Is My School Board Ready To Run On The NHSBA Agenda? - Granite Grok

Is My School Board Ready To Run On The NHSBA Agenda?

Irritating the Bureaucracy makes me smile.  Irritating the lobbying arm of the bureaucracy that disguises itself as something else is even better.  And that is what my friend Gary Krupp has done on his maiden voyage into the Blogosphere.  (Welcome to the deep end of the pool.)

Gary gives us an update on the local effort at damage control by the pro-lobbyist faction in town; the New Hampshire School Board Association (NHSBA) was invited to perform for the school board, which like some corpulent monarch was adequately amused to continue offering them indulgences…it is not, after all, their money.

The School Board lapped it up. They threw a few softballs Mr. Comstock’s way, and then discussed the process for submitting resolutions of their own for the upcoming NHSBA delegate assembly.

Thank you sire, thank you…

We have yet to discern how the school board will resolve the matter of violating state law, but Gary makes a more important observation that echoes my thoughts exactly…

Mr. Comstock (the NHSBA Executive Director) went on to say that any lobby activity that they partake in is with the full voice of the taxpayers because their elected school board representatives are the people who make up the delegation and the delegation is the body that votes on all resolutions.

Well, I am a taxpayer and I don’t feel represented. I am not against charter schools, homeschooling, pension reform and voucher programs but the NHSBA is. I am not for a return of more studies by the U.S. Department of Education but the NHSBA is. In fact, as I read through these resolutions I am left with the distinct impression that they appear to align more with resolutions by the National American Federation of Teachers’ (AFT) and the National Education Association’s (NEA) than with my own positions. Who is it NHSBA is representing again?  Is it my voice they are hearing or is it the unions that care much more about for jobs, benefits and funding than they do about educating my children?

I agree.  And I’m sure this Board, perhaps your own school boards, and all future school boards who participate, will continue to be dazzled by the bright shiny objects waved before them by the NHSBA–who can’t do much of anything if (by the way) we all stop giving them our money.  So I have a suggestion.

Whether we ignore the “violating state law” thing or not ( a problem they can get around legally if they want to spend some more of our money to do it), let’s just assume that anyone running for the Merrimack School Board who does not oppose funding the NHSBA’s agenda and the lobbying it does in support of that agenda, is running on the NHSBA’s agenda.  This means that they will be running against charter schools, against homeschooling, against pension reform and voucher programs, and in favor of Federal power over taxpayer and local control.

We can even create a sort of NHSBA version of ‘The NH Tax Pledge’ for school board candidates to sign…or…not.

Then we will know, and we can all vote accordingly.

Don’t worry I won’t forget to bring it up when election time comes.  That’s part of what makes me so irritating to the bureaucracy.  And I can guarantee you that Gary, and other taxpayers/voters will be here to remind everyone else as well.

 

My previous observations on the NHSBA here, here and here.

Correction:  Gary updated his original remarks to correct an error.  NHSBA does not support Evergreen clauses.  The text has been edited to accommodate the correction.

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