Sarah Earle’s recent article on special education spending (“In N.H., Reallocation of Special Education Money Favors Spenders,” Jan. 15), should raise red flags as to the goings on in our state Department of Education.
The federal government allocates special education money to New Hampshire school districts based on the under-resourced population. The money has to be spent in 27 months or the unallocated funds revert to the state. This year, the state has proposed to “repurpose” the unused funds and send them to those districts that have spent down all or most of their allocated funds because, as Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut indicated, their administrators are “really good managers.”
What this means is that the state will use the unallocated funds of the neediest underserved population and give them to those districts with the most resources. The unused funds from such communities as Newport and Claremont will go to line the pockets of districts such as Hanover and other well-endowed communities’ schools.
Such a move flies in the face of, well, just about everything. First, the neediest schools that are in a longstanding lawsuit with the state about school funding will be losing their allocated money to the schools with the most resources. Second, to state that the wealthiest schools have the best managers belies an ignorance befitting Louis XVI.
Here’s a thought. Let’s consider the fact that administrators in the underserved districts are actually exceptional managers. How else can they maintain accreditation under the dire circumstances that the state has created? I also might suggest that it is easier to manage resources when you have an unlimited supply of them.
Here’s a novel idea, New Hampshire: Give the money back to the communities with the fewest resources and the highest rates of students needing special education. Support the underserved, not the privileged.
Maggie Moore-West
Lyme
On April 3, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his now-famous I’ve Been to the Mountaintop speech. We did not know then what would happen to him the next day, but his speech reveals that he sensed it. Until April 2, 2016, I had never read or heard that speech. What I knew about King was limited to what I had read or seen in the news. I was never directly involved in the civil rights movement. My support was not personal.
For those indirect, impersonal reasons, I suppose, I went to see a play at Northern Stage — The Mountaintop by Katori Hall. I sat in seat 302, which placed me in the second row facing downstage left. That meant that the actor playing King gave the closing monolog while standing directly in front of me, about 10 feet away. I was hearing King’s words for the first time. I began sobbing. I could not applaud. I could not move from my seat for five minutes because I knew that we are so very, very far from reaching the promised land — the beloved community — that had been revealed to King by God.
It’s personal to me now. I thank Katori Hall, Northern Stage and the actors. It’s woefully inadequate to thank Martin Luther King. We know what President Lincoln said when dedicating Gettysburg. We need to keep remembering those who inspire us to follow our better instincts and need to keep rededicating ourselves to those goals.
Janet Eller
Norwich
It is painful to learn that thousands more migrant children were separated from their parents than previously reported. It turns out that the separations took place both before and after the official “zero-tolerance” policy was announced. In an effort to understand this level of inhumanity, let’s “follow the money.” Who is profiting from this?
Detaining undocumented immigrants, many of them children, is largely outsourced to the private prison system. Analysts accurately predicted that the use of immigrant detention would skyrocket, as did private prison stocks, under the current administration. Private prison companies spend millions on lobbying efforts and campaign contributions, according to Opensecrets.org, a nonpartisan website that monitors the influence of money on American politics.
Separating children from their families has a sad history in the U.S., dating back to slavery. It was beyond shameful then and it is beyond shameful now. Let us not turn away from this crisis.
Vivian Dolkart
Grantham
I am a student at Hanover High School and I have many friends who bike to school. Many students at our school live in Hanover or in the surrounding towns, which are near enough to the school to bike. Biking is mainly from Hanover, but students do bike from Norwich. Every day I come to school and the bike racks are full. Sometimes I wonder, how are these students safely getting to school on bicycles? Old biking laws created in Hanover make me wonder this.
Hanover has strict biking ordinances. For example, “No person over twelve years of age shall ride a bicycle on any sidewalk” (according to Ordinance 2). However, if you are above this age, you are expected to ride on narrow bike lanes on the side of the road, while also expected to follow all basic traffic laws. This has never made sense to me. How are 13-, 14-, and 15-year-olds expected to know traffic laws? This could pose a serious safety hazard. Imagine a group of 13-year-olds, trying to follow traffic laws as if they have taken a drivers ed course. Again, a safety hazard.
There needs to be a change. Students who are uneducated about driving laws, and whose only transportation to school is biking, need to have the option of riding a bicycle on sidewalks. The age should be raised to 15½, since 15½-year-olds are permitted to start learning driving.
With the necessary knowledge of traffic laws, our roads would be much safer for all.
Dominic Movizzo
Etna