Category Archives: Bill Duncan

Voucher vs. Poor Kids — It Should Be An Easy Choice

  By Advancing New Hampshire Public Education | April 29, 2013 - 9:49 am | ,
Comments
The opportunity gap in schools

The voucher debate is a waste of everyone’s time.  We should work on improving how New Hampshire public education works for poor kids (it already works pretty well for better-off kids) rather than engaging in a debate about privatizing our local public schools.

You don’t need a study to tell you that using public money to send a few kids to the unaccredited religious schools is not going to improve education for New Hampshire kids. The religious, often creationist, schools that dominate the voucher tax credit program are fine for the families that want them.  Many families, even those without much money, do find a way to send their kids. But private religious schools are not the basis of a strategy for helping thousands of New Hampshire kids escape poverty.  Regardless out the outcome of thecourt case challenging the constitutionality of tax credit funded vouchers, we should shut down this pathetic program and get back to the real question of how to help the kids.

Sean Reardon’s piece, “No Rich Child Left Behind’” in today’s New York Times, stands aside from the political debate and looks at what the numbers tell us about the performance of our schools over the last decades.  Here are some snippets:

Students growing up in richer families have better grades and higher standardized test scores, on average, than poorer students…

One way to see this is to look at the scores of rich and poor students on standardized math and reading tests over the last 50 years….I found that the rich-poor gap in test scores is about 40 percent larger now than it was 30 years ago….

…the proportion of students from upper-income families who earn a bachelor’s degree has increased by 18 percentage points over a 20-year period, while the completion rate of poor students has grown by only 4 points…

Can schools provide children a way out of poverty?….

The income gap in academic achievement is not growing because the test scores of poor students are dropping or because our schools are in decline. In fact,…[t]he average 9-year-old today has math skills equal to those her parents had at age 11, a two-year improvement in a single generation….The academic gap is widening because rich students are increasingly entering kindergarten much better prepared to succeed in school than middle-class students. This difference in preparation persists through elementary and high school….

It’s not clear what we should do about all this. Partly that’s because much of our public conversation about education is focused on the wrong culprits: we blame failing schools….

So how can we move toward a society in which educational success is not so strongly linked to family background?…[By] investing in developing high-quality child care and preschool that is available to poor and middle-class children. It also means recruiting and training a cadre of skilled preschool teachers and child care providers. These are not new ideas, but we have to stop talking about how expensive and difficult they are to implement and just get on with it.

The opportunity gap in schools Read it. You’ll be inspired.  Then call the hub of New Hampshire’s early childhood development movement, SparkNH, and ask director Laura Milliken to send a speaker to tell your group what’s happening in New Hampshire.

 

Reposted with permission from ANHPE, original link.

Constitutional advocates make the case against vouchers

  By Advancing New Hampshire Public Education | April 27, 2013 - 10:31 am | ,
Comments
Bill Duncan

DOVER, N.H. – During a hearing at Strafford County Superior Court Friday, lawyers for the plaintiffs opposed to state funding of religious schools said the ‘voucher’ law passed by the Republican-dominated legislature last year blatantly violated the state’s constitution.

Bill Duncan of New Castle, one of the plaintiffs in the case and the founder of Advancing New Hampshire Public Education, said lead plaintiff attorney Alex Luchenitser “made a strong and persuasive case. He focused on central fact of this case which we have maintained from the beginning – it’s unconstitutional for taxpayer money to fund religious education.”

Duncan, who watched the three-hour hearing before Judge John Lewis, added that “the legislature should have paid heed to the New Hampshire Constitution before they passed the voucher bill. They could have asked for a Supreme Court advisory opinion but they didn’t. They clearly didn’t care about adhering to the state constitution.”

Lewis heard arguments from both sides of the case Bill Duncan et al v. State of New Hampshire, which was filed in January and supported by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, American Civil Liberties Union and ACLU New Hampshire. The lawsuit asks the court to strike down the Education Tax Credit program. The law went into effect Jan. 1 and allows businesses to reduce their tax liability in exchange for donations made to K-12 scholarship organizations. In one of the odd entanglements between policy and the law, while Gov. Maggie Hassan has asked that the voucher program be eliminated as part of her budget proposal, the state attorney general defended the law in court, along with Institute for Justice, representing one of the scholarship organizations.

Duncan rejected assertions that anti-voucher advocates were against educational opportunities for poor students or sought to undermine religious education. “This has never been about better educational opportunities for poor children or the value of religious education. We hear these claims and know better because this state has many programs to help poorer students. These baseless assertions ignore the Constitution and are smokescreens designed to hide the real agenda of voucher supporters – the eventual dismantling of public education through creeping privatization,” Duncan said.

Though lawmakers in the Senate voted down a House-passed measure to eliminate the voucher tax credit, Duncan believes that lawmakers should prepare to act quickly if the law is struck down. At a minimum, he said they should take notice of the current state of haphazard oversight by the Network for Educational Opportunity and reconsider their support of the voucher program.

An Update On NH School Vouchers From Bill Duncan (@ANHPE)

  By Advancing New Hampshire Public Education | April 19, 2013 - 3:00 pm | ,
Comments
Bill Duncan

Voucher repeal remains alive after the senate vote today
You will see the Republican party crowing as if they won something today, but the reality is that they did not have the support they need to kill HB 370, the voucher repeal bill.  In a party line vote, the Senate voted 13-11 on a motion to “Lay on the Table” HB 370.  The bill can be brought back at any time.

While we would rather have passed HB 370, this is not a bad outcome.  The budget bill passed by the House, HB 2, still repeals the voucher program and repeal will be part of the final budget negotiation in June.

Most important, Sen. Nancy Stiles (R, Hampton) and others will have the opportunity to consider new information about the voucher tax credit as it becomes available.  For instance, tomorrow’s paper will have this report by Kevin Landrigan on the scholarship organization’s kickback scheme to schools that help in fundraising.  This is only the beginning for such a poorly conceived program.

Final arguments for the court case to be heard Friday, April 26
Our attorneys have filed final briefs in the court case challenging the constitutionality of the voucher tax credit law.  It’s surprisingly easy to read.  You can see it here.

The hearing (trial) will be at 11:00AM, April 26, at the Strafford County Courthouse.  Come if you can!

Senate committee votes 3-2 against HB 370, voucher repeal (ANHPE)

  By Advancing New Hampshire Public Education | April 9, 2013 - 5:00 pm | , ,
Comments
Bill Duncan

Senators Peggy Gilmour (D, Hollis) and Molly Kelly (D, Keene) were eloquent at the Senate Health, Education and Human Services Committee today, making the case that the voucher tax credit lacks oversight and accountability, takes money from public schools to send it to private schools that do not promise a better education and is bad tax policy.  But their arguments fell on deaf Republican ears.  After a 16 minute debate, captured below by Granite State Progress (thank you!), the committee voted 3-2 along party lines to recommend Inexpedient to Legislate on HB 370.

Sen. Gilmour recommended that the scholarship organization, Network for Educational Opportunity, put its energy into raising scholarship funds in the normal way, without a large tax credit subsidy.  She was impressed with a private school student who testified but wondered why the family was waiting for the state voucher program while not applying for the school’s own scholarship program.  She went on to point out that the Senate had just passed a one page expansion of the R&D tax credit while the education tax credit required 9 convoluted pages of legislation.  Sen. Gilmour compared the lack of oversight and accountability in the voucher program with the very successful Community Development Tax Credit, with its lower (75%) tax credit and high level of oversight, accountability and credibility.

Sen. Kelley was especially animated about the erroneous implication that the private schools the kids would attend were better than New Hampshire’s own public schools.  There’s are always many ways to improve, she said, but that’s where we should be putting our attention and money, not into private schools.  In her statement on the vote, Sen. Kelly said, ”This bill repeals a private school voucher program that diverts public funds away from our public schools and directs private, non-profit corporations to allocate taxpayer dollars with no oversight or accountability…”  She went on to say:

“The Voucher Program became law last year when the super-majority Republican Legislature overrode then-Governor Lynch’s veto of SB372. It was a misguided venture then and the same is true today. I voted against this bill last year and I will be consistent and vote for the repeal this year. A bad policy is bad policy, no matter if it’s law or not.”

 Ensuring a quality education for all of our students must be a legislative priority. I will not vote to undermine the education of the nearly 200,000 students that attend NH public schools in favor of the few who will have the opportunity to attend private and/or religious schools. At a time when the legislature has levied record budget cuts to our public colleges and universities — including Keene State — it is irresponsible to appropriate and direct millions in public money to private schools.”

Sen. Reagan (R, Deerfield) made the point he frequently does about how bad New Hampshire, and all American, public schools are…falling in the world rankings, etc. (a frequently repeated myth, discussed here and here).  He used another of his speaking opportunities to make the point that the businesses donating scholarships are obviously successful because they have taxes to pay and, as such, are well qualified to allocate some of the State’s $11 million dollar budget.  (Don’t believe me?  Go to minute 11:30 in the video.)

Sen. Sanborn (R, Bedford) offered the non-sequitur that the businesses have the right to make their own choices about where to contribute money, possibly making the implicit assumption that the businesses also have  the right to an almost dollar-for-dollar tax-payer subsidy for those choices.

The chair, Sen. Stiles (R, Hampton), moderated the meeting and voted with the Republican majority.

The bill will probably be brought to the Senate floor when the Senate returns to session on April18.

 

Originally Posted at ANHPE

An Update On School Vouchers From Bill Duncan (@ANHPE)

  By Advancing New Hampshire Public Education | April 4, 2013 - 10:42 am |
Comments
Bill Duncan

Now the Senate has two voucher repeal opportunities

The House yesterday passed its budget.  Item 58 says, “Repeals the education tax credit against the business profits tax and the business enterprise tax.”  That means that your advocacy with senators for voucher repeal does double duty.  You are asking them to support voucher repeal as a free standing bill, HB 370.  But if HB 370 fails, you are also giving your senators reasons to accept voucher repeal as part of the inevitable horsetrading that will happen in June on the budget.  So even if you are talking to a senator who will surely not vote for HB 370, be not deterred!  Make the many reasons for voucher repeal clear and know that those factors will carry weight when the time comes.

And what are those factors?  Many of the issues were discussed at the very successful Senate Health, Education and Human Services Committee hearing, where supporters of voucher repeal greatly outnumbered supporters of vouchers.  Lack of business and public support has led to very low donations, even with a dollar-for-dollar subsidy from the tax credits.  Advocates blame that on the controversy but I say they brought it all on themselves.  Lack of oversight has made program administration an embarrassment.  And you must see Kathy Sullivan’s funny and hard hitting piece in the Union Leader about how bad the participating schools are.  Here is more fodder for discussion with your senator.

Funding for new charter schools is uncertain

There has been much coverage of the moratorium on new charter schools, leaving four new ones in an uncertain status.  Here is a good NHPR report summarizing the status.  And here is more background on the role of charters in New Hampshire.  The House Education Committee and the House Finance Committee have both established subcommittees that will review the role of charter schools in New Hampshire over the coming months.  The process is healthy and will enable New Hampshire to resume authorizing charter schools within a clear policy framework.

Final action on funding of new charters will now not be settled until the budget negotiations are complete in June.

New Hampshire’s pull-back is part of the national rethink on private school vouchers (@ANHPE)

  By Advancing New Hampshire Public Education | March 28, 2013 - 12:15 pm | ,
Comments
Bill Duncan

As we move toward repealing the ill-conceived New Hampshire voucher program, a pseudonymous commenter toward the bottom of this Patch thread encapsulated the debate this way:

 All this focus on having “choices” makes me ask: why do taxpayers who are already providing a structure to educate every child in a given community need to also pay for additional choices based on nothing but the desire of the parent? I distinctly recall those who put this law in place two years ago telling us that churches and charities were the proper way to fund programs for “the poor.” Why is this different?

New Hampshire is one piece, but an important piece, of the national debate on privatization of public schools.  Here is today’s New York Times on the occasion of the Indiana Supreme Court decision upholding the state’s voucher program, reviewing the national state of play in the push for vouchers in Republican dominated states:

“This movement is doing more than threaten the core of our traditional public school system,” said Timothy Ogle, executive director of the Arizona School Boards Association. “It’s pushing a national policy agenda embraced by conservatives across states that are receptive to conservative ideas.”via States Redefining Public Schooling – NYTimes.com

But public school privatization is trench warfare on a state-by-state basis.  Here is Kansas, turning back a voucher program, with each side making the familiar arguments:

 The Kansas House defeated legislation on Monday that would create a school choice scholarship program funded by corporate donations.

….
“We are sacrificing their future because we are protecting a system,” said Kelley, an Arkansas City Republican.

…
“What we’re really talking about is diverting public funds to private or parochial schools,” said Rep. Nile Dillmore, a Wichita Democrat opposed to the measure.

And, under the headline, “Idaho lawmakers dump private school tax credits:”

A Senate panel ended hopes of private and religious schools that were pushing for Idaho to extend a tax break to people who donate to scholarships meant to defray the cost of tuition.

…

“The donor is going to profit off making this donation at the cost of the public,” Hill said. “That’s just not fair.”
…

Private, religious school officials who flew to Boise from northern Idaho for Tuesday’s hearing argued these scholarships would boost school choice for more students who wanted an alternative to the traditional public school classroom, but didn’t hail from families with the financial means to foot the bill.

Vouchers advance in lopsided Republican legislatures and are defeated in more balanced legislatures.  We need to correct the errors our last Legislature.

Reposted from ANHPE Blog

Rep. Mary Stuart Gile’s Senate testimony on her voucher repeal bill, HB 370

  By Advancing New Hampshire Public Education | March 24, 2013 - 2:30 pm | ,
Comments
NH House

“Good afternoon. For the record, I am Mary Stuart Gile and I represent Merrimack District 27, which includes Concord Wards 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, & 7. I am the prime sponsor of HB 370-FN, an act repealing the education tax credit program. There are multiple reasons for doing so. Mine are as follows:

1. Constitutionality, The NH Constitution (Part I-Art 6 and Part II-Article 83) specifically prohibits public funds from going to religious schools. The Education Tax Credit program as enacted is dependent on revenue intended for the general fund as Business Profit Tax (BPT) or Business Enterprise Tax, (BET) and diverting it through an intermediary, non-profit, scholarship organization, to be used as tuition to private schools, out-of-district public schools and possibly religious schools. Currently, the constitutionality of the education tax credit/voucher is before the Superior Court with a decision anticipated in mid-April.

2. Fiscal impact – 3.4 million this year; 5.1 in 2014 and up to 135 million in a decade, given our current fiscal constraints, can NH communities afford this? And the $2500/student scholarship may sound tempting to parents but it falls far short of tuition for secular schools, which range from $5000/student to $25,000/student in NH.

 

3. Research – Studies over twenty years show no statistical difference in student achievement between students attending private school on vouchers and those in public schools. In fact public school students in Milwaukee, Cleveland and Washington, DC outperformed students with vouchers when test scores were weighted to reflect socioeconomic level, race and disability. Further, in a 2011 audit report on Milwaukee‘s parental choice program, which is the nation’s oldest, established in 1990, little difference was found in the achievement scores between students in the City‘s private school voucher program and a matched sample attending Milwaukee‘s public schools. But the voucher program cost more per pupil.,

4. Accountability -Prior to the Education Tax Credit/voucher legislation, the BPT and BET went into the State Education Trust Fund and General Fund and were accountable to NH tax payers. There is absolutely no educational or fiscal accountability plan in the 2012 Education tax credit statute for any of this money to anyone!

5. History: The education tax credit is risky education policy and a poorly conceived piece of legislation that was initiated in 2011 by the Network for Educational Opportunity, (NEO), formerly known as the ‘Alliance for the Separation of Schools and State.’

The Alliance or NEO was incorporated in California in 2000 as a non-profit organization and its current board of directors all reside outside of NH. NEO’s stated purpose is ‘provide and support a variety of educational programs and promulgate publications designed to increase public understanding and acceptance of school systems independent of government funding and control.’ Many of the Proclaimations asserted by NEO or the Alliance are particularly inflammatory regarding our Nation’s public schools. The legislation creating NH’s education tax credit was crafted in collaboration with NEO and introduced and passed in both the House and the Senate in 2012 .

After the legislation passed, NEO registered as a non-profit in NH in August, 2012 and is the only non-profit scholarship organization that has applied so far. Beyond their stated purpose, NEO’s goals are to discredit and preferably dismantle public education. In their literature, this is because public schools are controlled by the government and subject to all the ills of government bureaucracy and power, including the ‘use of force to secure their audience,’ (their language, not mine).

Obviously, NEO was unfamiliar with the fact that NH is a local control state, that while local, state and federal funds provide support for educational programs, decisions about accepting such funds, curriculum, teacher evaluation, student activities etc are all made by local school boards made up of community folks who dedicate their time to ensure that their students have the best education possible. Often at the same town meetings that have just been held around NH. Hardly big government

NEO/ Alliance promotes parent choice. NH parents already have choices…publicly funded charter schools, including the Virtual learning Academy School which is a model for the country, home schooling , open enrollment schools, public schools and any combination of these. All of these opportunities are inclusive to students of all income levels, and learning styles and abilities. Public schools unlike private schools are not selective

NEO may also have been under the impression that NH students are behind others in the nation which is far from the truth. NH students in the most recent NAEP tests scored in the top ten in the country in mathematics and reading. NH is not a Mississippi, or Alabama or even a Louisiana.

Of Course there’s always room for improvement, but 20 years of research and data do not support vouchers or education tax credits as the way to improve student learning.

The education tax credit legislation was created by an organization from California that knew nothing about our education system, How it was funded or how it worked. They proposed a plan that disregards our commitment to funding an adequate education for every NH child and includes targeted funds for children receiving free and reduced lunch, and that students who meet specific criteria receive the support that they need.

And the irony in all of this is, as a non-profit organization registered in NH, there is nothing to stop NEO from raising funds and establishing a foundation to provide scholarships to anyone. It would take more time and the scholarships might be much smaller in amount, but they could do it, without taking money from NH’s general fund and Education Trust Fund. There would be no limitations on how the scholarships were distributed and many of the religious schools could benefit.

In closing, I have served in this House for 17 years. In December, 2012, I was appointed chair of the House Education Committee, which tells you that my primary concern is Education Policy in NH. I have been an educator for over 45 years, including 17 years in the classroom, preK-college, (all income groups); 16 years as a consultant with the NH Dept of Education in ECE and Title 1,ESEA; ( state-wide responsibilities and parent involvement); 6 years as VP for Education and Development for the AAS (gifted and talented)and chair and professor of Early Childhood Education at NHTI, Concord’s Community College. I have three degrees including a doctorate in Educational Leadership from Vanderbilt University. I am also a Mother of 4 adult children and 2 adult grandchildren, (all graduates of Concord’s public schools, with some private school and home schooling as well). I am a parent, an educator and an advocate for public education. History has proven that with all its challenges, our Nation’s commitment to public education is what has made America, the greatest Nation in the World.

Lastly, our primary responsibility as legislators is to ensure that our public schools and the students who attend them are receiving the best education that we can provide and the financial assistance as required by current law, which includes adequacy funding, catastrophic aid, vocational education tuition, transportation and building aid. These are our priorities. It does not make sense to continue a program where we voluntarily decrease state revenue collection in business taxes. We cannot ask our local communities to absorb any more loss of funding and we should not continue a program that so far has proven of no educational value.

Madam Chair, and Honorable Senate Colleagues, the education tax credit is bad legislation that we simply cannot afford. I hope you will support the House of Representatives majority vote of OTP on HB 370. Thank you

Reposted from ANHPE

There are more statements on the ANHPE site

1. http://wp.me/p2OKqy-BA

2. http://wp.me/p2OKqy-Br

3. http://wp.me/p2OKqy-Bm

Stop Sending NH Taxpayer Money To Religious Schools; A Update On Voucher Repeal from Bill Duncan (ANHPE)

  By Advancing New Hampshire Public Education | March 18, 2013 - 9:45 am | , ,
Comments
Bill Duncan

We have a real opportunity to achieve voucher repeal this year – maybe in the next 3 weeks.

HB 370, voucher repeal, has passed the house and is awaiting action in the Senate.  The vote count in the Senate is 12-12.  There has been a steady stream of letters in the paper urging the Senate to support repeal.

The public hearing on HB 370 has been scheduled for Friday, March 22, at 1:00PM in Room 100 of the State House

If I could ask you for one thing for the rest of this session, it would be to attend this Senate Health, Education and Human Services Committee hearing and speak in favor of HB 370.  Testimony should be very brief, one minute or less.  There is no need to make a long, reasoned pitch.  The only point is to show that the citizens of New Hampshire care about this issue and are paying attention.

No date has been set for a floor vote on the bill, but it could be the first week of April.

The array of arguments against the voucher program and for repeal is so persuasive that it’s hard to believe that Senator Stiles and other traditional conservative, good-government Republicans won’t favor repeal in the end.  Here are the issues that have become apparent as the program tries to roll out:

Is the voucher program about helping poor kids or about privatization of public education?

Voucher tax credits are sold as a way to provide school choice for poor kids.  But right behind the heart-strings tugging, the groups involved make clear that tax credits are really about privatizing public education.  The “Red Book” that all legislators received from the Friedman Foundation this week made that point too, saying that “school choice [is] the most effective and equitable way to improve the quality of K-12 education in America”  and the goal is “to make that opportunity available to all families nationwide.”  In other words, disinvest in  public education and send the money to private schools.     As you will see below, the New Hampshire advocates don’t stick to such bland purpose statements.  They say clearly that they want to shut down government schools.

Senators voting on repeal should be left with no doubt about what they are voting on.  Support for vouchers is support for privatizing public education.  In addition, as you see from the headlines below, the New Hampshire voucher program itself is a mess.  Here are the points voucher opponents have been making in the public debate.

The education tax credit (voucher) program is bad public policy.

There are many effective ways to improve the lives of poor kids – early childhood development programs, nutrition programs, medical health programs, targeting more education funding to poor communities.  But paying for them to go to religious schools is not one of them.  Recent news coverage about a Manchester family’s education challenges illustrated this point.  The idea was that, if they got tax credit scholarships, they could go to the local Christian school instead of the overcrowded Manchester schools.

The family would still have been left with large tuition bills, but leave that aside.  As a policy matter, sending a few of Manchesters 13,000 kids out to go to private schools would do little for Manchester education.  I wrote an opinion piece for the Nashua Telegraph on this, here.

The voucher program is not really rolling out.  It is stumbling.

Donations: Businesses have applied for $118,000 in tax credits so far and there has been little movement in this figure over the past 2 months.  As of a couple of weeks ago, none had actually donated money to a scholarship organization.  The Department of Revenue Administration says, “Business interest in the education tax credit program does not rise to the level of tepid.”  The BIA (our state-wide chamber of commerce) took no position on voucher.  Business people have little interest in being associated with an effort to dismantle public education.

Scholarship applications:   Apparently most of the 500 applications so far are from families with multiple children already homeschooling or in private religious schools.  We do see the State’s small religious schools marketing to the parents of their existing students.  It does not appear that there will be enough money to assist many applicants.

The program authorizes $8.5 million in the first 2 years, but with no oversight

New Hampshire’s 30 year old Community Development Finance Authority tax credit program grants only $3.75 million per year in tax credits but its staff and two separate boards review every project in detail.  The donors are listed publicly.  It is well managed, it is considered an honor to sit on the boards and there have been no scandals.

New Hampshire’s charter schools get vetted by the State Board of Education and answer to the Department of Education for curriculum and educational results.  As a result, they provide good curricula and enjoy good public support.

But the voucher program is a whole different animal.  Scholarship organizations are approved by Department of Revenue Administration staff.  There is no oversight board.  Donors names are not public.  Oversight consists of one report per year transmitting summary statistics.  Here’s more.

As a result, the only scholarship organization so far is, well, a poor choice

There were plenty of credible alternatives, but the only scholarship organization appointed to date is a California group that helped write the New Hampshire legislation authorizing the tax credits – The Alliance for the Separation of School and State.  In New Hampshire they call themselves The Network for Educational Opportunity. Describing their mission, they say,  “Our society has become a slave to the state by virtue of government-controlled schools….Government schooling stands in direct opposition to the liberty this country was founded on… I favor ending government involvement in education.”

This is the group that operates autonomously, marketing New Hampshire’s tax credits and deciding who gets the donations.  Here’s more.

There is no accountability in the selection or performance of the voucher schools

The New Hampshire voucher program is unusual in how little accountability is required of participating schools (more here).  As a result, many small unaccredited schools are planning to participate (here’s a sample).  Many teach a Creationist, often overtly political, curriculum far removed from that of any publicly supported school.  A number of religious schools and their associations testified for the voucher bill.  Here’s how one of those schools, the Tri-City Christian Academy, describes it’s philosophy:

“Government schools have assumed a virtual monopolistic influence over the lives of the vast majority of American families with school-aged children….Every fact in the universe is a God-created, God-interpreted fact, and therefore all instruction is to be given in terms of God…It is virtually impossible, however, to control the child’s education in the state (public) school. It is nowhere specified in Scripture that the civil magistrate (the state) is to have responsibility for the education of our children.”

Here is more detail on the curricula in many New Hampshire religious schools.

As a result, we can anticipate the kind of trouble other states have experienced with voucher programs

Here is an alarming sample of recent headlines.

 

Please plan to come on Friday.  The senate committee needs to hear from you.

Bill

What are we buying with the voucher tax credit program? (Bill Duncan opinion piece in the Portsmouth Herald)

  By Advancing New Hampshire Public Education | March 3, 2013 - 9:28 am | ,
Comments
Bill Duncan

Here is a short due diligence report for anyone considering supporting the voucher tax credit program enacted over the governor’s veto last year.

To date, only one “scholarship organization” has been approved to collect millions of dollars in potential business donations and then, after taking up to 10 percent off the top, to select the schools and children who will get the money. That’s a California group called the Alliance for the Separation of School and State. They opened an office in New Hampshire a couple of years ago, guided the sponsors in writing the legislation and lobbied for its passage.

They say their mission is “ending government involvement in education.” Here’s how they describe their beliefs:

“Our society has become a slave to the state by virtue of government-controlled schools. Children suffer, parents feel helpless, and scores of good educators feel trapped in a system that never should have existed in the first place. …

“Why shouldn’t the government be involved in education? The short answer: Government schooling stands in direct opposition to the liberty this country was founded on. It fosters unquestioning obedience, acceptance of authority, herd mentality, and dependency …;

“Please join us in exploring the problem of state-controlled schooling and the exciting solutions available this very day!”

They have hired local staff, changed their name to the more benign sounding Network for Educational Opportunity and are out raising money from New Hampshire businesses.

We are now in the perverse position of having made a group whose purpose is to shut down public education our sole agent to manage millions of dollars funded by state tax credits.

And what about the schools that would get the money? One will surely be the unaccredited, 340-student Tri-City Christian Academy in Somersworth. Tri-City was the second main lobbyist for the program, is probably the most active school in marketing the vouchers and works with the California group to defend the program against repeal. Here is some of what they say in their philosophy statement, an essay called “The Education Battlefield:”

“The role of Christian education is to acknowledge … the existence of God, and allow the ‘facts’ of the universe to follow, to His glory. …

“Government schools have assumed a virtual monopolistic influence over the lives of the vast majority of American families with school-aged children. … The use of centralized, publicly-financed, government-owned schools was imported from authoritarian Prussia, and we ‘lived without it’ throughout the formative years of our nation …

“The Unitarian liberals … rejected God the sovereign … King of the universe, and replaced Him with a hapless, helpless God. …

“The centerpiece institution for implementing … a cultural coup de tat (sic) would be universal public education. … The kind of ‘education’ they had in mind … would … replace … Christian theism with the moral relativism of secular humanism. …

“The micro-managers of the secular State cannot tolerate … competition. … Meanwhile, the student-conscripts of the government education corps have become the equivalent of human guinea pigs.”

Tri-City is one of 71 religious schools in New Hampshire, many of which share nationally syndicated coursework that integrates a conservative Christian theology into every lesson, every day. There is no academic accountability in the voucher program, so they can teach whatever they want. Here’s a sample from widely used textbooks:

A Bob Jones University science book says, “Bible-believing Christians cannot accept any evolutionary interpretation. Dinosaurs and humans were definitely on the earth at the same time and may have even lived side by side within the past few thousand years.”

A popular history book says, “The Klan in some areas of the country tried to be a means of reform, fighting the decline in morality and using the symbol of the cross to target bootleggers, wife beaters and immoral movies.”

From a current events book: “(Homosexuals) have no more claims to special rights than child molesters or rapists.”

Marketed as “school choice for poor kids,” the voucher program grants an almost dollar-for-dollar tax credit (a $10,000 donation costs the business only $429 out of pocket) for supporting this project to replace our public schools with religious schools teaching creationist science.

If you’re a business that wants to help low-income kids, there are better alternatives. You could support New Hampshire’s public charter schools. They are well managed by the state, use credible curricula — and are free to every child in the state.

The program is being challenged in court but, constitutionality aside, there is no legitimate public purpose for voucher tax credit.

Voucher repeal has already passed the House.

Please urge Sen. Nancy Stiles to change her position and support voucher repeal when it comes to the Senate.

via What are we buying with the voucher tax credit program? | SeacoastOnline.com.

Voucher Repeal (HB 370) Passes NH House. An ANHPE Update From Bill Duncan

  By Advancing New Hampshire Public Education | February 21, 2013 - 1:08 pm | ,
Comments

Voucher tax credit

Repeal The New Hampshire House passed HB 370, repeal of the voucher tax credit, yesterday by a vote of 188-151.  It was almost a party-line vote, with a few switches on each side and a lot of absentees.  See how your representative voted here.  The schedule from here is not set.  It could go to the Senate as late as March 28th.  When it get’s there, it will go to the Senate Health, Education and Human Services Committee, Chaired by Sen. Nancy Stiles (R, Hampton).  The committee will hold a public hearing at some point in April and then decide what to recommend.  Voucher repeal is also part of the governor’s budget, so that could affect the committee’s action.

Court Case The hearing (it is called a hearing, but it is really the trial) will be at 11:00 AM at the Strafford County Courthouse on April 26.  The whole trial will be on this one day and Judge Lewis will issue his opinion at some point after that.   There is no need for a show of numbers here, but the trial will probably last only several hours so it would be easy to attend if you are interested.  Here is our court challenge.  And here is a mapshowing the courthouse location.

There’s more about voucher repeal here.

Charter Schools

NHPR’s The Exchange broadcast today was on charter schools.  The program was notable for the consensus expressed in support of charter schools done “the New Hampshire way,” as Scott McGilvray, president of the National Education Association of New Hampshire, put it, The New Hampshire way, in this context, was seen as establishing charters that serve specific needs supplementing what the traditional public schools already do.  Governor Hassan had supported that idea in her budget address, saying that the she would give the New Hampshire Board of Education authority to “prioritize new charter school approval to underserved communities.”  Sen. Stiles, House Education Committee Chair, Rep. Mary Gile, Board of Education Chair Tom Raffio and NEA NH President McGilvray all sounded supportive of the governor’s approach but also felt that this was a good juncture at which to step back, review charter and public school performance and clarify state charter school policy.

There is more about charters here.

Bill