The Society for the Destruction of Public Education in New Hampshire (at times, known as “Free Staters,” at other times known as the Republican majority state legislators) has hit on another strategy in its assault on local pubic schools that also takes a shot at democracy, potentially weakening the nearly 400-year-old tradition of town meetings and school district meetings in New Hampshire.
You’ve seen those yard signs, the ones that seductively entice you to “vote yes to cap property taxes.” (See what they’re doing here? Pairing everyone’s wish for lower taxes with the state’s refusal to fix its broken, unfair, and illegal tax system.)
According to my town’s sample ballot for our upcoming election, approval of Question 2 would limit the authority of our local town and school district meetings, while at the same time assuring us that “these caps … do not affect classroom instruction, school-based services, or other municipal expenditures.” Seems too good to be true, doesn’t it? That’s because it isn’t.
Whether you think that your local schools are extravagant or not (they’re not), whether you think that a tax cap is a good idea or not (it’s not), the notion that these anti-democracy caps “do not affect classroom instruction, school-based services…” is both grossly misleading and an outright lie. (Society members can’t possibly even believe this themselves.)
During my years as a school leader in Pittsfield, the annual school budget was even more frugal than proposed by the Society. The Society’s scheme is to install a tax cap that limits school and town spending to the CPI (consumer price index, a number used to describe the inflation rate). Has the Society considered what happens when the CPI is a negative number, such as occurred in 2009?
Pittsfield voters approved annual school budgets between 2008 and 2018 that increased by about 3.5% over the 10-year period, that’s 3.5% cumulative increase over a 10-year period while the CPI increased by about 14%. In real terms, the school budget stood flat at about $10 million during these years.
And, guess what? “Classroom instruction” and “school-based services” were indeed affected, which didn’t surprise anyone. Among the impacts: elimination of teacher positions, reduction of administrative services, larger class sizes, elimination of options for students (such as Advanced Placement courses and remedial instruction for struggling students), and cutbacks to needed classroom supplies and equipment and more. Who could possibly believe the Society’s lies?
Through this same 10-year period, the Pittsfield’s schools also absorbed dramatic increases across basic operational costs: dramatic increases in the cost of heating oil and electricity (think about your home cost increases during these years), double-digit increases in health insurance, six-digit unanticipated special education costs, increased transportation costs (most school buses use diesel fuel), and facility needs due to aging buildings.
And, in case you might think that Pittsfield’s citizens may have been responding to extravagant spending, be aware that Pittsfield’s teachers are among the lowest paid in the entire state, support staff salaries are sadly not competitive and limitations of offerings to high school students do not come close to comparing with those of other area high schools, placing Pittsfield graduates at competitive disadvantage for higher education and jobs.
At the same time, the Society proposes to change the rules of town and school district meetings, an institution that has been working for New Hampshire communities for nearly 400 years, meetings where community members share information, solve problems, and (often after much argument) vote and agree to live by the vote on operations for the subsequent year.
Clearly the Society doesn’t trust community voters to make our own decisions. Simply stated, the Society doesn’t trust democracy; it’s working to rig town and school district meetings against the will of voters. Make no mistake about the Society’s goals.
Heard enough? On Election Day, vote No on Question 2; your No vote will tell Society for the Destruction of Public Education in New Hampshire that you trust the voters of your community and that you value two longstanding New Hampshire institutions — public education and democracy, via town and district meetings — that have served our communities for so long.
John J. Freeman was formerly the school principal at Pittsfield Elementary School and formerly the superintendent of schools fot the Pittdfield School District. He lives in Strafford.