and local regulations.
State laws setting strict education and professional qualifications on child care personnel and the absence of clear exemptions for drop-in/open-door programs cost the state two points in the Index. The lack of clear exemptions for small learning environments such as microschools is a problem in New Hampshire.
Some states, such as Oklahoma, exempt programs consisting of school-age homeschoolers three years of age and older from its child care licensing laws and regulations.
New Hampshire is marked down on question 10 because of the local zoning and occupancy codes that often represent onerous barriers for aspiring microschools.
As the Index makes clear, local zoning laws and regulations have emerged as primary roadblocks to the proliferation of microschools across the country with the growing education freedom movement. And the Live Free or Die state, with its especially burdensome web of local exclusionary zoning rules, is no exception.
One way New Hampshire could improve its score in the Index is to loosen these local zoning restrictions hindering small learning environments.
While some towns are more lenient than others, often the most daunting hurdle to starting a microschool is finding a permissible location. This is especially true if the microschool founder doesn’t want to operate out of their own home.
Although homeschooling is only lightly regulated in New Hampshire, those microschools that are more formalized than homeschool co-ops but less formalized than private, nonpublic schools are left in a legal gray area where they’re prohibited from many zoning districts throughout the state because they’re not a permitted use in those areas.
The main reason for that is because education is not allowed by right in New Hampshire.
Recent actions taken by state lawmakers in Utah can offer guidance to legislators in New Hampshire on how to reduce the Granite State’s zoning burden on microschools.
With just a few words, Utah legislators struck a huge blow to local zoning ordinances impeding the establishment of microschools throughout the state. Senate Bill 13 states, in part, “A charter school, home-based microschool, or micro-education entity shall be considered a permitted use in all zoning districts within a municipality.”
Signed into law by Gov. Spencer Cox, microschools are now recognized as businesses without any location restrictions in Utah.
The bill defines a “home-based microschool” as “an individual or association of individuals that: (i) registers as a business entity in accordance with state and local laws; and (ii) for compensation, provides kindergarten through grade 12 education services to 16 or fewer students from an individual’s residential dwelling, accessory dwelling unit, or residential property.”
Any alternative/unconventional educational environment that fits this definition could set up shop in any zoning district within any Utah municipality under SB 13. As such, the language in Utah’s bill essentially makes education allowable by right across that entire state.
Such a path forward is a realistic option for New Hampshire to take to become an even freer haven for education entrepreneurship, and state lawmakers wouldn’t even need to define “microschool” in law to do so.
Just this past legislative session, New Hampshire state lawmakers did essentially the same thing for home-based child care. House Bill 1567 requires local zoning and planning regulations to allow family or group child care programs as an accessory use (by right) to any primary residential use throughout the state.
The same thing could be done for education, as we recommended in March.
By providing that education is similarly allowed by right in all zoning districts within a municipality (and all nuisance laws still apply), New Hampshire could tear down all local exclusionary zoning laws prohibiting microschool usage across the state in one fell swoop.
Mitchell Scacchi | Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy
