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Math class is hard. Just ask Deb Howes.

The head of New Hampshire’s American Federation Teachers chapter, Howes garnered attention last month when she filed a lawsuit against Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut claiming he was breaking the law by using lottery revenue to fund the Education Freedom Accounts.

But the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office Howes’ arithmetic is all wrong. According to the state’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, Howes didn’t come close to proving any actual violation of the law or the New Hampshire Constitution, largely because her numbers don’t add up.

“The Court should dismiss the plaintiff’s complaint in its entirety because the plaintiff fails to state a claim for either a constitutional or statutory violation,” the state says in its motion to dismiss.

The state is funding the Education Freedom Accounts with the Education Trust Fund. Howes based her lawsuit on the fact the fund takes in lottery revenue, and uses lottery money for anything other than public schools violates the law.

The problem is Howes never cited any evidence showing that money going to the EFA program is lottery money. The reality of the funding makes it unlikely she could, according to the state.

“The burden is not on the state to prove that lottery money is not used for EFAs; rather, the burden is on the plaintiff to allege and prove that lottery funds are used for EFAs,” the state’s motion says.

In 2022, the state sent $125 million in lottery revenue to the Education Trust Fund. That same year, the EFA program used $9 million of trust fund grants for parents who want to send their children to a private school or homeschool program.

The problem for Howes is the fact that the Education Trust Fund was budgeted at more than $1.2 billion in 2022 with revenues that come from a variety of sources.

The state’s Education Trust Fund got $128 million from the business profits tax; $265 million from the business enterprise tax $10.3 million from the rooms and meals tax, another $108.9 million from the tobacco tax; $65.3 million from the real estate transfer tax; $38.2 million from the tobacco settlement fund; and $40.6 million from the utility property tax.

The statewide property tax generates another $363 million for education, though that money does not go into the trust fund.

“Lottery money is one source that makes up a small portion of the education trust fund,” the state wrote.

Nearly all the money raised for education through the trust fund goes back to local public schools, according to the state. In 2022, that amount was $1,084,530,891, just shy of the $1.1 billion total fund.

Without a direct link between EFA funding and lottery revenue, Howes was unable to demonstrate Edelblut broke any law, according to the state.

“The plaintiff advances no allegations capable of showing that this $9 million comprised any letter dollars rather than being paid entirely from business profit tax or enterprise tax dollars or another education trust fund revenue source,” the state’s motion said.

Teachers unions and their Democratic allies have been working to kill the popular school choice program since Gov. Chris Sununu first signed it into law. They have repeatedly claimed the program takes money from local schools, a factual error that has been repeatedly pointed out. In fact, the EFA program gives local schools more money per pupil when a student chooses a different education option.

In their latest move, Democrats in the state House used a temporary majority last week to pass a bill mandating EFA recipients who are not entering school for the first time must have spent at least one year in their assigned public school if they want to access EFA funding.

That bill is unlikely to make it through the GOP-controlled Senate.

New Hampshire taxpayers are spending as much as 100 percent more per student as school enrollment continues to slide, and some school districts are fighting to have the state pay more per student.

“The tax burden is incredible, and half of it goes to the schools,” said Dublin’s Leo Plante.

Plante is a local activist who tried unsuccessfully to get his town to withdraw from the Contoocook Valley School District, citing the town’s dwindling student population. As part of the ConVal district, Plante thinks too much Dublin money is leaving and going for students in the eight other towns in the district. 

ConVal has been losing students for 20 years. At the same time, spending on K-12 education has risen. On a per-pupil basis, it’s up more than 100 percent.

And it is not just in Dublin. According to data released by the New Hampshire Department of Education, across the state the cost per pupil has gone up an average of 78.4 percent since 2000. That was faster than the rate of inflation.

The steady increase is coupled with a 22 percent drop in the number of students since 2002. That year, there were 207,648 students enrolled in schools. The number has fallen to 161,755 enrolled for the current school year.

As a result, taxpayers are spending an average of nearly $20,000 per pupil, with the total cost of New Hampshire’s education system coming in at $3.5 billion in the 2021/2022 school year.

ConVal’s 20-year trend has seen a 34.6 percent decline in the number of students while the cost per pupil has shot up 103.5 percent. ConVal started the 2022/2023 school year with 1,969 students, and 10 years ago there were more than 2,200 students in the district.

Taxpayer activists want to know when declining enrollment means lower property taxes for Granite State homeowners.

“Clearly, school boards and SAUs are shrinking class sizes and padding school administration,” said Dan McGuire with Granite State Taxpayers. “If student performance was improving this extra spending might be justified, but unfortunately it is not. Voters need to pay attention to who they put on school boards, and those boards in turn need to rein in their superintendents.”

Janine Lesser, vice chair of the Contoocook Valley School District, has heard the argument that it should not cost more to educate fewer students. She said looking just at enrollment figures and the cost per pupil data is misleading.

“There’s a lot of the perception that if you have fewer students your costs should decrease, that the general budget should somehow decrease, and in some sense that’s true,” Lesser said.

But there are many factors behind the steady cost increases. Pay for employees, health insurance, electricity costs, heating costs, and building maintenance have all gone up in price throughout the economy, and school districts are no different, she said.

Critics note that doesn’t explain how school costs have risen faster than inflation, nor does it factor in the key elements in classroom education whose costs have declined — most notably tech like laptops, tablets, etc. Even the claim about energy costs is dubious. The price of heating oil and gasoline both plunged significantly during the downturns of 2007 and the COVID pandemic. And yet, taxpayer advocates say, somehow school property taxes kept going up.

The student enrollment decline is steady, but usually slight year to year, Lesser said. ConVal shrunk by 13 students this year, not enough to really impact the budget for a district that includes nine towns and several school buildings.

“All of the overhead costs don’t decrease that way. You can’t do away with a bus route for 13 students, you can’t decrease heating costs by 13 students, and you can’t decrease building repairs by 13 students. All of the costs remain,” Lesser said.

Plante doesn’t buy that argument, saying ConVal is top-heavy with too many administrators uninterested in watching out for the taxpayers who fund a large part of the education.

“It’s the inability of the administration to reduce costs in line with enrollment,” Plante said. “Someone has to have the courage on these school boards to say we can’t keep doing it this way.”

In part, Lesser blames lawmakers in Concord and Washington D.C. for fueling the rising cost per pupil by shoving unfunded mandates onto the districts, forcing local taxpayers to pay more.

“The unfunded mandates come down fast and furiously from the legislature, from both sides,” she said.

The federal government mandates local districts provide services for special education students, and it mandates transportation for students, but it does not help the district pay for these services. In 2020, the state started mandating a new STEM curriculum starting in kindergarten, but it does not come close to covering the costs.

Lesser said more is coming, as there are already 218 bills introduced in the New Hampshire legislature dealing with education that could end up costing local taxpayers more. All of this leaves school boards and school administrators struggling to put together budgets that will give students the best education possible, while not spiking local property taxes.

“It’s a fight every year to balance the needs of students with the needs of taxpayers,” Lesser said.

Claremont School Board Chair Michael Petrin is working hard on striking that balance. He’s trying to get the district to put together a budget that includes a needed raise for teachers, and one that won’t give taxpayers any more sticker shock.

“Purse strings are starting to tighten and going to this community to ask for money to help our teachers is really a tough topic,” Petrin said. “My grocery bills at least doubled over the last year and a half. There are families out there struggling to make ends meet.”

Last week, the Claremont School Board sent the district’s budget proposal back to Superintendent Michael Tempesta and his team to find another $1 million in cuts, hoping to bring the total budget number in low enough for voters to support the plan at the ballot box in March.

“We’re working hard to not kill the taxpayers and keep the teachers at the pay rate that keeps them here in the district,” Petrin said.

Petrin’s balancing act is complicated by the fact the Claremont district has also been steadily losing students. Last year’s average daily attendance in Claremont schools was a little more than 1,600 students. The figure was more than 1,700 a decade ago.

During that time, Claremont taxpayers have seen the cost to educate the shrinking number of pupils rise nearly every year, typically around 3 percent a year, according to state data.

Over the past twenty years, the district lost 24.6 percent of its student population while the annual cost per pupil rose 57.2 percent.

Rep. Walter Stapleton, R-Claremont, said part of the rising cost is that the buildings in Claremont’s district are obsolete. They were built for a time when the district had more people, and the city had more jobs.

“We used to be a big industrial town here with a lot of students and a lot of people,” Stapleton said. “It costs a lot to maintain that big infrastructure to support a shrinking number of students. It’s a tough problem.”

Department of Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut said the main drivers of the student decline are New Hampshire’s aging population and the state’s low birth rate. There are simply fewer school-aged children living in New Hampshire. School districts need to understand the decline is likely to continue, he said.

“It is important for school leaders to understand how declining enrollment numbers may be impacting their districts and how to plan accordingly for the future,” Edelblut said.

Zack Sheehan, project director with New Hampshire School Funding Fairness Project, said the cost to educate students in New Hampshire will keep rising as long as the state and federal government continue to push down unfunded mandates.

“Schools are providing more services to students today than ever before, many of which are laws and regulations passed by the state that do not include increased funding. Many of these are important standards that support our students and schools, but they are not free,” Sheehan said.

How taxpayers will keep paying for fewer students is still being contested decades after the legal battle that was supposed to settle the question. Claremont’s district became the epicenter of the education funding fight with the Claremont education funding lawsuits of the 1980s and 1990s. That resulted in the New Hampshire Supreme Court decision that found every child has the right to an education and that the state has an obligation to fund that education.

Now, ConVal is taking the state to court claiming that the state’s $3,600 per pupil a year adequacy grant does not come close to paying for all the required services.

“This is our way to say, ‘this is what you require us to do, and yet this is what you actually give us money to do,’” Lesser said.

ConVal wants the state to fund closer to $10,000 per student per year. For a student population of 160,000, adding another $6,400 per pupil would cost state taxpayers more than $1 billion in new spending per year. With no guarantee that new state revenue would be used to reduce local property taxes.

As the ConVal lawsuit moves closer to trial, the original Claremont lawsuit attorneys are suing the state again, this time challenging the way the state-wide property tax is collected and distributed.

Attorney Andru Volinsky declined to comment on this story.

Stapleton said the state has money now in the form of a budget surplus, and he expects that to be used for education spending. He’s not sure what the long-term outlook will be if the ConVal and Volinsky lawsuits are successful.

“I personally can’t give you the forecast,” Stapleton said.

Plante thinks it’s time for New Hampshire to give parents their tax money back to make their own decisions about how to fund schools, but he admits that kind of a proposal is unlikely.

“I would give every parent the right to use school taxes to send their kids wherever they need to go, I would hand over the school tax to the parent and say, ‘take this money and do whatever you want with it.’ But that’s a pipe dream,” Plante said.

Decades of educational gains were lost during the COVID-19 classroom lockdowns, leaving vulnerable students with learning gaps that will last a lifetime, according to new data out this week. 

The National Assessment of Education Progress report, released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Education, shows test scores for nine-year-old students declined five points in reading and seven points in math compared to 2020. According to NAEP, that is the largest average score decline in reading since 1990 and the first-ever score decline in mathematics.

In an odd twist, Democrats who pushed to keep classrooms closed are now blaming Republicans for school shutdowns.

Dr. Aaron Pallas, a professor of Sociology and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, told The Wall Street Journal it could take decades for these students to close the learning gaps, if ever. “I don’t think we can expect these 9-year-olds to catch up by the time they leave high school. This is not something that is going to disappear quickly.”

New Hampshire’s Department of Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut said the results are not surprising given the long school shutdowns and remote learning challenges from the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic response.

“COVID negatively affected student performance across the board and exacerbated systemic problems in achievement that preceded COVID, notably high performing students–top quartile–holding steady or making modest gains/losses while bottom quartile students–those already the most vulnerable–are falling farther behind,” Edelblut said. “In math, the top 10 percent of students nationwide declined 3 points while the bottom 10 percent declined 12 points. English Language Arts tells a similar story for national trends. Among these declines, black students fared the worst.”

The NAEP scores for New Hampshire students will be released in October.

 Jason Bedrick, the Heritage Foundation research fellow at the Center for Education Policy, says the scores show the depths of the shutdown’s calamity.

“The dismal NAEP scores confirm what we already knew: the unnecessary school closures that the unions demanded were disastrous for children, especially the most disadvantaged. Black and Hispanic students saw two-to-three times the decline of White students. For Black nine-year-olds, for example, nearly three decades of progress in math was wiped out. Proficiency rates were already low. This is a calamity,” Bedrick said.

A calamity the Biden White House is trying to pin on the GOP.

On Thursday, White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said it was the Biden administration who re-opened classrooms, and she said it “was the work of Democrats in spite of Republicans.”

In fact, Democrats overwhelmingly supported teachers unions’ efforts to keep classrooms closed long after most European countries had students back in school. In July 2020, the Democratic National Committee even ran TV ads accusing President Trump of trying to re-open classrooms too quickly.

Edelblut said he is looking forward and is focused on solutions. He said all options need to be on the table to guarantee that students going forward can get the education they need.

“Recovery back to where we were before COVID should not be our goal. No one was satisfied with that performance. We now have an opportunity to lead and transform the disrupted education system to serve all students, top performers and those who are not finding success in the current system,” Edelblut said.

Students are starting to regain the ground they lost during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the New Hampshire Department of Education. But the destructive impacts of classroom lockdowns backed by teacher’s unions continue to be felt.

“Assessment scores are inching upward and returning to near pre-pandemic levels. But it is clear there is still work to be done to recover from the academic declines that resulted from COVID-19,” said Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut. “New Hampshire has not fully regained ground, but these early signs of improvement are promising.”

In 2021, New Hampshire Statewide Assessment System performance levels dropped at every grade level from third through eighth grade, including both English and math scores. The state completed a comprehensive analysis of those results to help understand how to support students recovering from the pandemic. In 2022, that performance data started to turn around. 

It is hardly a New Hampshire problem. Multiple studies have found online learning was a disaster for K-12 students in response to the COVID pandemic. Learning loss was worst among low-income and minority students, one reason so many parents and supporters of education reform fought against teachers’ union demands to keep classrooms closed. The results were mixed.

The Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University reports some one in five U.S. students were enrolled in districts that continued online learning for most of the 2020-21 school year. The learning loss is estimated to be as much as 22 weeks of learning.

In New Hampshire, this year’s early data sets show students in grades three through seven improved their math assessment scores in 2022, while eighth-grade math scores remained at classroom-lockdown levels.

For example, proficiency scores showed small gains with 51 percent of third-graders proficient in math in 2022 compared to 45 percent proficient in 2021. The trend was similar for fourth graders, which showed 48 percent were proficient in math in 2022 compared to 41 percent in 2021. 

COVID gaps remain for many students, however, including at the high school level. The high school junior class 2022 SAT high school assessment data reveals slight declines in reading proficiency in 2022, and more moderate declines in math proficiency–a trend found among other states as well, according to the DOE.

New Hampshire students still performed better on the SAT than students nationally, according to the DOE.

In 2022, New Hampshire’s average reading score on the SAT was 511 compared to 517 in 2021 and 515 in 2019. The average math score for 2022 was 492 compared to 509 in 2021 and 508 in 2019. 

“We know that these students, who will be starting their senior year in a few weeks, have had a high school career filled with disruptions, remote classes, and missed learning. We also know that SAT participation dropped in New Hampshire to about 82 percent in 2022” said Edelblut. “While many states have seen an overall decline in SAT scores, New Hampshire scores continue to remain comparatively high.”

Individual school and district data for both the NHSAS and SAT results will be released in the fall through the iPlatform system.

Students suffering the effects of the long COVID lockdowns are getting some help, thanks to a New Hampshire Department of Education (DOE) scholarship program. 

The Yes, Every Student (YES!) scholarship program is designed to help families and residents whose education was negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic by awarding $1,000 tutoring scholarships to New Hampshire students, which includes public, non-public, home education, and Education Freedom Account students. It is the second year in a row the Department of Education has offered the scholarships.

“Although it has been two years since the start of the pandemic, some students may still feel that they are not meeting their desired academic performance,” said DOE Commissioner Frank Edelblut. “These scholarships will be used to help children that may have experienced disrupted learning and provide them with individualized tutoring and support to target their unique educational needs.”

Andrew Yates with the national education non-profit yes. every kid praised New Hampshire’s scholarship program.

“We commend Commissioner Edelblut for putting forward a universal scholarship program to help all NH students seek tutoring services to help combat Covid learning loss,” Yate said. “Every family and student has faced unique challenges during this pandemic, and we support allowing all students the opportunity to find the best pathways to their educational success.”

According to a recent Harvard study, students in K through 12 schools that went remote during the pandemic have fared worse than students who stayed in school, losing ground in math and reading.

“In districts that went remote, achievement growth was lower for all subgroups, but especially for students attending high-poverty schools. In areas that remained in person, there were still modest losses in achievement, but there was no widening of gaps between high and low-poverty schools in math,” the study states.

Bill Gates, Microsoft founder and philanthropist, recently noted that students in high poverty areas who were abandoned to online learning have experienced an education gap that will impact them for decades.

“In K through 12, we have a learning deficit that will take us a long time to erase, and sadly it’s a deficit that in the inner city is almost two years,” Gates said.

According to a report from the consulting firm McKinsey, the learning gap experienced by school students now, especially minority students, threatens economic depression in the years to come.

“Our analysis shows that the impact of the pandemic on K–12 student learning was significant, leaving students on average five months behind in mathematics and four months behind in reading by the end of the school year,” the report states.

Parents in New Hampshire responded to closed classrooms and learning loss by fleeing the public school system.

“Until the pandemic, enrollment decline in New Hampshire was relatively slow but steady: between 0 and 2 percent each year,” NHPR reported. “But in 2020, enrollment declined by 4.5 percent, about 8,200 fewer students in one year.”

The scholarships from the Department of Education can be used for tutoring as well as special education therapies and services. The state has about $2.3 million in funding from the Governor’s Emergency Relief Fund under the CARES Act for the scholarships. Last year, the DOE awarded nearly $1.9 million to almost 500 recipients for tutoring and other needs.

To apply for a Yes! scholarship, visit Yes, Every Student. Please email questions to [email protected]. 

Virginia’s newly elected Republican Gov. Glenn Younkin is borrowing a page from New Hampshire by setting up an email tipline for parents to report on teachers who use Critical Race Theory (CRT) curriculum in the classroom.

Youngkin, who won an upset victory for governor in a state Joe Biden carried by 10 points a year earlier, campaigned hard against the use of CRT in Virginia classrooms. On his first day in office, he signed an executive order banning “divisive concepts” like CRT from the state’s classrooms.

He told media this week the email tipline allows parents to report teachers “behaving objectionably.”

“We’re asking for folks to send us reports and observations that they have that will help us be aware of things like ‘privilege bingo,’ be aware of their child being denied their rights that parents have in Virginia. And we’re going to make sure we catalog it all,” Youngkin said. “This gives us a great insight into what’s happening at a school level, and that gives us further ability to make sure we’re rooting it out.”

“Privilege bingo” is an actual classroom exercise used as part of a CRT-based curriculum to highlight racial differences among students and label certain children “privileged” based on race, regardless of their actual circumstances. The Fairfax County, Va. public school system apologized for using it after parents found out about the classroom exercise and complained.

Youngkin’s moves mimic those taken by the New Hampshire Department of Education. Last fall, Commissioner Frank Edelblut set up a website that allows Granite State parents to report violations of the state’s new anti-discrimination law. New Hampshire did not directly ban the teaching of any specific concept but instead banned teaching that any group was superior or inferior based on race, creed, or sexual orientation.

“This website in support of the commission provides parents with an online site to address concerns that their child may have been discriminated against,” the DOE said in a statement when the site was launched. “Parents, guardians, and teachers are able to submit a public education intake questionnaire that will be reviewed by a [state Human Rights] commission intake coordinator to determine if there are grounds to file a formal complaint.”

Edleblut did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday, but his staff indicated that any complaints filed through the website would go directly to the state’s Human Rights Commission (HRC). Edleblut has said that by going to the HRC, the due process rights of any teacher accused of violating the law will be protected.

Ahni Malachi, the commission’s executive director, refused to say Tuesday how many cases, if any, had been referred to her office since the website was published. She did say that no cases have been fully adjudicated at this time. But it is not clear if there are any cases pending before the commission, are still in the investigative stage, or are heading for mediation. The commission’s website lacks transparent information on the number of cases handled, and there is no public data available on the website beyond 2018 numbers.

NHJournal has reported on multiple Granite State school systems, including Manchester, Laconia, and Litchfield, that were found to be using CRT-inspired content.

New Hampshire’s anti-discrimination reporting system caught flak from teachers unions after it was learned a group of activists, Moms For Liberty, was offering a $500 bounty for the first verified report made to the commission. While Edleblut distanced himself from the bounty scheme, the heads of New Hampshire’s two teachers unions accused him of engaging in dangerous vigilantism.

“Totally innocent teachers could lose their teaching license over claims that are not backed up by any evidence. Edelblut has declared a war on teachers, a war that the overwhelming majority of New Hampshire parents will find repulsive,” AFT-New Hampshire President Deb Howes said.

Meg Tuttle, president of the NEA-NH, said Edleblut was keeping New Hampshire children from learning about injustice.

“Politicians like Commissioner Edelblut are using the dog whistle strategy of distraction, division, and intimidation in their efforts to dictate what teachers say and block kids from learning our shared stories of confronting injustice to build a more perfect union,” Tuttle said.

To date, no bounty has been paid, according to Moms For Liberty. Both the AFT and NEA have since filed independent federal lawsuits against the state over the anti-discrimination law.

The lawsuits incorrectly describe the law as banning the teaching of “divisive concepts.”

Months before New Hampshire passed Education Freedom Accounts legislation and drastically expanded parental choice, the state’s Department of Education had already contracted with Prenda to bring its micro-school model to the Granite State.

Now Prenda is here, offering opportunities for students who need more personalized attention than they’d get in a traditional classroom — and for adults who would like to be part of educating the next generation.

“Prenda is a model of education called learning pods. These are small groups of mixed-age kids — between five and ten students — who will meet in an informal space and do their education together,” says Kelly Smith, the company’s founder and CEO. “They will study academic core subjects like math, reading, science and social studies. They will also collaborate on creative projects, engineering, business. There’s a lot of group dynamics and fun.

“The goal is to empower these kids as learners, to give them an education for the 21st century. We want them to be someone who knows how to learn, who goes out and chases down the material, the content, the skills that they need to accomplish their goals.”

With New Hampshire school enrollments declining and districts forced to close schools, the micro-school model could be the perfect solution in some rural communities, as well as for parents whose students struggle in large classroom settings.

Education pods exploded onto the education scene during the COVID-19 lockdowns as frustrated parents looked for ways to get organized, adult-led education for kids otherwise abandoned to “Zoom school.” Multiple studies have shown that online-only learning has been an academic disaster for many students, particularly elementary school.

A study by the Rand Corporation found that students using the “personalized study” model similar to micro-schools experienced significant improvements, often surpassing the national averages in math and reading achievement.

But while the goal is student empowerment, Smith insists “there’s a critical role of an adult in this education.”

“Playing the role of a human being who’s present with these individual kids.  They know each child individually, they motivate, they coach. They inspire and mentor,” Smith says.

What these “learning guides,” as Prenda calls them, don’t do is set the academic standards or pick the content.

“They do not prepare lesson plans. They’re not responsible for the pedagogy. In fact, we have a whole system and support for that: remote resources, experts in learning science and teaching special ed and all the things that need to be considered,” Smith says.

“There’s a real need for a caring adult who knows you and is invested in you and wants you to be your best self. Unfortunately, not every student shows up perfectly motivated and ready to learn.

“Learning guides play the key role of the human who’s there helping you decide you want to be a learner,” Smith says.

N.H. Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut is a believer in the Prenda model. Last spring, his Department of Education entered a $6 million contract to make Prenda services available to districts where they are needed. The program, called Recovering Bright Futures, is designed to help students recover lost learning from the COVID-19 lockdown.

Much of the conversation about expanding education choices in New Hampshire has focused on the students and what they hope to achieve. But without adults who are passionate about education and willing to step into roles as mentors and guides, etc., the demand for alternative models like micro-schools may exceed the supply.

“There are probably people reading this interview who are thinking ‘I could make a contribution in my community, maybe I could do this [be a learning guide.] We’d love to talk to them.

“And,” Smith adds, “they get paid.”

Not only is it National School Choice Week, it’s also New Hampshire School Choice Week. Gov. Chris Sununu signed the proclamation on Tuesday. So naturally, the discussion of school choice in the Granite State is bound to come up. And the Legislature has a slew of bills related to charter schools, public versus private schools, and parent involvement in their children’s education.

With a Republican-controlled State House, expect to see several school choice bills make it through and end up on the governor’s desk. Education reform is definitely a priority for the Sununu administration.

“We’re not trying to blow up education, or battle public education,” he said at an event for National School Choice Week in Manchester on Tuesday. “I love public education. It’s just about actually taking the system that we have, the fundamental structure that we have — and it’s not bad; it’s a good structure — but providing some leadership to really implement those innovations that we always talk about.”

Here are NH Journal’s top school choice issues to keep an eye on at the State House as lawmakers begin to debate these bills:

CHARTER SCHOOLS

There are about 10 bills dealing with charter schools, which is still a contentious topic in the world of education. Here’s a quick run-down of what they are:

• Charter schools are publicly-funded independent schools that are not subject to the same regulations as traditional public schools.
• They do not charge tuition.
• They must accept all students who apply, but if the number of applications exceeds the school’s capacity, a lottery must be held to select students who will be offered a place.
• They are considered part of the state school system and are accountable to state and federal authorities for compliance with the terms of their founding charter, which often includes achievement-based standards (read: testing).
• All charter schools must apply for authorization and receive approval from a local school district, a town vote, or the state board of education. Charters are valid for a term of five years, at which point a school must apply for renewal.

There are currently 25 charter schools operating in New Hampshire, with another one slated to open in fall 2017, according to data from the NH Department of Education. There were 3,011 students enrolled in charter schools, or about 1 percent of the state’s total student population, as of October 1, 2015.

Most charter schools receive funding directly from the state, at a rate of about $6,500 per pupil, which is a lower than average per-pupil expenditure at traditional public schools, which averaged approximately $14,375 in 2015. Data from the current academic year is not available yet.

So why are charter schools so divisive? Charter school advocates want more funding and to raise the cap on admittance. They say the schools create new educational models of teaching and learning that appeal to students who might not learn best in a traditional school setting and give parents more choices in their children’s education.

Opponents say charter schools take away state money that could go to improve traditional schools, and they lack equal proportions of disabled or special needs students, who then are forced into the traditional public school system.

And the argument that charter school students perform better on standardized tests is a moot point. While statewide assessment results generally show that trend, the comparisons can be misleading since charter schools and traditional public schools do not have equivalent student populations in terms of learning ability and special needs.

Out of the 10 bills filed for the current legislative session, seven of them seek to place limits on charter schools or give the state more control of them. They are sponsored by Democrats. Three of the bills look to provide more funding or give charter schools more authority — all sponsored by Republicans. So you can see that this issue largely falls on party lines.

Rep. Timothy Horrigan, D-Durham, appears to be charter schools’ biggest opponent by being the prime sponsor on most of the “anti-charter” legislation. But with a Republican governor and a GOP-controlled Legislature, it’s difficult to see a scenario where any of the Democrat’s legislation makes it far. Especially with a pro-charter school governor who wants to increase funding.

And Sununu’s nominee for education commissioner, former state Rep. Frank Edelblut, is also a school choice, pro-charter supporter. It seems unlikely that any of the limiting charter school legislation will make it out of the House Education Committee.

THE ‘CROYDON’ BILL

For those unfamiliar with the story of the town of Croydon and school choice, let me fill you in.

The town has been in an ongoing legal battle with the courts and state Department of Education over its decision to send some of its students to a nearby Montessori school at taxpayer expense.

Many small communities in the state do not have a local K-12 school district and they contract with larger nearby districts to send their students to school there, usually though a per-student tuition contract paid for by the town where the students come from.

So, the Croydon School District had a tuition agreement with the town of Newport, but that contact ended in 2014. Croydon gave parents the option of choosing public and private schools to send their children, which would be funded by taxpayers.

The state and courts have ruled that the town cannot use public funds to pay for private school. But the school district says there is nothing in state law that prohibits it from using private schools if it’s in the best interest of the students.

Now, school choice advocates are rallying behind House Bill 557, which would allow a school district to send a child to a private school, even a religious one, if there is not a public school for the child’s grade in their home district.

The first hearing for the bill was held on Wednesday and the state Department of Justice said the bill violates the N.H. Constitution for allowing taxpayer money to be used for religious schools and could lead to other court cases in towns where parents are paying for private schools out-of-pocket.

It’s a tricky bill, but if it makes it out of committee and goes through the Legislature, Sununu is expected to sign it. In an op-ed published in the New Hampshire Union Leader during his gubernatorial run, he said, “the issue in Croydon is a clear example of government overreach.”

“Too often, special interests and unelected bureaucrats act as if they know what is right for children over the judgment of parents,” he wrote. “Instead of expanding options for families, the state has unfortunately been working to reduce them.”

And assuming Edelblut is approved by the Republican-controlled Executive Council, he has also indicated that he supports the Croydon School District, so he could make this bill a priority and work with members of the Legislature to get it passed.

COMMON CORE

While not directly about school choice, the issue of Common Core State Standards will be a dividing issue in the Legislature. School choice is all about giving parents a greater role in their child’s education and with Common Core, many parents feel the federal government and state are mandating what their children should learn — even if they don’t believe it’s in their best interests.

Bills in the House and Senate seek to make clear that school districts are not required to implement the standards if they don’t want to.

NH Journal has previously reported on the issue of Common Core in the state and how the state board of education gave towns and cities the flexibility and local control to implement the standards how they saw fit.

Sununu and Edelblut have both said they want to “repeal Common Core.” What exactly that means, is still unclear, but if these bills make it to Sununu’s desk, it’s also likely that he would sign them.

HONORABLE MENTION:

Here are some other bills relating to school choice (or parental involvement) that will appear in during the current legislative session:

• Constitutional Amendment Concurrent Resolution 7: “The general court shall have the authority to define standards of accountability, mitigate local disparities in educational opportunity and fiscal capacity, and have full discretion to determine the amount of state funding for education.”
• House Bill 395: “This bill repeals state board of education rulemaking authority for home education programs and inserts the duties and procedures related to membership in the home education advisory council statute.”
• House Bill 103: “This bill requires school districts to provide advance notice to parents and legal guardians of course material involving discussion of human sexuality or human sexual education.” Here is NH Journal’s story on how that bill came to fruition.

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