Janet Ward lives in Hopkinton.

On April 11, at the State Board of Education’s second public hearing on Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut’s revisions of the 306 Rules which govern public schools, Board Chair Drew Cline gave all those present an amazing lesson in shapeshifting, the ability to change form at will.

For those who do not know, when he is not chairing NH’s State Board of Education, Mr. Cline serves as the executive director of the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, a conservative think tank that supports Education Freedom Accounts (EFAs), the name given to New Hampshire’s school voucher program.

Cleverly slipped into law through its inclusion by Gov. Chris Sununu into our state budget in 2021, the EFA program takes public tax dollars and directs them to parents or guardians to be used to homeschool their children or send them to private or religious schools. 81% of children who have enrolled in the EFA program were already in private educational settings. Prior to the implementation of the EFA program, their tuition costs were paid for without the use of public tax dollars.

In the words of the NH Charitable Foundation published on June 30, 2021: “This [NH state] budget imperils the promise of public education for all: The new school voucher program will strip funding from our public schools and leave the most vulnerable children – the ones who rely most on the promise of public education – in schools with fewer resources, increasingly inadequate facilities and diminished opportunity.”

Moreover, there is virtually no oversight of the curriculum used in these private settings, and to date there has not been an accurate accounting of exactly how our tax dollars are being used. Taxpayers are simply required to pay the bill that to date amounts to $45 million. These are tax dollars that have been taken away from our community public schools which serve around 165,000 students.

The initial April 3 public hearing on Commissioner Edelblut’s revisions resulted in a flood of negative letters and testimony. News coverage of the revision process, which is legislatively required to take place every ten years, reported that the current process had taken place largely out of public view and that the commissioner’s revisions do not reflect critical contributions provided by educators and other stakeholders originally involved in the revision process or those who participated in a subsequent series of public hearings.

During the second public hearing on April 11, Chairman Cline, State Board members, and Commissioner Edelblut witnessed yet another outpouring of grave concern from members of New Hampshire school boards, the curriculum specialist who has reviewed the revisions with hundreds of education professionals and members of the public, as well as citizens who have recently witnessed unprecedented attacks on their community’s public schools.

Article continues after...

Yesterday's Most Read Articles

Kenyon: What makes Dartmouth different?

On the trail: NH Democrats quietly hold second presidential primary

Hometown Heroes: Couple’s sunflower fields in Concord reconnects the community to farming

High schools: Monday’s baseball, softball, lacrosse and tennis results

Conant’s Saucier moving over to Bow

Man apparently went hiking in Crawford Path 2 weeks ago but hasn’t been found

The response of Board Chair Drew Cline? Surprise and amazement at the negativity communicated in the onslaught of letters and testimony regarding the 306 revisions. Did the protesters not understand that the revisions are still a “draft,” he asked?

Hooey! It is Chairman Cline who shapeshifted into the role of an aggrieved party. It is Chairman Cline who does not want to face this hard truth: The reason that the 306 revisions draft has brought forth such tremendous negative response is because the draft shows virtually no evidence that the contributions provided by so many educational professionals were ultimately included in the commissioner’s revisions.

Instead, the 306 draft ignores the legislative oversight required by law and makes major policy changes, a responsibility of the Legislature not the Department of Education; tempts local school boards to address taxpayer concerns about the rising costs of their public schools by eliminating class size limits while reducing the number of teachers needed to adequately meet students’ educational needs. (Keep in mind that taxpayer concerns are fueled by our state’s refusal to adequately fund our public schools); chips away at local control of our public schools; and swings the door wide open to the privatization of public education with virtually no public oversight of curriculum or costs to the taxpayer.

On April 15 Commissioner Edelblut published a “word salad” of an op-ed deceitfully claiming that his revisions include a “compilation of input from educators with years of experience” when it is eminently clear that this input was effectively ignored.

If you want to protect your community’s public schools which serve as a foundation of our democracy, then email your comments to the department by April 30 and ask that they are shared with Commissioner Edelblut, Chairman Cline and the members of the State Board of Education.