What is an Adequate Education by Tyler Stearns

On February 19th we had the pleasure of hearing the following brilliant speech by the very articulate and intelligent Tyler Stearns a senior at Holderness school. The speech was presented at the State Education Forum in Plymouth. Please send your definition of an "adequate education" to adequacy@leg.state.nh.us.

Tyler Stearns
February 19, 2007

What is an Adequate Education?

My name is Tyler Stearns. I am a senior in high school. I wanted to speak tonight because I have had the unique experience of attending both public and private educational institutions. I spent my elementary years at Thornton Central School and my first two years of high school here at Plymouth. I transferred across the river to the private Holderness School last year.

Speaking from experience, I have found that a one-size-fits-all education does not work. The Supreme Court’s misguided opinions have left us in a precarious situation. We are now ultimately being forced to adopt universal standards for education. But students are by no means universal in all of their educational abilities. It would be unwise for us to adopt a definition of adequacy that dumps all students into a collective group. We need to focus on individual preference and ability.

I recommend that the state adopt a two-fold plan:
• We need a constitutional amendment to prevent centralization of our traditionally decentralized education system. We need to retain local control. After all, who knows what children need most: local teachers and parents or legislators and bureaucrats in Concord?
• The next part is to adopt some kind of school choice program. If every time a new educational technique or tool is created we have to wait months, perhaps years, for the legislature to act what kind of education are we giving our children? Allowing school choice will force the educational system to adapt to attract children. I have had the fortunate experience of being able to afford a private school education. We don’t need to flood our failing schools with more money; we need to give less-fortunate children the option of attending a school that performs well.

Objective studies, including some from Harvard and Princeton, have shown that school choice has caused reading and math scores to rise anywhere from 6 to 15 percentile points. Both public and private schools show improvement in performance in those areas that allow school choice. One study even showed that students using vouchers to attend private school almost double their graduation rates as compared to non-voucher public school students in the same city. I know this forum is not about funding, but as an added bonus one study done in here in New Hampshire showed that a proposed school choice system would have saved the state over 30 million dollars in 8 years. Now, if all this is not adequacy then I don’t know what is.

In summary, I propose that the State of New Hampshire adopt a constitutional amendment and a school choice program. It is the only way that we can ensure all students will get the best education possible. Let parents and children decide how our education system works. I leave you with a quote on school choice from Nobel Prize winning economist Dr. Milton Friedman: “We can strengthen the foundations of our freedom and give fuller meaning to equality of educational opportunity”.

To learn more about Tyler Stearns click here.
Keep an eye on this young-man he is sure to be one of our great leaders when he is an adult. He just may be president come 2048 or so.

State Education Forums

Last night my husband and I attend the last of the State Education Forums. Just below you will find both of our speeches we presented to the legislators at the forum.

Addressing the task of defining an adequate education, committee chairman Iris Estabrook said "The Legislature takes its responsibility to respond to the court's order very seriously". I respectfully suggest that the legislature NOT take the court's order seriously and abandon this perilous course of action. As we near the end of these hearings, I would like to recap some of what this committee has heard in support of this view....

Refreshingly, some speakers even within the existing education system, called for local control, parental control, vouchers and school choice. Alas, many speakers came like kids in a candy store looking to include their pet projects. The most egregious demand was class size limitations. Inclusion of class size into the definition of adequacy not only perpetuates the "input-driven" standards deemed unsatisfactory in previous efforts, it provides no educational benefit as shown in over 85% of a group of 277 studies(1). As a testament to the self-serving nature of these demands, not a single class size limit advocate even mentioned homeschooling, the ultimate in small class size, because homeschooling doesn't artificially inflate the demand for teachers. In short, class size reduction is good old fashioned feather bedding, a giveaway to the teachers unions. It doesn't belong in any adequacy definition.

A few more examples: NH Council of Social Studies Executive Board member Ann Anthaman suggests social studies be part of an adequate education. "Media Smart" director Rona Slockour came to the microphone in Manchester to declare the value of "Media Literacy" to solve all manner of social ills.

Three NH School Counselors Association members produced virtually word-for-word identical recitations extolling the virtues of guidance counselors, including my personal favorite line from Catherine Sheridan who considers her profession indispensable in helping to "improve school transitions from kindergarten to first grade". We've also heard multiple calls for mandatory Kindergarten despite growing evidence that time at home with parents is more valuable. The gamut of demands spanned from pre-natal education to the grave. Is a pattern emerging here?

The most disturbing yet honest comments came from two school board members, one in Manchester and another in Dover who said "we need it all!" and "Let's get the money!" These statements reveal the real goal of these legal games - to provide an endless laundry list of expenses for public schools. Perpetual lawsuits will keep these expenses growing without limit. Lawsuits like Claremont I, Claremont II, and Londonderry are just the tip of the iceberg. Our legislature has thus become the proverbial Titanic sailing aimlessly into a definition of educational adequacy.

Ladies and Gentlemen, its time to grab the life vests and sound the alarm. Five forums have shown that acceding to the court's demands will open a floodgate of gimme-gimme lawsuits that can only result in broad based taxes and out-of-control spending. There is widespread consensus that the court has overstepped its bounds, having no constitutional authority to direct the legislature in this manner. Lawmakers have not only the right, but the duty to face down this threat to our liberty and rebuke the court's demands.

I therefore ask this committee to propose two acts. First, tear up the court's illegal mandate. Second, pass a constitutional amendment establishing once and for all that education is a parental responsibility, not a state responsibility. These acts will preserve New Hampshire's unique quality of life and hopefully bring an end to the frivolous education industry lawsuits. If we permit the courts to dictate education policy, New Hampshire will collapse into the tax-and-spend nightmare of our neighbors, and the public will curse the name "Claremont" for generations to come.

1. Education Week Sept 29, 1999

Jim Peschke
Croydon, NH

I'd like to thank members of this committee for allowing parents and taxpayers to participate in discussions about educational adequacy in New Hampshire. My own research regarding educational adequacy issues across the nation has provided alarming evidence against the committee's proposed plan. I'd like to share some of what I've learned.

In a winter 2007 Education Next article, James Guthrie and Matthew Springer write that since the late 1960s "plaintiffs have filed more than 125 court cases questioning the constitutionality of school district and school spending levels." "In 2005 alone, high court decisions were handed down in eight states." This doesn't sound like a case-by-case judicial review process, it sounds more like a nationwide scam. It makes me wonder if any action taken by the legislature can keep the courts from meddling in our schools.

In the same publication, Josh Dunn and Martha Derthick summarized the case against court involvement: "Adequacy lawsuits have proved a serious threat to the right of citizens to have their taxes determined by elected officials who are in a position to weigh the competing claims for public support and to judge the relative efficacy of spending for particular purposes." In other words, the court is trying to play lawmaker and is ill-suited for this task.

We the people look to you the legislature to protect our rights. It is clear that the Claremont and Londonderry lawsuits were designed by those who stand to profit from higher education spending. These groups, most notably the teachers unions, have turned our schools into an entitlement machine.

We're repeatedly assured that these forums focus solely on the adequacy definition and not on cost. This simply isn't true, nor should it be. Committee Chairman Iris Estabrook commented that the court's complaint is that current standards are "too general, not specific enough to define its cost". Apparently the court demands cost-specific adequacy definitions. At the Education Funding and the Constitution forum in Concord, Claremont lawyer Scott Johnson also said the adequacy definition must include costing.

This obsession with education spending by those who stand to gain from it is the real reason the court handed down its mandate, and its also the reason this legislature must reject the courts demands.

I am a parent and I do not want you or anyone else to define an adequate education for my child. My husband and I are responsible for our child. We do not want our right of deciding what is the best possible education for our daughter legislated away from us. If you must define an an adequate education please legislate that the parent must define an adequate education with the money following the child and not the institution. Any definition should also include legislation that will ward off future lawsuits by the Big Ed beast. The last component of adequate education which includes costs is a spending control measurement such as the annual increase in spending on adequate education should not exceed the rate of inflation.

In closing I would like to say that over the past 20 years, New Hampshire has increased education spending by 106.1%. We are ranked 3rd nationwide in education performance. We are adequately educating our children.

Cathy Peschke
Croydon

Just before I spoke a superintendent was speaking about how we should consider educating 3 and 4 year olds as well as full day kindergarten. This through me in to a tizzy. In my original speech I was going to state the following "Friedrich Engels, who in his 1847 draft of the Manifesto called "Principles of Communism" wrote as one of its tenets: "Education of all children, from the moment they can leave their mother's care, in national establishments at national cost." I thought it would be to harsh so I had took it out. Now I had wished I left it in. I did not state it clearly because I was so dumbfounded by the superintendent statements but I hope I got my point out at the disgust of wanting to rip children away from their parents so they can be properly indoctrinated was indeed wrong.

Please be sure to send your definition of an "adequate education" to our legislators at adequacy@leg.state.nh.us.

The New Hampshire Advantage Coalition Adequacy Income Tax Form

The New Hampshire Advantage Coalition Adequacy Income Tax Form

All quiet before the vote $10M school renovation on warrant Tuesday

The following piece appeared in the Eagle Times. Take note of the following line from the article below "Establishment of a land purchase capital reserve fund." What the most likely means is that they are going to eventually ask the voters for more money to purchase land, than they will ask for more money to purchase a school, than they will ask for more money to staff the schools. When will the cycle end? If the district is concerned about growth impacting the need for the new schools. The district needs to work with the City of Newport. New developments should not be approved unless the new developments pay for future schools that need to be built. Current residents should not be responsible for the building of new schools that should be the responsibility of the developers of new homes. The city of Newport needs to grow responsibly.

All quiet before the vote
$10M school renovation on warrant Tuesday

Aaron Aldridge
Staff Writer

NEWPORT - Although the public was invited to attend a forum Thursday night on next Tuesday's vote on a $10 million school renovation plan, no residents arrived to discuss the proposal or the budget with board members.


School Board Chairperson Anthony McConnell gave a presentation on the proposed $10.5 million warrant article for an addition at Richards School and renovations at Towle School and the middle high school.

The proposed project includes moving the sixth grade back to Towle School, moving the fourth grade to Richards School, building a large addition at Richards and renovating all three schools in the district to bring them up to health and safety code standards.

A 60 percent majority is needed to pass the bond issue which will have a tax impact of $1.23 per thousand dollars of property value the first year, $2.95 the second year and about 10 cents less each of the following years until the bond is paid off in 2027.

The original proposal before the school board had included a two-story addition at the high school which would have housed all of the middle school students. That proposal was in excess of $15 million and was deemed too expensive by the school board.

The budget plan was also reviewed

"We've kept the budget within a very tight limit this year," board member Kathy Sarles said.

The proposed budget of $14.4 million represents a 3.6 percent increase over this year's budget.

"The budget has no extras that aren't important to our kids' education," board member Holly Harrison said.

"We want folks to understand it is intrinsic to pass this budget," board member Patricia DiPadova said. "I think our budget reflects keeping things pretty much the way they are now."

Reasons for the increase in the budget this year include special education costs, retirement contributions and a possible decline in federal grant revenue, DiPadova said.

If the school budget is approved, the estimated tax impact is $3.21 per thousand dollars of property value. The current local school tax rate is $14.62 per thousand dollars of property value.

"There is the possibility the tax impact could be a lot less," DiPadova said.

Other articles to be voted upon are:

• Withdrawal of $100,000 from the school building capital reserve fund to replace part of the roof at the high school.

• Establishment of a fund for out-of-district placement.

• Add an additional $50,000 to the school renovation capital reserve fund.

• $20,000 for continued planning should the $10.5 million bond fail.

• Establishment of a land purchase capital reserve fund.

Residents will cast their votes 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. on Tuesday at the Newport Opera House.

Newport School Warrant Articles

I was listening to WNTK 99.7 and heard a radio ad for the Newport School Tax Warrant. Some of the questions that came to mind were who was paying for the ad and do any of the people who are on the committee for the tax warrant benefit from the tax warrant increase if it passes? If the warrant truly has merit why must they advertise for the warrant? It would seem if the warrants were necessary persuasion of the passage of the warrant would not be necessary.

The ad stated that the State would be paying for 60% of the costs of the school renovations. Where do the members of the committee think the money from the state comes from? The state does not grow money on trees, it is coming out of someone's pocket.

Residents should strongly consider the impact of a possible property tax increase to their wallets with the possibility of an income tax increasing looming in the near future.

Fixing No Child Left Behind

The following piece appeared in the Wall Street Journal.


Fixing No Child Left Behind

WSJ Editorial: March 6, 2007; Page A18

The No Child Left Behind education law is up for renewal this year, and an independent commission recently released some recommendations for improvement. Not to be outdone, the White House has also put out its own "blueprint" for strengthening the law. The legislation could use a serious reworking, but any fixes won't go far enough unless they do more to expand public and private school choice.

NCLB's political bargain was that, in return for a big increase in federal education spending, the government would hold schools more accountable for results in the classroom. Six years later, taxpayers have done their part. Since 2001 overall NCLB funding has risen by 34%, and federal spending on Title I schools serving low-income students has gone up 45%.

NCLB and the Bush Administration also deserve some credit for shifting the terms of the education debate. The law has focused attention on learning gaps between students of different races and economic backgrounds that persist even at some of the nation's best public schools. The law's requirement that schools test annually in grades 3-8, and report both averages and the results of racial and economic subgroups, has made it much more difficult for administrators to hide the fact that all students aren't learning.

NCLB has been much less successful in bringing pressure to bear on states and school districts that fail to implement the law. That's especially true of the school choice provisions, which are the best way to get the attention of the education bureaucracy. Unfortunately, the Bush Administration abandoned its voucher proposal very early in the 2001 negotiations. What passed was a watered-down version of public school choice, which in theory allows a child in a failing school to transfer to a better public school or get free after-school tutoring from private providers.

* * *

In practice, however, the Education Department has too often allowed school districts to skirt even these limited choice provisions, either by granting exemptions or looking the other way. It took a formal complaint from the Alliance for School Choice before Secretary Margaret Spellings did anything about Los Angeles failing to notify parents of their transfer rights as required under the law. So far she's sent the district a sternly worded letter.

And the Chicago public school system, which has been repeatedly labeled "in need of improvement" and thus should be banned under NCLB from offering its own after-school tutoring, has been given a waiver to do exactly that. So while it would be nice if the Bush Administration enforced its own law, the larger lesson is that school choice "lite" turns out to be no substitute for the real thing.

To be fair, some of these problems are structural. Even if more school districts were implementing NCLB's transfer provisions, there often isn't enough room in decent schools to handle all the children who qualify for a transfer. And many of the private after-school tutoring services allowed under the law are simply employing the same teachers from the local public school system who are failing the kids during regular school hours.

There's also the problem of allowing each state to develop its own standards and tests to determine proficiency in reading and math. The Administration was deferring to federalist principles on an issue that's traditionally been handled at the state and local level. But the reality has been a "race to the bottom," with some states constructing easy tests to avoid federal penalties.

"If you're in Oklahoma right now, you're told that 95% or 96% of your schools are doing fine," says Frederick Hess, who follows education at the American Enterprise Institute. "And if you're in Massachusetts, you're told that 40% to 45% of your schools are doing fine. But if you look at the actual achievement data, it suggests that kids in Massachusetts are doing far better than kids in Oklahoma."

Some education reformers are now calling for "national standards" to address this problem. But we tried national history standards in the 1990s, and the politicized results weren't pretty -- unless, of course, you favor a history curriculum that downgrades the Founding Fathers while playing up the working experiences of midwives in 19th-century Nebraska.

Rather than force a national test on states, the best compromise here may be to require them to benchmark their own assessments against the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), a federal standardized test that already exists and that most educators agree is fairly rigorous. "So people at least have a common metric by which to judge the rigor of the state assessment," says Mr. Hess.

It's worth considering, and we wish we could say the same about the Commission on No Child Left Behind, which was funded by private foundations and co-chaired by former Governors Tommy Thompson and Roy Barnes. But the panel's report is more interested in tinkering than fundamental change, and its 75 recommendations don't include the one that would make the biggest difference: school vouchers.

* * *

The Administration's proposed fixes are bolder and potentially more consequential. President Bush's 2008 budget sets aside $250 million for "promise scholarships" for low-income students in schools that have consistently underperformed for five years. The scholarships would average about $4,000 and "the money would follow the child to the public, charter or private school of his or her choice."

Them's fightin' words for the Democrats who now control Congress. But Mr. Bush has the bully pulpit, as well as the moral authority from five years of evidence on failing schools. We hope his Administration uses them to explain why real school choice is essential to any reform in K-12 education.

Students still lag on reading, math tests - More challenging courses not helping

The following piece appeared in The Birmingham News newspaper. Our public education system is failing our students. More money is not the answer real reform and competition is the only solution.
Without reform we will continue to see lagging scores, reduced literacy rates, billions spent on remedial education at the college level and essentially flat dropout rates.

Students still lag on reading, math tests

More challenging courses not helping
Friday, February 23, 2007
NANCY ZUCKERBROD
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON - High school students are getting better grades and taking more challenging courses, but that is not showing up on national math and reading tests.

"The reality is that the results don't square," said Darvin Winick, chair of the independent National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees the tests. Scores were released Thursday.

Nearly 40 percent of high school seniors scored below the basic level on the math test. More than a quarter of seniors failed to reach the basic level on the reading test.

"I think that we are sleeping through a crisis," said Massachusetts Commissioner of Education David Driscoll, a governing board member. He said the low test scores should push lawmakers and educators to enact school reforms.

The new reading scores show no change since 2002, the last time the test was given.

"We should be getting better. There's nothing good about a flat score," Winick said.

The government said it could not compare the math results with the previous scores because the latest test was significantly different.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress - often called the nation's report card - is viewed as the best way to compare students across the country because it's the only uniform national yardstick.

The tests were given in 2005. The government released the scores Thursday along with a report examining the high school transcripts of 2005 graduates.

The transcript study shows students are earning more credits, taking challenging courses and getting higher grade-point averages than in the past.

In 2005, high school graduates had an overall grade-point average just shy of 3.0 - or about a B. That has gone up from a grade-point average of about 2.7 in 1990.

It is unclear whether student performance has improved or whether grade inflation or something else might be responsible, the report said.

More students are completing high school with a standard curriculum, meaning they take at least four credits of English and three credits each of social studies, math and science. More students also are taking the next level of courses, which generally include college preparatory classes.

"I'm guessing that those levels don't connote the level of rigor that we think they do. Otherwise kids would be scoring higher on the NAEP test," said David Gordon, a governing board member and the superintendent of schools in Sacramento, Calif.

The study showed no increase in the number of high-schoolers who completed the most advanced curriculum, which could include college-level or honors classes.

On the math test, about 60 percent of high school seniors performed at or above the basic level.

Just one-fourth of 12th-graders were proficient or better in math, meaning they demonstrated solid academic performance.

On the reading test, about three-fourths of seniors performed at or above the basic level, and 40 percent hit the proficient mark.


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