Tag Archives: Public Schools

4-22-13 AFT-NH Legislative Update From President Laura Hainey

  By New Hampshire Labor News | April 22, 2013 - 9:52 am | , , ,
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aft sqaure

IN OUR THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS

Given the week we just had, take a moment to thank all our first responders who keep us safe and help those in need.  Please stay safe!  And please, keep in your thoughts and prayers those who lost their lives or were injured in the tragic events of this past week.

EVENTS LIKE THIS CAN BE TRAUMATIC TO CHILDREN.

Here are free resources from Share My Lesson to help children cope with traumatic events. Schools are the most important places in a community for an educator or student to receive support when a crisis occurs. Schools provide a familiar environment where the many needs of grieving students and faculty can be met in one place. Administrators and educators need to be prepared to deal with any crisis that might arise; such preparation will better equip them to respond to students’ emotional needs in the wake of a crisis.

FULL SENATE VOTES TAKEN ON APRIL 18TH

The Senate tabled HB 370,  the repeal of the education tax credits, on Thursday. We might have lost this one but the fight is not over. Within the budget there is no funding for the education tax credit program.  Both HB 1 and HB 2: the state budget bills, are still being worked on in the Senate and we will need to monitor the progress to see if the voucher money is put back into the budget.

2014-2015 STATE BUDGET

The Senate is working its way through putting together their version of the State budget for the next two years. Much of their time has been spent hearing from Department Commissioners on the needs of their departments. From this they will start putting together final proposals for the full Senate to vote on. The Senate has till June 6th to take this vote. We do know that just like in other years, the budget bills (HB 1 and HB 2) will be sent to a Committee Of Conference. This is where members for the House and Senate will hash out a deal. They will have till June 20th to sign  off on the final deal and both chambers will have till June 26th to vote on the Committee’s report. AFT-NH will continue to monitor this as it works its way through the Senate and Committee of Conference.

UPCOMING FULL HOUSE VOTES ON APRIL 24TH

The House will be voting on SB 132, establishing a committee to study police special details. The House Executive Departments and Administration committee made the recommendation of inexpedient to legislate by a vote of 14 to 3. AFT-NH is in support of this recommendation and asks that all House member vote in support of this recommendation.

Rep. Dianne E Schuett said it best: “This bill proposed to study the efficacy of police special details, particularly at traffic construction sites. The committee was presented with a recent department of transportation study delineating use of police details versus flag persons at state construction sites. The committee also believed that decisions on whether to employ police or flag persons on municipal construction sites should be left to local control. Therefore, the committee could see no need for this study.”

HEARING HELD THIS PAST WEEK

The House Health, Human Services and Elderly Affairs held a hearing on SB 166: relative to critical incident stress management and crisis intervention services. This bill establishes that information divulged during critical incident stress management and crisis intervention services is confidential, with limited exceptions specified in the bill. AFT-NH supports the passage of this bill. We feel it is important that we do something for our first responders to support and help them thought difficulty times.

If you have any questions or concerns please email me at lhainey@aft-nh.org or call 603-661-7293.

In Solidarity,
Laura Hainey
AFT-NH President

UPCOMING HEARINGS FOR NEXT WEEK
Note the ones in red are priority bills for AFT-NH

MONDAY, APRIL 22

FINANCE, Room 103, SH
AGENCY PRESENTATIONS ON THE BUDGET AS PASSED BY THE HOUSE
9:00 a.m. Public Employee Labor Relations Board

TUESDAY, APRIL 23

CHILDREN AND FAMILY LAW, Room 206, LOB
10:00 a.m. Subcommittee work session on SB 129-FN, relative to court-ordered placements in shelter care facilities and at the Sununu Youth Services Center, relative to the children in need of services (CHINS) program, and establishing a committee to study programs for children in need.

EDUCATION, Room 207, LOB
10:30 a.m. SB 18, conferring degree-granting authority to the American University of Madaba.
11:00 a.m. SB 27-FN, relative to monitoring by the Department of Education of programs for children with disabilities.
1:15 p.m. SB 82, establishing a commission to identify strategies needed for developing and implementing a competency-based public education system.
2:00 p.m. SB 48, relative to school performance and accountability.
2:30 p.m. SB 97, relative to high school equivalency and relative to illiteracy.

HEALTH, HUMAN SERVICES AND ELDERLY AFFAIRS, Room 205, LOB
10:00 a.m. Executive session on SB 166, relative to critical incident stress management and crisis intervention services,

LABOR, INDUSTRIAL AND REHABILITATIVE SERVICES, Room 307, LOB
11:00 a.m. SB 100, authorizing electronic payment of payroll.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24

PUBLIC AND MUNICIPAL AFFAIRS, Room 102, LOB
9:30 a.m. HB 178-FN-L, relative to public employer collective bargaining agreements.

CHILDREN AND FAMILY LAW, Room 206, LOB
1:00 p.m. Or one hour after the House session ends, executive session on SB 129-FN, relative to court ordered placements in shelter care facilities and at the Sununu Youth Services Center, relative to the children in need of services (CHINS) program, and establishing a committee to study programs for children in need.

LABOR, INDUSTRIAL AND REHABILITATIVE SERVICES, Room 303, LOB (Please note room change.)
1:00 p.m. Or after the end of the House session, executive session on
SB 100, authorizing electronic payment of payroll.

TUESDAY, APRIL 30

JUDICIARY, Room 100, SH
9:40 a.m. HB 433, relative to procedures for juvenile delinquency petitions filed by a school district or school official.

EDUCATION, Room 207, LOB
10:00 a.m. Executive session on
SB 134-FN, relative to the division of higher education and the higher education commission,
SB 162-FN, repealing the student tuition guaranty fund and making provisions for the disbursement of remaining funds, and relative to the membership of the higher education commission.

THURSDAY, MAY 2

EDUCATION, Room 207, LOB
10:00 a.m. Subcommittee work session on retained HB 435-FN, relative to funding for chartered public school pupils, HB 243, relative to the board of trustees of a chartered public school, HB 424- FN, relative to review of chartered public school applications by the state board of education.

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 | ,
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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

Take Action To Save Our Public Schools; Sign the AFT-NH Petition Supporting HB 370

  By New Hampshire Labor News | March 19, 2013 - 7:00 am | ,
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aft sqaure

Last year the legislature passed two bills diverting public money for education to religious and private schools as well as home schoolers. This session, HB 370 aims to repeal this education tax credit program.

The tax credit program initiated in 2012 is an ill-disguised attempt to begin dismantling and privatizing our public education in NH while weakening our good schools. We are justly proud of our schools in NH and these “vouchers” disguised as tax-credits will only harm public education.

Please click here TODAY and urge the SENATE HEALTH, EDUCATION & HUMAN SERVICES committee members to support NH public schools and defend the NH constitution by voting to pass HB 370.

If you care about public education in NH, please take this action.

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 | , ,
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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

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 | ,
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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

AFT-NH Wants Your Help To Save Our Public Schools: A message from Laura Hainey (Pres. AFT-NH)

  By New Hampshire Labor News | February 9, 2013 - 7:51 pm | ,
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aft sqaure

AFT-NH RED ISSUE ALERT
SAVE OUR NH PUBLIC SCHOOLS and support HB 370

Last year the legislature passed two bills diverting public money for education to religious and private schools as well as home schoolers. This session, HB 370 aims to repeal this education tax credit program.

The tax credit program initiated in 2012 is an ill-disguised attempt to begin dismantling and privatizing our public education in NH while weakening our good schools. We are justly proud of our schools in NH and these vouchers will only harm public education.

It’s time for you to contact members of the House Ways and Means Committee and ask that they vote to pass HB 370 and repeal the education tax credit program.

Please click here TODAY  and ask the House Ways And Means committee to support NH public schools and defend the NH constitution by voting to pass HB 370.

If you care about public education in NH, please take this action.

Thank you!

In Solidarity,
Laura Hainey

Have you visited the AFT-NH Facebook page and clicked “Like Us”? Please do so today


“Fighting For Our Future” www.aft-nh.org

 

The Teacher Evaluations Debate Comes To NH: An Update from ANHPE

  By Advancing New Hampshire Public Education | January 9, 2013 - 5:11 pm | ,
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Teacher

The Teacher evaluation debate comes to New Hampshire

The national debate about the future of American public education – the “education reform” debate that has taken shape over the past 10 years – has two major parts.   One is essentially about privatization of our public school systems – either though for-profit charter schools (unlike those we have in New Hampshire) or by using publicly-funded vouchers to send children to private schools (like our New Hampshire voucher plan).

The other part of the debate is all about how best to hold schools and teachers accountable for educational results.  This often has a corporate tone, as in, “Show me the improved scores or you will be fired (if you’re a teacher) or shut down (if you’re a school).”   In this form, evaluation is not directly concerned with curriculum questions and can become a club to beat on teachers.  At the other end of the spectrum, teacher evaluation can be integrated with curriculum as a tool for coaching teachers and improving schools.

That debate on how teacher performance should be evaluated has arrived in New Hampshire.

First, the New Hampshire Department of Education is about to publish it’s “Model Educator Support and Evaluation System” (as reported on NHPR).  Teacher evaluation is a key part of the department’s application to the U.S. Department of Education asking to waive the requirements of No Child Left Behind.  Our department of education clearly takes the “coaching” approach to evaluation, but it will be important to assess any teacher evaluation legislation proposed this year on that same scale of corporate vs. coaching.

Then, Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst organization gave New Hampshire’s education policies an F grade in its recent report.  Ms. Rhee is clearly an advocate of the corporate approach, as you can see in the Frontline documentary about her.  Although the report is political advocacy, not really a contribution to education policy, it will undoubtedly be used as fodder in the New Hampshire education debate.

And, finally, House Education Committee members Rep Rick Ladd (R, Haverhill) and Rep. Ralph Boehm (R-Litchfield) have submitted a Legislative Services Request to draft a bill “relative to teacher evaluation systems.”  We will track that here when there is something to track.

How should we think about all this?

Although there are many components to teacher evaluation, the heart of the matter is what’s called the “value added modeling,” or VAM.  Our own Scott Marion, of Rye, is a nationally respected practitioner in teacher and student evaluation and VAM.  He works with departments of education across the country, including our own here in New Hampshire.  With some guidance from Scott (but any errors are my own), I’ll do a series of posts to help make VAM and the debate about it accessible to parents and the rest of us.

Value added modeling is a way of analyzing student test scores to attribute a student’s progress to specific teachers.  This is a new discipline, still very much in development.  If it were a drug, it would be in the testing phase, pre-FDA certification.  But it is in use in a number of districts around the country.

The VAM debate is, first, about whether it works at all.  Then, what kinds of tests can effectively be used for this kind of teacher assessment?  Even then, many wonder how reliable can VAM ever be.  And, finally, the most visible part of the debate is over how much weight VAM results should carry in a teacher’s evaluation.  Many knowledgeable practitioners seem to feel that VAM should be limited to 20-25% of a teacher’s total evaluation, with classroom observation, peer review, student feedback and other factors comprising the rest.  But many advocates and school districts, particularly those who subscribe to the corporate style of evaluation, propose evaluation plans that rely on VAM for as much as 50% of the teacher’s evaluation.

Since VAM is part of the NHDOE model support and evaluation plan, we’ll post more later on all this.   If you want to go a step deeper now, here is a good place to start: a 20 page piece by Henry Braun, published by the Educational Testing Service, called “Using Student Progress to Evaluate Teachers: A Primer on Value-Added Models.”

***

Originally posted on ANHPE 

The NH Union Leader Is Wrong, We Need Teachers Not Volunteers In Our Classrooms

  By Matt Murray | January 8, 2013 - 10:50 am | ,
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CREDIT: Dreamstime

CREDIT: Dreamstime

Once again the ultra-conservative editors at the NH Union Leader have completely missed the mark.  Today they published an editorial on the idea to use “volunteers” to oversee virtual classrooms.

This ridiculous idea came from Mayor Gatas as a way to expand charter schools and reduce the cost of education in Manchester.

“Mayor Ted Gatsas is posing by advocating that virtual learning classrooms in Manchester’s public schools be headed by volunteers, not teachers.”

Here is the plan as laid out by the NH Union Leader:

“The mayor wants to expand learning opportunities in the public schools by providing “virtual classrooms.” Students could either take a course through the state’s Virtual Learning Academy Charter School”

This is a bad idea and I will explain why.  Have you ever watched a YouTube video on how to change a sink drain?  It seemed very easy as you watched the pre-recorded video, right?  Then what happened? You got started, and something did not go the same way as it did when you watched the video.  After playing with it for a short time you end up calling the plumber and paying someone to not only fix the original problem, but fix your mess too.

Now imagine if instead of a sink drain, you are teaching children mathematics, or english?  We can all agree that every child learns differently and at different paces.  When that child has a problem and needs a real live person to answer it, who do you want helping you child?  Do you want a mom or dad from the parents association, or do you want a professional teacher?  Do you want someone who has been trained to teach children of all levels and abilities this specific material or some parent who has a kid in the class?

The NH Union Leader says that the Manchester Education Association has “Concerns” over this idea. Of course they have “concerns” over this, it is much more politically correct than telling you boss (the mayor) that this is the dumbest idea you have every heard in your entire life.

I completely reject the editors comment that, “the MEA is really concerned about union membership and compensation”.  No the MEA is not concerned about membership, they are concerned about the quality of education being provided to the students in Manchester.  After all they are dedicated professionals who have devoted their lives to helping teach children.

The Union Leader likes to complain that our education system in New Hampshire is failing our children and we need things like Students First or Charter Schools to fix them.  It is ideas like these and ‘virtual classrooms without teachers’ that would completely destroy public education in NH.  You want a better education system in Manchester then start by finding a better ways to fund it. Put more teachers in classrooms and fewer students in a class.  Give them the tools they need to teach every child, not just the really smart or rich ones.

Every child deserves a quality education. 

A message from Bill Duncan: Advancing New Hampshire Public Education

  By Advancing New Hampshire Public Education | November 12, 2012 - 8:33 pm | ,
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Bill Duncan

Cross-posted with permission

Friends of New Hampshire Public Education,

Well! We have a lot to digest from the election.  In this brief Update, I won’t try to accomplish too much – just get us oriented for the coming session.

The top line is that we elected friends of public education.  The budget challenges have not gone away but the debate this year will about solving problems and strengthening our schools in New Hampshire – and how to pay for that – rather than about dismantling public education.  The assault on public education was only one component of the larger assault on government in all its forms, but it’s fair to say that voters have rejected that.

It’s certainly fair to call Governor-elect Hassan an all-out advocate for public education.  She sees our public education system, including higher education, as the key to our development as a state.  And most of our legislators – new and returning, Republican and Democrat – and are strong supporters as well.  Opposition to public education was one the issues that brought candidates down.  Some of the winners even ran on their opposition to the voucher plan.

In response, we will now call ourselves “Advancing New Hampshire Public Education,” rather than “Defending…”  Updates will be called “ANHPE Updates.”  And we  have a new web site (here) because so much of the “Defending…” site will not be relevant to this year’s legislative debate.  The “Defending…” site will remain up, though, and we’ll refer to it as needed.

The new site is more in a blog format, with more opportunity for interaction.  I’ve listed the pre-filed education bills (here) though many of the old standards like proposals to disband the Department of Education will no longer be relevant.  We’ll weed them out as we go along.

I would not suggest that we have a real agenda for this session at this early stage, but here are some of the points I would make:

 

The voucher plan

The constitutionality of the voucher bill has not yet been challenged in court but may still be soon.  One bill concerning the voucher plan has been filed by Rep. Peter Sullivan of Manchester (Legislative Services Requiest 2013-H-0190-L).  Since Rep. Sullivan opposed the voucher bill last year, this may be the beginnings of an effort to repeal the voucher plan.  Most defenders of the plan have retired from elected office (Sen. Forsythe) or been defeated (Rep. Hill), so there may not be much of a constituency for this orphan bill in the new Legislature.  In case the voucher plan does survive, I have commented on the proposed regulations, suggesting greater reporting transparency on what happens to the state’s money.

 

University system funding

Restoring the drastic cuts to UNH and our community college system will be a high priority for the Governor and many legislators.  Finding the money for this will not be easy but restoring cuts to the cigarette tax and the motor vehicle registration surcharge would be a good starting point.

 

Education funding

Last year’s efforts to eliminate the state obligation to fund public education, to eliminate the fundamental right of our children to an adequate education and to minimize the authority of our courts in education will probably not gain real traction this year.  But the perennial discussion of a constitutional amendment to allow targeting state aid to the neediest communities is bound to come back this year.  It’s a complex subject that even strong supporters of public education disagree about.  In the opinion of many experienced advocates, however, that we do not need a constitutional amendment to target sufficiently.  We will try to promote a constructive solution to this issue this year.

 

School building aid

The last Legislature essentially opted out of any significant state support for building schools, a severe blow to public education in New Hampshire, especially to any community with a small tax base.  Under the current plan, no real money would be available for years.  This will surely get further discussion this year.

It will take time to address these and other pressing issues like vocational education funding, support for our community colleges and support for early childhood education.  But New Hampshire’s economy and state revenues will probably improve over the next four years, along with the national economy as a whole.  There will be many demands on these expanding revenues but we will advocate for investing a fair proportion in education, for the benefit of the kids and the development of the State.

 

Bill