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Miami real estate mogul Ophir Sternberg cares so much about education that he founded Lionheart Classical Academy in Peterborough, N.H., according to his company biography.

“Sternberg’s dedication to education led him to found The Lionheart Classical Academy, a chartered public school in New Hampshire. He is passionate about providing quality education to young learners. Sternberg’s notable titles and accomplishments, including his commitment to philanthropy through the Lionheart Academy, exemplify his entrepreneurial spirit and dedication to making a positive impact in his community,” the biography states.

But that’s not quite accurate. Sternberg did not found the school alone, and he is not among the handful of dedicated Monadnock area residents who worked together for months to launch the charter school. 

Instead, Sternberg is the landlord, the owner of the Sharon Road commercial property Lionheart rents for $38,000 a month. He also has the naming rights for Lionheart, named after his investment firm Lionheart Holdings, a currently publicly traded company. He won the name in exchange for a $1 million pledge that has not gone as planned, so far.

The charter school is pushing back on concerns of financial problems expressed by founder Fred Ward and parent Kevin Brace. The school’s board recently announced a $5 million endowment from an anonymous donor. Additionally, the board says it anticipates an audit report showing it is already on good financial footing, and operating at a surplus of more than $1,000 per student. The board is also denying claims it has met outside posted meetings. 

Sternberg’s connection to the school and former Board Chair Barry Tanner are among the issues made public recently. The entrepreneur began contacting the press this week to tell his side of the story in response to inquiries. Sternberg told NHJournal on Wednesday he cares deeply about the school and its mission.

“They are serving a real need for the community,” Sternberg said. “I hear great things about the school and the education the students are receiving there.”

Asked about the “founder” claim, Sternberg said Tanner and other people in the founding set consider him a “founding partner.”

“I was called the founding partner for my contribution to help get the school going,” Sternberg said. 

On Saturday, Sternberg provided NHJournal screenshots from several emails in which Tanner thanked Sternberg for his generosity.

“And Ophir, I want to personally thank you for partnering with us, supporting LCA with incredible generosity and friendship,” Tanner wrote in one email about the lease.

Sternberg also said Saturday he would change his company biography to reflect he did not found Lionheart Academy alone.

While Tanner is no longer on the board, he’s the one who negotiated the lease and the naming agreement pledge with Sternberg in 2021. Tanner and Sternberg also attempted to go into business together.

Sternberg acknowledged he and Tanner tried to buy the Hancock Inn in a partnership when the historic bed and breakfast went on the market a couple of years ago. The venture was never disclosed to the Lionheart community, but Sternberg said it had nothing to do with the lease and naming agreement. The Hancock Inn did not come up for sale until a few months after the Lionheart deals were done, he said.

Tanner declined to talk about his one-time potential business partnership with Sternberg when contacted last week. It’s since been learned Lionheart Academy’s board lost all copies of the signed conflict of interest statements board members like Tanner would have signed.

As for the $1 million pledge, Sternberg said the original agreement was for 10 annual payments of $100,000, with the first payment made in 2021. But, the following year, Sternberg and the board agreed to change the donation from cash payments to stock in one of his businesses. The stock, valued at $1 million, would not be accessible by the school for a year. By the time the school could sell the stock last year, it was virtually worthless.

“Publicly traded stock is always speculative,” Sternberg said.

If the company’s fortunes fared better, Lionheart Academy could have ended up with more than $1 million through the stock gift. Sternberg is adamant he will cover the donation balance, though he hasn’t made any more payments yet. The plan for the stock donation always carried his backstop guarantee to pay any difference if the stock was valued at less than $1 million.

The plan right now, Sternberg said, is to renegotiate the Sharon Road lease in order to give the school its donation through lower payments. 

Lionheart paid no base rent for most of the first year it leased the building in 2021, only paying $6,600 a month in maintenance expenses and taxes. But starting in the fall of 2022, the school made monthly base payments of $24,000 on top of maintenance and taxes. The base payment has been rising every year as the school expands and it is currently set to go to more than $29,000 a month on Oct. 1, with close to $9,000 more a month in maintenance and taxes. 

Lionheart isn’t the only tenant in the Sharon Road property. While the school will pay a total of $15.08 per square foot starting next month, Sternberg acknowledged the other tenant pays about $8 per square foot. 

“They’ve been there for many, many years before I got the building,” Sternberg said. 

Sternberg lives in Miami, but he spends summers in Peterborough, where he has a second “equestrian” home. Sternberg bought the Sharon Road property a few years ago and has no plans to sell, nor does he intend to give the property to the school where he’s a founding partner. He expressed surprise when asked if he would give the building to the school.

“I put the space up for a lease, and I agreed to make it as long-term as they would want,” Sternberg said.

The rent schedule attached to the lease Sternberg and Tanner signed runs through 2036, when Lionheart will be paying more than $60,000 a month. 

But among the concerns Ward has raised is the issue Lionheart Academy is now locked into perpetual fundraising, largely in order to pay large sums of money to founding partner Sternberg.

“I don’t really understand the controversy,” Sternberg said. “There are a few naysayers trying to create some controversy.”

New Hampshire could see economic growth grind to a halt, tax rates explode, and the state government take control of local schools if the state Supreme Court upholds the rulings in the Rand and ConVal education funding cases.

That’s the scenario laid out by free-market think tank American Institute for Economic Research in its amicus brief filed in court this week.

The state is appealing the Superior Court rulings in the Rand and ConVal lawsuits which, if enforced, upend the current school funding system by bringing back so-called donor towns and adding more than $500 million of taxpayer money to the state adequacy grant system.

AIER Senior Research Fellow Jason Sorens told NHJournal school funding isn’t about left or right politics, but about avoiding negative consequences like ballooning taxes, anti-business and growth measures, and the loss of local control. 

“Should we encourage towns to have low property values? Should we punish towns for choosing to allow apartments or commercial development?” Sorens said.

Last year, Rockingham Superior Court Judge David Ruoff ruled in the Rand v. New Hampshire lawsuit the state’s Statewide Education Property Tax system is unjust since it allows communities with high property values to keep excess SWEPT funds, essentially paying an unequal tax rate than communities with lower property values.

Then in the ConVal v. New Hampshire case, Ruoff ruled in favor of the coalition of school districts led by the Contoocook Valley School District that argued the state is violating the constitution by failing to fund an adequate education. Ruoff ruled the state’s per-pupil adequacy grants need to go up from $4,100 per pupil to at least $7,300.

Sorens and AIER President William Ruger said they want New Hampshire to keep its current system and find other ways to fix education without restrictive government action or more taxes.

“School finance equalization has been a big driver of new taxes and unnecessary government growth across the country,” Ruger said. “AIER’s economic analysis shows that it has mostly been based on misconceptions about the alleged ‘inequity’ of locally funded education. With this case, we hope the Court will set a new precedent, based on sound economic reasoning, that vindicates local control of school funding and decentralized competition among governments.”

The old donor town system of transferring tax dollars from property-rich towns to property-poor communities will return if Rand is upheld, Sorens said. That system brings economic stagnation and real inequality.

Asked if he would describe the donor town system as a “progressive property tax,” Sorens said it’s worse.

“It’s punishing whole towns for having high property valuations, not individuals,” Sorens said.

Advocates for a state school system funded by handouts from so-called “wealthy” towns need to check their math, Sorens said. He pointed out the proposed plan would see people in Lebanon subsidizing education in communities like Brookline, despite the latter having one of the highest median incomes in the state. Meanwhile, Lebanon has one of the highest child poverty rates, Sorens said.

“It redistributes income from poor people to rich people,” Sorens said.

The Rand decision ignores the fact towns that encourage business, commercial enterprise, and housing tend to have higher property valuations. If donor towns come back, New Hampshire will see municipalities in an arms race to kill business, discourage building more housing, and drive out innovation with restrictive zoning laws, Sorens said.

“It incentivizes towns not to grow their property tax base,” Sorens said.

With ConVal, Sorens said nearly every school district in the state can already afford to fund an adequate education without the state adequacy grant. Instead, New Hampshire should give parents more options like more charter schools, more Education Freedom Accounts, and open enrollment for all public schools, Sorens said.

Vermont’s misguided attempt to fund its education system should serve as a warning to New Hampshire, according to Sorens. The 1997 Act 60 plan to pool all education property taxes in Vermont and send that funding to each district has resulted in a restrictive government that punishes communities for spending more on education money than poorer communities. Vermont has also taken away control of the education system from local boards and forces consolidation into large, regional districts.

“The state gets deeply involved in local budgeting and administration,” Sorens said. “We doubt many New Hampshire residents would be happy with their towns being forced to join these big regional school districts.”

Sorens may be familiar to Granite Staters as the man behind the Free State Project. He is credited with coming up with the plan to have libertarians move to New Hampshire in 2001 in order to enact a libertarian agenda. 

Inescapable realities about New Hampshire: Live Free or Die is the best state motto; we have better maple syrup than Vermont; and we may never stop fighting about the right way to pay for public education.

Everything about school funding is up for grabs this year, with new proposals coming out of the State House, a lawsuit heading to the state Supreme Court, and an open gubernatorial race putting free-market reforms in the spotlight.

“This is a great opportunity for us to have these conversations,” said Sarah Scott with Americans for Prosperity.

Scott and AFP hosted a forum last week at Throwback Brewery in North Hampton with state Reps. Glenn Cordelli (R-Tuftonboro) and Dan Maguire (R-Epsom) to educate people about the realities of the biggest tax bill in the state.

The problem is front and center for legislators this session, who are working on different proposals to address education spending without raising taxes. But whether they do that is up in the air.

Cordelli, vice chair of the House Education Committee, said there’s no guarantee conservative lawmakers can get meaningful changes since House membership is split so evenly. Republicans control the House with a slight majority, which can evaporate depending on the time of day. If the weather is bad, or several members are sick, or votes happen after lunch, the majority can flip.

“Every day, it’s a gamble which party is in charge depending on who gets to the State House,” Coredelli said.

But the local level is where taxpayers bear the largest education funding burden, Scott said. “Most towns spend between two-thirds and three-quarters of their taxes on education.”

And they could end up paying more, thanks to the recent court decision in the ConVal funding lawsuit. Judge David Ruoff ordered the state’s adequacy grant of $4,100 per pupil raised to at least $7,300. The ConVal ruling is causing more problems than it will solve, Maguire said.

“ConVal is the logical conclusion of 30 years of bad rulings,” Maguire said, who sits on the House Finance Committee. “At some point, we have to get off this track of unreality.”

The Supreme Court’s Claremont decision from the 1990s paved the way for adequacy grants and the statewide property tax. Currently, the state sends about one billion dollars a year to local schools in the form of adequacy grants and other aid programs. 

Under the current system, what each town gets per pupil varies. The base grant of $4,100 goes up for students determined to have greater need, and for students in communities that are considered property poor. However, Maguire said if Ruoff’s ruling stands, all of the extra funding for students and communities in need would go away. 

Ruoff’s ConVal ruling would seem to add at least $500 million to education spending on top of what is already being paid. But Maguire said it would result in all of the funding being replaced by a flat $7,300 per pupil grant, leaving poor communities scrambling again. 

Lawmakers are searching for a fix while the state appeals Ruoff’s ruling to the state Supreme Court. But state spending on education represents less than a third of total spending. The rest comes from homeowners through local property taxes, and those taxpayers are already shelling out more for less.

Department of Education data released this month show the new statewide average operating cost per student has reached a record-setting $20,323 for the 2022-2023 school year. That’s a 4.8 percent increase over last year’s $19,400 and close to a 90 percent increase on 2000’s $11,000 per pupil cost.

This year’s new average — well above the national $14,295 — puts the Granite State on track to spend $3.8 billion in total on education for the 2022-2023 school year.

Over the same period, student enrollment numbers in the Granite State cratered. The student population dropped from 207,684 in 2002 to 165,095 in 2023. That’s a decrease of 42,589 public school students, or about a 20.5 percent decline during the past 21 years. 

Coredelli sees an opportunity to deliver education in charter schools and the Education Freedom Account system with better results and lower costs.

“At the end of the day, the free market is the only way to make changes to education,” Cordelli said.

About 7,000 students are enrolled in New Hampshire’s charter schools. Those tuition-free public schools receive state funding of up to $9,000 per pupil and no local tax revenue. Instead, the schools are operated as non-profits and raise donations to cover expenses beyond the state grants.

The EFA program awards grants of around $5,000 per pupil to qualifying families, who are then able to put that money toward any education choice: public, private, or home school. EFA enrollment went up 20 percent this year to 4,211 while costing taxpayers about $22 million in total. 

Granite State taxpayers have broken the $20,000 barrier on school spending, even as K-12 academic performance remains flat and school enrollment declines.

“Last week, the New Hampshire Department of Education released its newest cost per pupil data for the 2022-2023 school year,” the department said in a press release. “The new statewide average operating cost per pupil of $20,323 is a 4.8 percent increase from last year’s average cost per pupil of $19,400. Total expenditures for the 2022-2023 school year were more than $3.8 billion in New Hampshire.”

To put the $20,323 in perspective, tuition to attend Bishop Guertin High School, a highly-ranked private Catholic school in Nashua, is $16,400. Mount Royal Academy is the highest-ranked Catholic school in the state. High school tuition is $10,700.

New Hampshire also spends far more per pupil than most of the nation. Across the U.S., the average cost per pupil is shy of $14,295, putting New Hampshire in the top 10 nationally for education spending. And as state Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut told NHJournal, taxpayer spending on public schools has been soaring for more than a decade.

“The statewide average for New Hampshire’s cost per pupil has increased by nearly 87 percent since 2000 when it cost less than $11,000 per student. During this same time frame, public school enrollment has dropped by about 20 percent statewide,” Edelblut said.

According to Edelblut, student enrollment numbers in the Granite State have dropped from 207,684 in 2002 to 165,095 in 2023. That’s a decrease of 42,589 public school students, or about a 20.5 percent decline during the past 21 years.

Despite the massive increase in spending, Granite State students are struggling on achievement tests like the SAT. House Education Committee vice chair Rep. Glenn Cordelli (R-Tuftonboro) said it’s time to pay attention to the poor return on investment.

“It’s pretty evident that over probably a couple of decades, spending is going up, and achievement scores are pretty much flat,” Cordelli said.

New Hampshire’s 2023 SAT scores dropped off slightly again. The junior class scored 35 percent proficient in math compared to 37 percent in 2022 and 42 percent in 2021. Students also lost ground on reading proficiency in 2023, with 60 percent proficiency compared to 61 percent proficiency in 2022 and 63 percent proficiency in 2021.

Edelblut said the increasing cost per pupil is partly due to increasing costs, and partly due to the steady drop in the number of students. 

“While we have and will continue to work to expand resources for all students, it is clear that we are in a challenging environment of escalating costs and decreasing student enrollment,” Edelblut said. 

Some school districts manage to come in under the new average, with Manchester at $16,636, Nashua spending $18,107, and Bedford at $17,418. Concord is spending $22,190 per pupil, and New Hampshire’s highest cost per pupil is New Castle at $41,754, a little more than the $41,650 tuition at The Derryfield School, an exclusive private day school in Manchester.

The record spending for public school students comes as the legislature is being pressed to find a way to change the way public education is funded. New Hampshire relies largely on local property taxes to fund public education, with the state sending an adequacy grant to districts that average $4,100 per pupil.

The district responsible for New Hampshire’s current school funding scheme thanks to lawsuits in the 1980s and 1990s, Claremont, is spending almost $22,000 per pupil. The Contoocook Valley Regional School District, behind a lawsuit that could change New Hampshire’s funding system again, is spending more than $25,000 per pupil.

The recent decision in the ConVal lawsuit has the state under court order to increase the adequacy aid grant to at least $7,300. Cordelli said that increase puts New Hampshire on the path to an income tax. The ConVal decision is stayed as the state appeals to the New Hampshire Supreme Court, giving the legislature time to find another funding plan.

Parents and homeowners frustrated with high property taxes and poor achievement are going to demand changes, Cordelli said.

“At some point, the public is going to become aware, and something is going to happen,” Cordelli said.

Parents are already finding lower cost, and sometimes better quality, opportunities outside the public school system. Kate Baker Demers, executive director of Children’s Scholarship Fund New Hampshire, said the average Education Freedom Account grant in New Hampshire is $5,255, about a quarter of the new cost per pupil for public school students.

“So, if a parent taxpayer is concerned about the high spending and cost, they could choose an EFA and save the state $14,745 per child. Which is, what, the amount that other states spend in total?” Baker Demers said.

This school year, EFA enrollment went up 20 percent to 4,211 students in New Hampshire. Of that total, 1,577 are new to the program. Taxpayers are now paying a little more than $22 million for EFA grants.

Manchester mom Saverna Ahmad knew her children needed a lot more than what they were getting at their public high schools, but she didn’t have a lot of options.

“At other schools, my kids had to go with the pace. They were bored,” she said.

Manchester’s school district is struggling to educate all students, whether they need advanced courses or remedial help. In some cases, the district is failing. 

When the New Hampshire Department of Education released the mandated list of Comprehensive Support and Improvement Schools — the lowest-performing five percent of all schools in the state receiving Title I, Part A funds — three of these failing schools are in Manchester: Beech Street School, Henry Wilson Elementary School, and Parker-Varney School.

The state DOE has identified 19 schools across New Hampshire as Comprehensive Support and Improvement Schools, including high schools with a four-year graduation rate of less than 67 percent. Those schools are now eligible for a share of $3.7 million in additional federal funding.

“To help aid with continued progress, the New Hampshire Department of Education will offer ongoing reviews, technical assistance, and monitoring to support each CSI school with its improvement efforts,” said Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut.

In Manchester, the Middle School at Parkside, Southside Middle School, and Manchester West High School are all in the Department of Education’s Targeted Support and Improvement plan.

But until recently, working parents like Ahmad had limited options if their children were attending failing schools like these. Both her children, now teens, are gifted and ready for advanced classes that are unavailable in Manchester’s school district. In fact, the only solution her son’s teachers could come up with was to simply graduate him after his sophomore year in high school and get him into college.

“I don’t want him to go to college at 17,” she said. “As a mom, I don’t think he’s ready to graduate.”

Ahmad knew there were schools in and around Manchester that could offer her son and daughter the education they needed, but she couldn’t afford them. Private school tuition was simply out of reach until Ahmad learned about the Education Freedom Account program.

“I didn’t know this kind of thing existed until Shalimar (Encarnacion, with the Children Scholarship Fund NH) reached out, and now I’m an ambassador,” she said.

New Hampshire’s EFA program awards need-based grants to families they can use to pay for tutoring, necessary educational hardware, extracurricular classes, private school tuition, and home school supplies. For Ahmad and her children, it meant a lifeline to opportunity.

“Coming from a salary where you don’t have much, it allows us to give the kids a break, and they can grow and enjoy their education,” she said. “As a mom, it makes me feel like the kids are where they need to be.”

It may not take a mathematical genius to understand that as Manchester’s public schools continue to fail students, more families like Ahmad’s are going to seek another solution. This year, EFA enrollment went up 20 percent to 4,211 students. Of that total, 1,577 students are new to the program. 

“It has been three years since the launch of New Hampshire’s successful Education Freedom Account program, and it is apparent that New Hampshire families are taking advantage of this tremendous opportunity that provides them with different options and significant flexibility for learning,” Edelblut said.

But EFA’s popularity is a problem for state Democrats and their teacher union allies. Meg Tuttle, president of the New Hampshire NEA, wants families in public schools to stay put.

“Taxpayer funds should be spent to resource neighborhood public schools to ensure they are desirable places to be and to learn, where students’ natural curiosity is inspired,” Tuttle said in a statement.

According to data from the Department of Education, New Hampshire’s EFA system is cost-efficient. Taxpayers are handing over a little more than $22 million this school year for EFA grants, about $5,255 per student on average. The cost per pupil for public schools is close to $20,000, sometimes more. If all the EFA students switched to public schools, it would increase taxpayer costs by another $63 million.

Executive Councilor Cinde Warmington, a Democrat running for governor, promises to end the EFA program if elected and kick all of the students out of the school of their choice. Poor parents who want to send their kids to private schools would be out of luck.

“We don’t take taxpayer dollars to subsidize private schools,” Warmington told WMUR.

Both of Warmington’s children attended the elite Tilton School for secondary education, an independent boarding and preparatory school in New Hampshire. Tilton charges $38,500 for day school and nearly $67,000 for boarding school.

Warmington is a retired partner with the prestigious and politically connected Shaheen & Gordon law firm. Her husband, William Christie, is a partner at the firm. Partners in law firms maintain part ownership and take a percentage of the firm’s overall profit.

The EFA grants are available to New Hampshire families who earn no more than 350 percent of the federal poverty level. For Ahmad, EFA means her children have opportunities to succeed in school and in life. These are opportunities she could not afford on her own.

“It levels the playing field,” Ahmad said.

New Hampshire families can now choose a new financial literacy course from PragerU through the state’s Learn Everywhere program, and New Hampshire Democrats have a new hobby horse to ride into campaign season.

That was the result after three hours of a contentious State Board of Education meeting on Thursday, where Democrats, progressives, and union activists packed the room to denounce PragerU and its “right-wing” politics.

“This approval disregards the potential harm PragerU’s extreme content will inflict on our schools and the education of our children,” said Democratic Executive Councilor Cinde Warmington, who is seeking her party’s nomination for governor next year.

At issue is a video course on personal finances and financial literacy called “Cash Course,” and produced by PragerU, a conservative content business. The state Board of Education has been considering making the course, which contains no political or controversial content, part of the content eligible to complete course requirements for students in the Learn Everywhere program.

Learn Everywhere, an innovative education program unique to New Hampshire, allows students to earn credit for learning outside the classroom. The program, which has been under development since 2018, was first approved in August 2020 in a 4-3 vote.

The State Board of Education voted unanimously Thursday, with Chair Drew Cline’s abstention, to approve the PragerU content as a half-credit course. The class is offered for free for any student who chooses to take it.

The approval comes despite heavy, organized opposition from progressives and teachers unions against PragerU.

Their opposition is not based on the content itself but rather on the provider. Many of the people who spoke in opposition Thursday did not appear to have seen the Cash Course content under consideration.

“I am appalled by today’s Board of Education decision to allow PragerU to operate in New Hampshire. I will fight for every child in our state to receive a quality education, and I will never allow an extreme right-wing organization to influence their learning,” Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig said.

Craig is also running for the Democratic nomination for governor.

Warmington has been using the PragerU issue to campaign and fundraise for weeks, attacking “their extremist views.” Warmington declined to respond when asked to identify what “extremist views” were in the personal finance content under consideration by the Board of Education.

Warmington suffered a political faceplant early this week with an unfounded complaint that PragerU was falsely presenting itself as an actual university and potentially violating New Hampshire state law. Attorney General John F0rmella dismissed Warmington’s complaint, noting the website explicitly announces PragerU is not a university and that the law Warmington cited only applies to entities incorporated in New Hampshire. It was embarrassing for a career attorney who spent two decades at the Sheehan & Gordon law firm.

“There’s been a lot of misinformation about Learn Everywhere and this course,” Cline said during Thursday’s board meeting.

PragerU is not partnering with the state, getting a state contract, or being paid any taxpayer money, Cline said. Further, the PragerU class is not required for any New Hampshire student. Additionally, PragerU plans to offer its class on a website independent of the wider PragerU offerings.

The association with the conservative media personality Dennis Prager is the major red flag for the Cash Course opponents. Dozens of people who were against PragerU’s application spoke Thursday, accusing the conservative non-profit of pushing an extremist agenda and even likening it to the Ku Klux Klan.

Supporters say that while PragerU is unapologetically conservative in its philosophy, it is far from being an extremist organization. And they note that many of the union members and progressives who say its politics are “too extreme” have supported far-left “critical race theory” content from racists like Ibram X. Kendi in New Hampshire’s K-12 classrooms.

Board Member Richard Sala said the board had approved several Learn Everywhere options and charter schools with decidedly left-wing ideologies. He said the board is not trying to push an agenda other than giving all parents the most choices for their children.

“I trust parents to make good calls for their kids more than I trust the government to,” Sala said.

Sala noted that while PragerU is a conservative, so are at least half the families in New Hampshire.

“A lot of PragerU material is mainstream political thought in this country,” Sala said. “You can’t censor half the ideas in this country.”

It wasn’t all about fears children were being indoctrinated into the Republican Party. Deb Howes, head of the New Hampshire American Federal of Teachers, the state’s second biggest teachers union, claimed that allowing students to take the Cash Course class for a half credit would lower the state’s education standards.

“Watching a video and doing a worksheet doesn’t help you remember it when it counts,” Howe said.

Cline said PragerU’s Cash Course class covers a little more material than another financial literacy program already approved for Learn Everywhere. That program did not receive any public opposition when it was approved.

Board Member Ryan Terrell said the opposition to PragerU is ruled by a bias against all conservatives, which assumes any Republican is a homophobic racist.

“You say you want open dialogue and then attack a whole swath of people’s ideals,” Tyrell said.

The opponents revealed they are ultimately against New Hampshire families having real choices when it comes to educating their children, Tyrell said.

“The overall message was anti-choice. It’s simply that black and white,” Terrell said.

Don’t worry, Ronald McDonald: “Hamburger University” is safe from Cinde Warmington — for now.

It’s no surprise that Executive Councilor Warmington, a progressive Democrat seeking her party’s nomination for governor, isn’t a fan of PragerU. Founded by conservative radio talk host Dennis Prager, PragerU generates short, educational videos on a variety of topics — some overtly political, others basic life skills.

The PragerU content under consideration by the state Board of Education consists of several short videos and coursework covering lessons on basic personal finances, from how paychecks work, how checking and savings accounts work, how to get a loan, and how to invest for retirement. 

What PragerU doesn’t do — and has never claimed to do — is hand out college diplomas. There is literally a message on its website that reads, “No, PragerU is not an accredited university, nor do we claim to be. We do not offer degrees. However, we are the most accessible and influential online resource for explaining the concepts that have made America great.”

But that didn’t stop Warmington from demanding an Attorney General investigation into PragerU, claiming it is attempting to defraud people fooled by the “U.” You know, like those tricky people who run ESPNU (your cable TV home for college sports!).

And, she claimed, she’d found a New Hampshire law the education nonprofit was violating by calling itself PragerU.

Unfortunately for Warmington, the law she cited applies to businesses incorporated in New Hampshire (PragerU is not) that are using terms like “college” or “university” in ways “tending to designate that it is an institution of higher learning” (it’s not), or somehow “invoke the consumer protection rationale” (as the AG put it) of the statute.

By the way, Warmington is a lawyer. Maybe she’s angry because she got hoodwinked by the Jethro Bodine School for Lawyerin’?

As the Attorney General’s office said in a statement Monday: “After reviewing the statute, the AGO does not read RSA 292:8-g to require nondomestic entities that merely have a presence in New Hampshire through the existence of a website to incorporate under the provisions of RSA 292:8.”

In other words, Councilor Warmington literally didn’t know what she was talking about when she demanded the investigation.

Which, by the way, is great news for College Motors and University Donuts — not to mention the Electoral College which, coincidentally, many progressives would like to shut down as well.

There is a strong case to be made that pursuing content from PragerU is a political miscalculation by Commissioner of Education Frank Edelblut and the state Board of Education. Given the current state of the media, it’s hardly a surprise that leftwing outlets were willing to pile on with Warmington’s uninformed complaints, taking them seriously. PragerU is an openly conservative content provider. In the current political climate “conservative” and “controversial” are synonyms, regardless of the facts.

Is it true that the same people attacking PragerU’s completely non-political lessons on personal finance also embrace the blatant racism of Ibram X. Kendi for public school classrooms? Yes. Is it true that media outlets who knew — or should have known — this was a ridiculous ploy by Warmington played along and pretended it was legit? Of course they did.

But those are the political realities of the moment.

Hilariously, Warmington stuck with her bogus claims in response to the AG’s dismissal of her complaint.

“I’m disappointed with the Attorney General’s failure to protect the public from Prager University’s [sic] clearly misleading name,” Warmington said, intentionally misleading voters by using a fake name for “PragerU.”

Warmington is a smart enough political operative to seize an issue like this, real or imagined, and use it for political gain. But why did she make ridiculous, fact-free claims about fraud and breaking the law? Isn’t “I oppose all content to the right of MSNBC” enough?

Did Warmington, an attorney, simply not understand the law she was citing? Or did she understand but, in the cause of political opportunism, simply not care? Either way, Granite Staters have learned something about what kind of governor Warmington would be.

And they didn’t need a college degree to figure it out.

In a battle between educational content and political rhetoric, it appears content may have won the day at the State Board of Education Thursday.

At issue is a video course on financial literacy offered by PragerU that the board is considering adding to the curriculum of the state’s Learn Everywhere program. Board chairman Drew Cline said the content “has a lot of value” and is suitable for the flexible, self-directed education that is part of the non-traditional Learn Everywhere model.

Critics, like Deb Howes, president of the New Hampshire chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, had not watched the videos and were not familiar enough with the content to discuss it. Instead, they objected to the source of the content — PragerU, a politically-conservative nonprofit founded by media personality Dennis Prager.

Asked by Cline if the 15-video course met the appropriate educational standards, Howes, the head of the second largest teachers union in the state, declined to answer and appeared not to have viewed any of the content.

“I cannot speak to whether it goes into depth enough; I am not a financial literacy teacher,” Howes said.

State Rep. David Luneau (D-Hopkinton) bashed the board’s handling of the application and called PragerU a “racist propaganda mill.”

“I find it outrageous and unacceptable that this board would take a controversial subject and slip it into a meeting on Aug. 10 when hopefully nobody’s watching,” Luneau said.

However, when asked about the specific content, Luneau also appeared to be unfamiliar with it and pointedly refused to say if he watched any of the videos under consideration about the board.

Some critics, however, had taken the time to review the materials. Mark MacLean, executive director of the New Hampshire School Administrators Association, watched all 15 videos in the “Cash Course” series and said there is plenty of good material in the class.

“I don’t think there is anything wrong with the videos I watched,” MacLean said.

But MacLean did express concerns about the depth of the content and whether or not it is sufficient to be an accredited high school class. PragerU’s proposal sought to have students who took the class earn a half credit.

“The content is good; I just don’t think as a standalone it’s enough to provide students with a comprehensive financial literacy unit,” MacLean said.

But elected Democrats and progressive activists who attacked the board’s consideration of the content weren’t interested in the course but rather the source. They denounced PragerU and expressed concerns that curious students might become intrigued and begin exploring other content from the conservative nonprofit.

“Students and parents who view the first video in PragerU’s financial literacy course are one mouse-click away from a ‘Parent Action Guide’ that urges scrutiny of any public official who parents suspect is involved in topics related to diversity, equity, and inclusion,” the left-leaning Boston Globe warned.

Both Democrats running for governor in 2024, Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig and Executive Councilor Cinde Warmington, have announced their opposition.

Via social media, Warmington urged the board to reject what she called “radical & unaccredited PragerU into New Hampshire schools,” though she has also not indicated what part of the proposed course is objectionable.

And House Democratic Caucus Leader Matt Wilhelm (D-Manchester) claimed PragerU has content “that suggests slavery was ‘no big deal,’” and “peddle anti-LGBTQ+ hate.” Despite repeated requests, Wilhelm declined to provide any examples to bolster his claims.

Ultimately, it appeared the solution may be technology, not politics.

Brandon Ewing, with PragerU, told the board Thursday that the organization planned to create a separate website for the New Hampshire Cash Course class, one that was not linked to the wider PragerU site. It was a detail the board had not been made aware of.

“We’re working through the format details on the technical end,” Ewing said.

Cline said removing the Cash Course class from the PragerU main website would allow families to view it without concerns over the rest of PragerU’s content.

“We heard a lot of testimony that the content is strong, but a lot of concerns about the context. Having it as a standalone entity could change the whole conversation,” Cline said. Cline also asked Ewing to show the board more of the materials that will be used to access student progress in the course.

Ultimately, the board voted unanimously to table the application until next month, when it can see the proposed website and review additional materials.

“This is good financial literacy content, and we need to make sure that all of our young people have that skill going forward in life,” said Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut told WMUR after the board meeting. “I think that it got overly politicized, and I think there was some interest in doing that, and I’m disappointed that this is where we ended up.”

Kelly Smith is on a mission to change how children are educated, giving them the tools they need to learn and strive for a better life.

Smith is the founder and CEO of Prenda, the microschool company that now has 30 learning pods operating in all 10 counties of the state. He told NHJournal he wants to break the mold when it comes to thinking about how children learn best. And, he said, he rejects the “mind is a vessel” model of education.

“If you think of it as ‘sit in this chair, and I will give you assignments and lessons and education. I’m going pour this into your head,’ that’s one model,” Smith said. And, he believes, it is the wrong one.

“The correct metaphor is a fire to be kindled. We’re asking questions, setting goals, saying, ‘What do you want out of life?’”

Education pods and microschools exploded onto the education scene during the COVID-19 lockdowns as frustrated parents sought ways to get organized, adult-led education for kids otherwise abandoned to “Zoom school.” And test results in the wake of the closed-classrooms lockdowns pushed by teachers unions showed they were an academic disaster.

On the other hand, a study by the Rand Corporation found students using the “personalized study” model similar to microschools experienced significant improvements, often surpassing the national averages in math and reading achievement.

But Granite State public schools are not interested in using the successful model to help their own students.

Prenda has thousands of microschools nationwide, all with the goal of leading children to learn and think and grow. The company works with local parents to set up the microschools by training the teachers, called guides, to lead classes of about five to 10 students per class.

Though similar to the homeschool cooperative systems many families use, Prenda offers a unique approach to increase motivation and engagement in students while also taking care of their emotional well-being and teaching them the ability to work with others. The Prenda approach, Smith believes, sets students up for a life of meaning and purpose.

“If humans individually and society collectively are going to get to where we are capable of, we’ve got to push through. We need learners. And so I’m inviting people, but again, it has to be a choice,” Smith said.

Prenda families tend to be people who hit a brick wall with traditional education, he said. Many of the parents have children in public schools, but they come to realize their child needs something different in order to thrive and be a leader for the future.

In the post-COVID era, parents are exploring the choices now available, choices many didn’t have just a few years ago.

“They’re making choices, and they’re thoughtful choices. These are the people that endlessly research whatever they’re going to do for their child’s nutrition, their child’s healthcare. Of course, they’re going to think about education hard,” Smith said. “I think the difference is, in the past, there wasn’t really a choice. It was just, ‘There’s only one thing I can do.’”

Prenda was introduced into New Hampshire using federal COVID relief funds as a way to help families close the learning gaps created by the pandemic lockdowns. Smith said the company initially tried to build partnerships with local school districts to build up learning pods that would work alongside the traditional schools. For example, Smith told NHJournal, they could set up microschools to assist students struggling in a specific subject, like math or science, to enhance the public school experience.

But Granite State public schools weren’t interested.

“One of the first things we did was we went to all the superintendents. I went to Mount Washington when they had an annual meeting. We talked to everybody,” Smith said. “They’d heard about microschools and pods, and there was definitely interest among many of the school leaders in the state. So, we’ve had ongoing conversations.

“Ultimately, there’ve been roadblocks, and we haven’t been able to get to a completed partnership with any of those,” Smith said.

Prenda’s learning pods can also be funded beyond the COVID program using New Hampshire’s Education Freedom Account program. The aim isn’t to replace traditional schools but to give parents choices to find what works best for their children.

“It really comes down to this decision to learn. What we’re doing is inviting people to be what we call empowered learners. And an empowered learner makes a choice. They say, ‘I’m going to learn things. I’m going set goals for myself,’” Smith said. 

Could the next 60 days see an end to New Hampshire’s school funding system as we know it?

Rockingham Superior Court Judge David Ruoff told lawyers Wednesday he is set to rule sometime in the next 60 days on either the final decision in the Contoocook Valley Regional School District adequacy grant lawsuit or the summary judgment for the Grafton County lawsuit seeking to cancel the Statewide Education Property Tax or SWEPT.

“Time is of the essence here for everyone involved,” Ruoff said.

New Hampshire lawmakers, education leaders, and local school boards have been tussling for decades over how to fund a constitutionally-mandated adequate education. Despite hundreds of millions in new funds going to education this year alone, there is still no agreement on how to pay for public schools.

Ruoff is now the one man in the state who could change everything thanks to the lawsuits which landed before him in court. 

The original judge on the Grafton County case, Grafton Superior Court Judge Lawrence MacLeod, recused himself last year, citing a potential conflict of interest. MacLeod is a property owner in one of the property-rich towns pushing to keep the current SWEPT system in place.

MacLeod’s recusal sent the case to Ruoff. Ruoff is also under orders from the New Hampshire Supreme Court to decide in the ConVal case exactly how much the state should pay per pupil.

In both cases, the school districts claim the way the state is currently funding education, using an unevenly enforced SWEPT to pay for adequacy grants that do not cover all necessary expenses, is unconstitutional.

Ruoff initially ruled in ConVal’s favor, agreeing the state is not paying enough per pupil, but he left setting a particular amount to legislators. On appeal, the Supreme Court ruled Ruoff needed to hold a trial and set a specific dollar amount.

New Hampshire upped its per pupil adequacy grant this year to $4,100. But the plaintiffs in the ConVal case are looking for just short of $10,000 per pupil. Ruoff listened to weeks of testimony this year; his highly anticipated ruling is pending.

With approximately 160,000 students in the state’s K-12 public schools, a $10,000 adequacy payment would cost state taxpayers $1.6 billion yearly.

Meanwhile, lawyers representing the state and the Grafton County plaintiffs argued in court Wednesday over an injunction to set the SWEPT rate at 0, as the plaintiff wants. Ruoff indicated he would issue a judgment in the case without need for a trial since neither side disputes the facts about how schools are funded.

SWEPT accounts for 30 percent of education funding in New Hampshire. Under a law change in 2011, a loophole was created. Now as many as 30 wealthier communities in New Hampshire are keeping a portion of the money raised through SWEPT, essentially getting to set a negative property tax rate, while poorer communities end up with higher SWEPT rates to make up for their low property values.

Michael Jaoude, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said the uneven SWEPT burden violates the Claremont decision from the 1990s, which ruled there is a constitutional right to adequate education and that the cost needs to be shared equally.

“No resident should have a greater burden of funding that constitutional right than another,” Jaoude said.

SWEPT started in 1999 as a response to the Claremont decision, which found the state has a constitutional obligation to fund adequate education. The money raised, more than $360 million estimated in the coming year, is used to fund state adequacy grants. 

Senior Assistant Attorney General Sam Garland said ruling for the Grafton County plaintiffs would have disastrous impacts on local town and school budgets. Garland said the plaintiffs have not shown that the SWEPT system is unconstitutional, and their arguments don’t hold up.

“We don’t think they’ve made that showing, and we don’t think they can make that showing as a matter of law,” Garland said.

Garland said even if the 2011 law creating the SWEPT exemptions might be unconstitutional, the tax itself is not, and Ruoff should allow the rate to be set.

Ruoff indicated the whole SWEPT issue might be moot depending on his eventual ruling in the ConVal case.