In the Sunday Monitor (2/27), a couple of letters addressed the inadequacy of NH HB 1671, which pares down the definition of an adequate education for NH children to four required core areas: English language arts, arithmetic and mathematics; natural and physical science, and social studies. These are all important areas of study. However, schools would not be required to offer, as listed in the bill, arts education, world languages, physical education, health and wellness, computer science and digital literacy, logic and rhetoric, and personal financial literacy.
These would only be included at the discretion of local school districts. I join the letter writers in their opposition to this bill. Imagine the boredom of school without art or music, phys. ed., etc. Imagine education without instruction in computer science, in this day and age. The next section of the bill starts. “Instruction in core domains…shall be complimented with…” Allow me to point out that “compliment” means “a polite expression of praise or admiration.” “Complement” means “a thing that completes or brings to perfection.” I believe the latter is the meaning intended by the drafter of the bill. Perhaps a spelling lesson is in order, presumably that comes under “English language arts.”
Jane Munson
Concord