Stolen Rights over Public Education
Without consent, government has no legitimacy. In 1968, our fundamental rights over public education were stolen by an amendment to the NH Constitution. Usually, amendments enshrine or expand our rights. It’s very unusual to remove fundamental rights from a state constitution, let alone do it by stealth.
In an effort to separate church and state, “authority” to collect local taxes to support religious and public schools was removed, along with other basic rights over public education. These rights were: our “exclusive” right to control public instruction; the prohibition against compelling anyone to support public instruction of “another persuasion”; taxing “authority” to make provisions for local public schools.
You’d think this would have caused quite a stir, especially over the constitutional “authority” of municipalities to tax property to fund public schools. That was removed without informing voters. They were told only that the amendment would “remove obsolete sectarian references.”
Taxes continued to be collected for the next 58 years without any constitutional authority. Clearly tax collectors didn’t think that was an impediment. If the intention was to eliminate taxing authority for religious and public schools, why were no state laws repealed? Religious schools stopped getting taxpayer funding back in 1819 with the separation of church and state. The 1968 amendment was nominally just housekeeping, but consider the damage.
Did no one understand? More likely, it was a calculated move to eliminate local control over the long term, allowing for incremental state interference, and waiting for a court challenge to create a state duty to mandate, fund and control public education, as finally happened in 1993 with the Claremont decision.
The lack of full disclosure to the people when amending our Constitution is alarming. It’s politics, but the Constitution is a solemn contract between the people and their government, written to ensure that our rights are recognized. If the people didn’t understand for 58 years that school taxing authority was removed, it’s pretty clear that informed consent was never given.
This year, for the first time, hundreds of tax abatements have been filed seeking reimbursement for illegally collecting local education property taxes. Millions of dollars in tax revenues are being challenged. This matter needs to be resolved. An amendment to restore the original language of Art. 6, Pt. 1 was proposed but quickly dismissed by the legislature. Meanwhile, education property tax increases are outpacing many taxpayers’ ability to pay. Folks are concerned, as some residents are at risk of losing their homes.
Language that was removed:
Towns and bodies corporate (i.e., school districts) “ shall at all times have the exclusive right to elect their own public teachers and of contracting with them for their support and maintenance”;
No person “shall ever be compelled to fund teachers of another persuasion;” [based upon rights of conscience]
“Empower the legislature to authorize” the municipalities “to make adequate provisions at their own expense for the support and maintenance of public … teachers.”
There was no discussion in statewide newspapers regarding any of these changes back in 1968. There was no discussion in the journal of the Constitutional Convention of 1964. No explanation on the 1968 voters’ guide. 2/3 of voters plainly didn’t fully understand the magnitude of the changes being proposed to their Constitution because no one was discussing its impact. There is no consent when rights are taken by stealth. That was a misplaced trust. Corrective action should be made to restore our rights and trust.
We need to restore all three provisions of the original Art. 6 Pt 1 of the NH constitution:
- Our “exclusive right” to elect our own teachers for public instruction was intended to prevent state interference. The founders understood the danger of state indoctrination from England’s 1550’s Acts of Uniformity. Without this protection over public instruction, the state could indoctrinate students, as is currently happening in our public schools. Something is happening top-down.
- All education promotes values of one or “another persuasion,” not just schools of a religious sect or denomination. We have the individual right not to fund objectionable instruction, therefore to be allowed to switch districts, based upon our inalienable rights of conscience, as everyone has an obligation to fund public instruction. It was a common practice in NH to switch, or create new districts, even after the Toleration Act of 1819, which separated church and state, was enacted, rather than be compelled to fund a public school of “another persuasion.” That right was usurped by the state in 1885 and then stolen from the Constitution in 1968.
- “Authorization” to make provisions for public teachers at their own expense. No such provision can be made without authority to collect property taxes.
Our fundamental right to direct our children’s education without state interference or indoctrination and without being compelled to fund objectionable public ideology or instruction has been replaced with endless uniform state mandates within a locked education system that no longer respects our rights of conscience.
Things have tumbled out of control since 1968 as the state imposed many mandates upon districts. It was so troublesome that by 1984, a constitutional amendment (Art. 28-a, Pt. 1) was proposed and adopted, requiring that all state mandates upon school districts had to be fully funded. But even this amendment did not fully protect against state-mandated expenses. The state continues to impose regulations, undermining our “exclusive right” over instruction and increasing our school budgets.
Currently, everyone is compelled to fund a school district even when the instruction violates their conscience by being definitively of “another persuasion.” Parent complaints at school board meetings have increased, but those have been safely ignored, because everyone is trapped and compelled to fund their district, whether they agree with the instruction or not.
–> Legislators are trying to address some of these problems by proposing the Charlie Bill (HB 1792), authorizing the state to censor objectionable ideologies of a certain persuasion from public schools.
The Charlie Bill will result in litigation and an endless political tug-of-war to ban one ideology or another. Both sides have rights of conscience, not just one side.
Ironically, the state mandates teacher certification for all public school teachers. This is where much of the ideological infiltration occurs. Private schools have no such requirement and far less problems with offensive ideologies.
If the state recognized our individual right not to be compelled to support public instruction of “another persuasion.” there would be no controversy. Individuals could simply switch districts and defund offensive instruction. There would be no need for state censorship, force or litigation. You have to admire the simplicity and insight of our founders to provide these protections for us, if only our fundamental rights were recognized.
–> Legislators are also proposing Universal Open Enrollments (HB 751, SB 101) to allow parents stuck in objectionable school districts to send their child to any school district in the state. This option disenfranchises families, compelling parents to continue funding the objectionable district they want to leave, while being unable to vote or run for office in the district they are not allowed to attend. Open Enrollment creates disenfranchised “outsiders” who belong nowhere; their children can be returned to their original district if excess capacity diminishes. Parents have to forfeit their fundamental right (to vote in their new district, local self governance) in order to be allowed to exercise their fundamental right to leave their district (rights of conscience).
Had our rights not been stolen, no one would be compelled to fund a district of “another persuasion”. They would simply notify the town clerk in the spring before budget season, join a new district that had capacity for new students, fund that district directly, vote, and attend school, all in the new district. There would be no problem sending students back to their old district. They would belong in the new district. Switching districts builds stronger cohesive communities and avoids disagreements over ideological or budgetary matters.
One might switch, or create a new district, simply to lower property taxes, by picking a district that values limiting expenses and focuses on a traditional education.
In 1885, the state interfered with local governance by forcing consolidation of school districts. Every municipality was required to consolidate all of its school districts into a single district. My city of Nashua had 11 districts which were forcibly consolidated into a single district. NH had nearly 3,000 districts before consolidation. This marked the end of our rights of conscience in terms of switching districts.
In the 1970’s the state required districts to join a School Administrative Unit (SAU) for “efficiency’s sake” in managing state requirements, state paperwork, and student data collection for the state.
–> Currently there’s legislation HB 1804 that proposes consolidation of 107 SAUs down to 12 county-level SAUs. This bill thankfully was temporarily defeated. The bigger your governing unit, the smaller your local voice becomes. The excuse has always been to save costs, but costs and student data collection only increase with state interference.
–> Education Freedom Accounts (EFAs) are yet another attempt by the state to free students from problems that the state created in our school districts. It was marketed to help students get away from bullying situations after the state promoted its ineffective “restorative justice” discipline (2014), or just to escape districts with failing test scores, which are the results of state-imposed common core frameworks (2010) and competency-based education (2015). This EFA program is a new state-funded entitlement. It does not use the family’s local property taxes. No money follows the child. EFAs would not be needed if parents were allowed to switch districts and state mandates were eliminated. The vast majority of EFA students were already outside the public school system. Only 3.3% are public school refugees.
With EFAs, once again the parent remains trapped, compelled to fund an objectionable district while the state extends its reach even further into private education. Why? To solve problems caused by state interference in public schools. Private schools are collecting state funds and may not realize that they will be next for state regulation. EFA students attending private schools are considered “public education students” even though they attend private schools.
It’s time to restore our stolen rights to local control, not continue expanding state control over education.
Restore our exclusive right over education so we can say “no” to expensive state mandates, including the Statewide Longitudinal Data System (SLDS), the surveillance pipeline to track each student’s private academic, behavioral and mental health information (over 400 data points per student) to share with the federal government, in violation of our “Right of Privacy”, NH Constitution, Art. 2-b, Pt. 1, and in violation of the federal Privacy Act of 1974.
Restore our ability to switch districts when instruction or district leadership becomes toxic. From the NH Constitution, Art. 10: The idea of non-resistance to arbitrary power and oppression is absurd, slavish and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind.
Let the people resolve their own problems. Top-down state control has failed students and is bankrupting property owners.
–> The state legislature is now pushing tax caps via HB 1300, in an attempt to control local budgets. The actual effect will be that taxpayers will continue to fund expensive state mandates and the state will continue to collect data on our children. The state is literally addicted to federal grants: federally inspired mandates will never end unless we restore our fundamental rights over public education.
Fundamental Rights Matter!
