A state without public schools?
New Hampshire state government wants to do away with Public Education in New Hampshire. The current administration has boldly demonstrated this by:
• Passing legislation that ensures the responsibility to fund state public education is shifted completely on the shoulders of property owners (HB1815);
• Actively petitioning the NH State Supreme Court to overturn the Claremont Decision, which ruled that the state was obligated to fund an adequate education using state-level revenues;
• Cutting tax revenues to benefit the wealthiest individuals and corporations in the state, including many of the legislators who have supported these laws;
• Systematically demonizing public education and educators in New Hampshire by curtailing the rights of teachers and narrowing the voices of parents by only supporting the naysayers;
• Draining public school funds to provide vouchers to families whose children were already enrolled in private schools and calling these “Education Freedom Accounts.”
So now that the current administration has washed their hands of funding public education, they’ve pushed a referendum question (Question #2) on the Nov. 3 ballot to give property owners the option to join them in defunding public education. I call that a sinister move.
I urge you — before you vote “yes” on Question 2 — to read it carefully: Couched under the rationale that there are fewer students and too many administrators, there is no language in Question 2 that guarantees cuts will not cause students to lose out due to canceled courses, essential services, unreasonable class size and much-needed nutritional subsidies.
And it begs the question: If Question 2 passes and funding for public education from property taxes is greatly reduced, and there is no responsibility or will on the part of the state to support an adequate public education, how will public schools survive in New Hampshire? The answer is that public schools will not survive in New Hampshire. Do you want to live in a state without a healthy public school system?
Vote “no” on Question 2 and vote to weed out self-interested legislators who have consistently undermined the constitutional rights of the students, towns and citizens of New Hampshire.