The New Hampshire Attorney General's office filed a 125-page brief in August 2026 asking the state Supreme Court to overturn the Claremont I and Claremont II rulings, the legal foundation for the state's constitutional duty to fund public education. Deputy Solicitor General Samuel Garland argued that the decisions are fundamentally incompatible with the text and history of the New Hampshire Constitution and that education funding is a non-justiciable political question reserved for the legislature, according to the Concord Monitor. The brief is the first time the state has directly asked the court to reverse the Claremont precedents, which have stood for more than three decades.
The state's argument
In the brief, the state argues that Part II, Article 83 of the state constitution does not mandate a qualitative standard of education that must be met and does not impose a financial standard or arrangement that must be met, InDepthNH.org reported. The state also contends that local education property taxes are not converted into state taxes simply because municipalities spend them on adequate education, and that the state is not required to fully fund special-education costs. If the court is unwilling to overturn Claremont entirely, the state asks that local property tax contributions be counted toward the state's constitutional obligation.
The appeal stems from the Rand v. State case, in which Rockingham County Superior Court Judge David Ruoff ruled in August 2025 that the total amount of adequacy funding and special-education differentiated aid is constitutionally insufficient, according to the New Hampshire Bulletin. The ruling found that school districts rely on local property taxes assessed at varying rates to bridge funding gaps. In July 2025, the New Hampshire Supreme Court had issued its own decision in the ConVal case, stating that the state is underfunding public education but declining to order a specific dollar increase, NHPR reported. The court said it is incumbent upon the legislative and executive branches to remedy the constitutional deficiency.
A challenge to three decades of precedent
Claremont I, decided in 1993, held that the state constitution imposes a duty on the state to provide a constitutionally adequate education to every educable child and to guarantee adequate funding. Claremont II, decided in 1997, held that the property-tax-based funding system was unconstitutional because equalized tax rates varied by as much as 400 percent across communities, according to the text of the ruling published by the state. The Concord Monitor reported that overturning a precedent requires an exceedingly high legal bar known as a stare decisis challenge.
School funding experts and the Concord Monitor reported that this is believed to be the first time the state has directly asked the Supreme Court to reverse the underlying Claremont precedents, despite decades of Republican lawmaker criticism of the rulings. The state's arguments echo a brief filed by former Representative and attorney Gregory Sorg on behalf of House Speaker Sherm Packard and much of the House Republican leadership in the ConVal appeal, according to InDepthNH.org.
Comparative: How other states addressed similar challenges
The Claremont I decision itself relied heavily on McDuffy v. Robertson, a 1993 Massachusetts case in which the Supreme Judicial Court held that the state constitution's Education Clause imposed a duty on the state to provide an adequate education. The New Hampshire court cited McDuffy's reasoning that while local governments may be required in part to support public schools, it is the responsibility of the state to take steps to meet the constitutional mandate, according to the Claremont I text.
Claremont I also cited Horton v. Meskill, a 1985 Connecticut case in which the state Supreme Court held that the state constitution required a substantially equal educational opportunity and that extreme reliance on local property taxes violated that duty. The New Hampshire court used that framework to establish that a free public education is a fundamental right, according to the Claremont I opinion. Another precedent cited was Seattle School District No. 1 v. State, a 1978 Washington case in which the Washington Supreme Court held that the state constitution imposed a paramount duty to provide ample funding for education, supporting the New Hampshire court's conclusion that the state's duty extends beyond mere reading, writing and arithmetic.