Wednesday, December 16, 2015
Thursday, December 3, 2015
Our Turn: School choice matters, so drop Croydon lawsuit | Concord Monitor
Our Turn: School choice matters, so drop Croydon lawsuit | Concord Monitor
The state’s public schools provide a
conducive learning environment for most of its children, but for some
children, the local school does not meet educational needs. They are at
increased risk of falling behind or, worse, not graduating high school.
Our own former governor John Lynch
actively encouraged expanding alternative education programs during his
eight years as governor. In his April 10, 2009, letter to the people of
New Hampshire, Lynch said: “Since becoming governor of New Hampshire, I
have made it a top priority to help every young person graduate from
high school, including working to pass legislation to increase the
compulsory attendance age and expanding alternative education programs
for at-risk students.”
School choice: It’s not a partisan issue.
Democrat and Republican legislators have long recognized that for New
Hampshire to maintain its high standard of living, and provide the best
environment in which to raise a family, a great education for all
children is paramount. That’s why education laws are specifically
designed as a state-local partnership – where there’s a shared
responsibility between state and local government to provide a K-12
education for children.
RSA 193-E:1, II states: “In this system,
the state establishes, through school approval and student proficiency
standards and curriculum guidelines, the framework for the delivery of
educational services at the local level. School districts then have
flexibility in implementing diverse educational approaches tailored to
meet student needs.”
State law limits authority of the state
government to educational standards and guidelines while authorizing
local school districts (parents, teachers and school administrators)
tremendous flexibility in providing diverse educational opportunities
that best meet the individual needs of their children. That flexibility
includes the legal authority for school districts to contract with
private schools to educate their children. Indeed, RSA 194:22 clearly
states, “Any school district may make a contract with an academy, high
school or other literary institution located in this or, when distance
or transportation facilities make it necessary, in another state, and
raise and appropriate money to carry the contract into effect.”
The Croydon School District recently
determined that a few of its children were at-risk. These children were
struggling in the traditional public school setting. School board
officials, parents, teachers, school administrators and taxpayers came
together in the best interest of these children and offered alternative
educational opportunities for these students. The district used its
legal authority to contract with a few nearby private schools.
The district pays tuition for these
students (which is about half the cost per student of the traditional
public school). By all accounts, these children are now thriving in
their alternative education setting.
Then why, Gov. Hassan, Attorney General
Foster and Commissioner of Education Barry, are you interfering with the
Croydon School District’s lawful practice to provide its children with
educational opportunities that best meet each child’s needs? Why are you
taking the Croydon School District to court and suing the good people
of Croydon, who just want to exercise their legal right to provide the
best educational opportunities for their children? Croydon is not a
large school district with a large tax base and financial resources to
mount a prolonged defense against state resources.
If you use the power of the state to
override the will and wisdom of the people of Croydon to end school
choice there, you threaten every district and child in the state. Each
child in New Hampshire could suffer lifelong consequences of being
forced into an educational environment that fails to meet their needs.
Therefore, we urge Gov. Hassan, Attorney General Foster, and
Commissioner Barry to support the good people of Croydon. End the
lawsuit. Not only for the future of these children, but also the future
of New Hampshire.
Our Turn: School choice matters, so drop Croydon lawsuit
New Hampshire parents want the best for their children, and that includes a great K-12 education.
The state’s public schools provide a
conducive learning environment for most of its children, but for some
children, the local school does not meet educational needs. They are at
increased risk of falling behind or, worse, not graduating high school.
For these children, an alternative
learning environment is necessary. For some with special needs, this
means taxpayer-funded placement in a private school designed to provide
an appropriate learning environment structured to best meet the child’s
physical and educational needs. For others, a nearby chartered public
school provides the learning environment best suited for the child. And
for some, school districts wanting the best for their children have
contracted with private schools. Coe-Brown and Pinkerton Academy are
examples where public funds pay tuition for students attending these
schools.
learning environment is necessary. For some with special needs, this
means taxpayer-funded placement in a private school designed to provide
an appropriate learning environment structured to best meet the child’s
physical and educational needs. For others, a nearby chartered public
school provides the learning environment best suited for the child. And
for some, school districts wanting the best for their children have
contracted with private schools. Coe-Brown and Pinkerton Academy are
examples where public funds pay tuition for students attending these
schools.
Our own former governor John Lynch
actively encouraged expanding alternative education programs during his
eight years as governor. In his April 10, 2009, letter to the people of
New Hampshire, Lynch said: “Since becoming governor of New Hampshire, I
have made it a top priority to help every young person graduate from
high school, including working to pass legislation to increase the
compulsory attendance age and expanding alternative education programs
for at-risk students.”
His concern to reduce the state’s drop-out
rate led to changes in the state’s Department of Education and
legislative initiatives providing alternative K-12 educational
opportunities for children.
rate led to changes in the state’s Department of Education and
legislative initiatives providing alternative K-12 educational
opportunities for children.
School choice: It’s not a partisan issue.
Democrat and Republican legislators have long recognized that for New
Hampshire to maintain its high standard of living, and provide the best
environment in which to raise a family, a great education for all
children is paramount. That’s why education laws are specifically
designed as a state-local partnership – where there’s a shared
responsibility between state and local government to provide a K-12
education for children.
RSA 193-E:1, II states: “In this system,
the state establishes, through school approval and student proficiency
standards and curriculum guidelines, the framework for the delivery of
educational services at the local level. School districts then have
flexibility in implementing diverse educational approaches tailored to
meet student needs.”
State law limits authority of the state
government to educational standards and guidelines while authorizing
local school districts (parents, teachers and school administrators)
tremendous flexibility in providing diverse educational opportunities
that best meet the individual needs of their children. That flexibility
includes the legal authority for school districts to contract with
private schools to educate their children. Indeed, RSA 194:22 clearly
states, “Any school district may make a contract with an academy, high
school or other literary institution located in this or, when distance
or transportation facilities make it necessary, in another state, and
raise and appropriate money to carry the contract into effect.”
The Croydon School District recently
determined that a few of its children were at-risk. These children were
struggling in the traditional public school setting. School board
officials, parents, teachers, school administrators and taxpayers came
together in the best interest of these children and offered alternative
educational opportunities for these students. The district used its
legal authority to contract with a few nearby private schools.
The district pays tuition for these
students (which is about half the cost per student of the traditional
public school). By all accounts, these children are now thriving in
their alternative education setting.
Then why, Gov. Hassan, Attorney General
Foster and Commissioner of Education Barry, are you interfering with the
Croydon School District’s lawful practice to provide its children with
educational opportunities that best meet each child’s needs? Why are you
taking the Croydon School District to court and suing the good people
of Croydon, who just want to exercise their legal right to provide the
best educational opportunities for their children? Croydon is not a
large school district with a large tax base and financial resources to
mount a prolonged defense against state resources.
If you use the power of the state to
override the will and wisdom of the people of Croydon to end school
choice there, you threaten every district and child in the state. Each
child in New Hampshire could suffer lifelong consequences of being
forced into an educational environment that fails to meet their needs.
Therefore, we urge Gov. Hassan, Attorney General Foster, and
Commissioner Barry to support the good people of Croydon. End the
lawsuit. Not only for the future of these children, but also the future
of New Hampshire.
(Rep. Greg Hill lives in Northfield. Rep. JR Hoell lives in Dunbarton. Former representative Michael Balboni lives in Nashua.)
Wednesday, November 25, 2015
How ‘twisted’ early childhood education has become — from a child development expert
An excerpt from a Washington Post article. To view the whole article click here.
I look forward to the day when educrats, teachers' unions, and legislators care more about students then they do their own agendas. They don't give a rat's ass about children they just want to protect their monopoly.
Cathy
"So never in my wildest dreams could I have foreseen the situation we find ourselves in today.
"Where education policies that do not reflect what we know about how young children learn could be mandated and followed. We have decades of research in child development and neuroscience that tell us that young children learn actively — they have to move, use their senses, get their hands on things, interact with other kids and teachers, create, invent. But in this twisted time, young children starting public pre-K at the age of 4 are expected to learn through “rigorous instruction.”
"And never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that we would have to defend children’s right to play.
"Play is the primary engine of human growth; it’s universal – as much as walking and talking. Play is the way children build ideas and how they make sense of their experience and feel safe. Just look at all the math concepts at work in the intricate buildings of kindergartners. Or watch a 4-year-old put on a cape and pretend to be a superhero after witnessing some scary event.
"But play is disappearing from classrooms. Even though we know play is learning for young kids, we are seeing it shoved aside to make room for academic instruction and “rigor.”
"I could not have foreseen in my wildest dreams that we would have to fight for classrooms for young kids that are developmentally appropriate. Instead of active, hands-on learning, children now sit in chairs for far too much time getting drilled on letters and numbers. Stress levels are up among young kids. Parents and teachers tell me: children worry that they don’t know the right answers; they have nightmares, they pull out their eyelashes, they cry because they don’t want to go to school. Some people call this child abuse and I can’t disagree."
I look forward to the day when educrats, teachers' unions, and legislators care more about students then they do their own agendas. They don't give a rat's ass about children they just want to protect their monopoly.
Cathy
How ‘twisted’ early childhood education has become — from a child development expert
"So never in my wildest dreams could I have foreseen the situation we find ourselves in today.
"Where education policies that do not reflect what we know about how young children learn could be mandated and followed. We have decades of research in child development and neuroscience that tell us that young children learn actively — they have to move, use their senses, get their hands on things, interact with other kids and teachers, create, invent. But in this twisted time, young children starting public pre-K at the age of 4 are expected to learn through “rigorous instruction.”
"And never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that we would have to defend children’s right to play.
"Play is the primary engine of human growth; it’s universal – as much as walking and talking. Play is the way children build ideas and how they make sense of their experience and feel safe. Just look at all the math concepts at work in the intricate buildings of kindergartners. Or watch a 4-year-old put on a cape and pretend to be a superhero after witnessing some scary event.
"But play is disappearing from classrooms. Even though we know play is learning for young kids, we are seeing it shoved aside to make room for academic instruction and “rigor.”
"I could not have foreseen in my wildest dreams that we would have to fight for classrooms for young kids that are developmentally appropriate. Instead of active, hands-on learning, children now sit in chairs for far too much time getting drilled on letters and numbers. Stress levels are up among young kids. Parents and teachers tell me: children worry that they don’t know the right answers; they have nightmares, they pull out their eyelashes, they cry because they don’t want to go to school. Some people call this child abuse and I can’t disagree."
Monday, November 16, 2015
Children Are Not Creatures of the State: New Hampshire Edition
Children Are Not Creatures of the State: New Hampshire Edition
By Vicki Alger •
Wednesday October 21, 2015 12:44 PM PST
Politicians across the country like to claim that they’re all in
favor of local control of education—until parents and their locally
elected officials actually start trying to exercise it.
The small New Hampshire town of Croydon is a case in point.
Like many small towns in New Hampshire, Croydon does not have public
schools to serve all grade levels so it contracts with education
providers in neighboring towns. At issue now is the Croydon School
Board’s decision to allow five elementary students to attend the neighboring Newport Montessori School. As Watchdog.org’s Steve Mac Donald explains:
Cathy
Children Are Not Creatures of the State: New Hampshire Edition
By Vicki Alger •
Wednesday October 21, 2015 12:44 PM PST
Politicians across the country like to claim that they’re all in
favor of local control of education—until parents and their locally
elected officials actually start trying to exercise it.
The small New Hampshire town of Croydon is a case in point.
Like many small towns in New Hampshire, Croydon does not have public
schools to serve all grade levels so it contracts with education
providers in neighboring towns. At issue now is the Croydon School
Board’s decision to allow five elementary students to attend the neighboring Newport Montessori School. As Watchdog.org’s Steve Mac Donald explains:
State law allows towns to pursue these agreements,To read more click here.
sending taxpayer education dollars to any accredited school, public,
charter, or private, even in neighboring states, with the exception of
religious schools. The local board, at the behest of voters, negotiates
contracts and approves taxpayer-funded tuition payments to those
schools. The money follows the student.
Cathy
Friday, November 13, 2015
Children 1 - Bullies 0
Let us home the students win in Court on November 30th, and not the handful of bullies in Newport and Croydon that started this mess or the bullies in Concord. The following piece appears in full on Investor's Business Daily website.
Cathy
Louisiana School Kids, 1; Obama's Anti-School-Choice Fanatics, 0
11/12/2015 06:46 PM ET
Republican
presidential candidate Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal speaks at the Values
Voter Summit, held by the Family Research Council Action, Sept. 25... View Enlarged Image
If the Obama administration and its union allies put as much creativity into ensuring quality education as they do into lawsuits against providers of school choice, we might have public schools worthy enough to end interest in vouchers.
Their latest effort against Louisiana's African-American educators and parents in favor of vouchers to private schools was a doozy.
Insisting it was concerned only with upholding court-ordered desegregation orders from 40 years ago, the Justice Department tried to take over and derail Louisiana's Student Scholarships for Educational Excellence Act, a voucher program established by the legislature and Gov. Bobby Jindal in 2012.
The DOJ feared that awarding vouchers to children in failing schools might bring back Jim Crow. Seems that some Louisiana districts are still under a 1975 desegregation order against state-subsidized private schools.
The Justice Department contended the vouchers could tip schools' racial balance. But an outside expert found zero evidence of this. Moreover, the law stipulates the vouchers are for students in failing public schools, and in fact 85% to 90% have gone to blacks.
An angry Judge Edith Jones of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals called the DOJ's approach "disingenuous."
She wrote: "The current Louisiana voucher program is best characterized as aid to poor children rather than aid to private schools. Therefore, (the DOJ argument) is outside the jurisdiction of this case."
"It's rare that you see a judge refer to a Justice Department action as disingenuous," said Clint Bolick, vice president for litigation at the Goldwater Institute. He represented the Black Alliance for Education Options, a group that joined with parents to fight the DOJ's attempt to take over the voucher program. "The purpose of the desegregation court order 40 years ago was to secure educational opportunity for black kids. The purpose of the voucher program is the same. To use the one to thwart the other is disingenuous."
What was the DOJ's plan of action? "Burdensome, costly and endless" red tape, as Judge Jones put it.
The Justice Department insisted that before any voucher was awarded, the state would have to submit information such as student names, ID numbers, addresses, zoned school districts, previous public schools, grades, races and detailed school histories.
Only then would the DOJ itself decide who gets a voucher.
Such a process is ripe for intimidation, Bolick said, given the vulnerability of the families and the fact that only half the 10,000 applicants get vouchers.
"Parents were desperate to get their kids better education," Bolick said. " None was available to them, and for them the conditions were no better than the Jim Crow era. This program gave them for the first time safe, high-quality schools."
Priority is given to kids from the D and F schools, as well as to families with the fewest resources, he said. "It's the only voucher program in the country that requires a kid to have a low income and attend a low-performing school to get in. In that regard, it's the most remedial in the country, limited to poor kids and limited to poor schools."
Gov. Jindal, who has introduced many educational reforms in Louisiana, opposed the Justice Department's involvement but wasn't as effective as the parents and educators were with their lawsuit, Bolick said.
"What the state didn't do was what we did — challenge court authority to enter any orders against the voucher program in the first place," he said. "That's the issue on which we won."
Such a process is ripe for intimidation, Bolick said, given the vulnerability of the families and the fact that only half the 10,000 applicants get vouchers.
"Parents were desperate to get their kids better education," Bolick said. " None was available to them, and for them the conditions were no better than the Jim Crow era. This program gave them for the first time safe, high-quality schools."
Priority is given to kids from the D and F schools, as well as to families with the fewest resources, he said. "It's the only voucher program in the country that requires a kid to have a low income and attend a low-performing school to get in. In that regard, it's the most remedial in the country, limited to poor kids and limited to poor schools."
Gov. Jindal, who has introduced many educational reforms in Louisiana, opposed the Justice Department's involvement but wasn't as effective as the parents and educators were with their lawsuit, Bolick said.
"What the state didn't do was what we did — challenge court authority to enter any orders against the voucher program in the first place," he said. "That's the issue on which we won."
The real winners, of course, are the kids, who shouldn't have had to fight off the Justice Department to get a decent education.
Thursday, November 12, 2015
Why families choose homeschooling - EducationNC
I would add, my children, my responsibility, my neighbors should not have to pay to educate my children.
Cathy
Why families choose homeschooling - EducationNC
Cathy
Why families choose homeschooling - EducationNC
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)