Many people are giving up on public schools. Districts demand more and more money; student proficiency keeps dropping; and federal mandates keep stacking up, distracting students away from academics and towards social-emotional learning, behavior modification, and other federal agendas.
Rather than fix the public schools, some prefer universal Education Freedom Accounts, really vouchers, without any income restrictions to “bail students out” from the “unfixable” public schools. This proposal will bust the budget, costing taxpayers over $100M per year.
If the state funds private schooling through EFAs, how is the public supposed to pretend those private schools are still independent? Elon Must just tweeted:
It is obviously an oxymoron to be a government-funded, non-governmental organization.
They are simply an extension of the government, but with less accountability and a false veneer of independence. ~ Elon Musk
Just as obviously, it’s an oxymoron to be a government-funded, non-government school.
Meanwhile, others are continuing their fight for additional state funding for public schools. They’re hoping their Claremont lawsuits will establish a duty for increased state funding despite the unwillingness of the Legislature to spend more money.
So far, no one has found a way to resolve the issue.
What if ….. legislators required school districts to go back to basics and provide traditional academic instruction without the new-fangled federal mandates? No more indoctrination of students with political ideas instead of focusing on the ABCs. Restore old-fashioned phonics and arithmetic. Use common sense, not common core. It’s not a student’s job to dismantle racism or evaluate whether he/she is privileged or oppressed.
Sure, let districts continue the failed federal agendas, if they still have parents who want them, but require districts to provide a clear and equitable path for students to get an adequate academic education . . .
without behavior modification programs, such as social emotional learning, which are now interwoven into the entire school curriculum denying parents a remedy in law as they can no longer opt-out of such material if deemed objectionable (RSA 186-11: IX-c);
without student values, attitudes and beliefs being surveyed and questioned in classrooms and via online school software without informed written consent from parents as required by law (RSA 186-11:IX-d), parents no longer have remedy in law when finding these materials objectionable or invasive of family privacy rights;
without school teachers and psychologists providing counseling and mental health therapy in group or individual settings, without parental notification or consent, creating a problem without remedy in law;
without data mining, the selling or sharing student information to vendors, is a serious privacy concern for families; despite a recent constitutional amendment protecting privacy, there is no remedy in law providing instruction that does not collect, sell or share student data. (NH Constitution, Pt. 1 [Art.] 2-b. [Right of Privacy.] ).
It’s simple. Back to basics. Provide academic instruction in public schools. Traditional grading, not the inequitable competency grading. Promotion to the next grade is earned, not automatic. Merit actually matters. Restore discipline, not restorative justice experiments.
Allow parents to review all course materials and grading protocols in advance.
Establish a process for parents to direct the school board to provide academic instruction to their child without behavioral or mental health therapy, competency-grading or data tracking, or require the district to fund academic instruction acceptable to parents outside the district.
There’s no need for state-funded EFAs. If a district is doing an adequate job, students won’t need any funding. With district cooperation, the current EFA program can be eliminated along with the proposed universal EFA program. State funding should not be used for private schooling.
