Rep. Dan McGuire (R-Merrimack) has introduced House Bill 283, which would eliminate many requirements taught in public schools, including music and visual arts. Meanwhile, his GOP colleagues are pushing private and religious school vouchers to underwrite the state’s wealthiest families as they send their kids to exclusive private schools, like Brewster Academy in Wolfeboro. The tuition for day students there is $43,000 a year. It advertises that, “because we believe that the arts are an important part of learning, we require all students to take courses in the arts.” The push to eliminate the arts and music from our public schools is sanctioned by billionaire dark money and the think tanks they fund. The New Hampshire Journal wrote that McGuire and his wife Rep. Carol McGuire came to New Hampshire to join the Free Staters. Young Americans for Liberty, the dark money, anti-public school, Texas-based PAC that drives a lot of New Hampshire education policy, has supported both the McGuires. The Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, a conservative New Hampshire think tank with ties to the Sununu family, lists Dan McGuire as a board member. The estimated $100 million in new taxes to underwrite the private and religious school vouchers will subsidize their art programs while HB283 devalues these programs at your kids’ public schools. Let’s concentrate on improving our public schools and speak out against HB283 and the voucher for the rich bill.
Leonard Witt
Sandwich