By GARRY RAYNO, InDepthNH.org
CONCORD — The Republican culture war over public education was on full display Wednesday in the House.
Democrats objected as Rep. Glenn Cordelli, R-Tuftonboro, read sexually graphic writings about a rape and a seduction he claimed was available to children, but Republican House Speaker Sherman Packard allowed Cordelli to continue reading.
The House also decided the Department of Education hearing officers should have subpoena power to investigate code of conduct allegations against educators, that they could bypass a federal judge’s ruling that the state’s divisive concepts prohibition was unconstitutional, while pressuring school administrative units to consolidate, and killing a bill for the rest of the term that would have prevented Education Freedom Account grants from going to religious schools or higher educational institutions.
The day ended with a contentious debate over Cordelli’s bill to prohibit obscene or sexually explicit material in public schools.
House Bill 324 was nearly identical to one that was killed last session, but with a solid Republican majority in the House this year was approved on a 183-148 vote.
The bill requires school districts to set up a process for anyone to challenge material in school libraries or used in classrooms with the final appeal to be decided by the politically appointed state Board of Education, not local school boards or committees who are charged with determining community standards.
Rep. Hope Damon, D-Croydon, noted that last year Cordelli read from “Speak” a book by Laurie Halse Anderson that had been on school library shelves for three decades and has helped young people who experienced sexual assault as the main character does. She said the book did not harm those victims, but in fact saved lives.
“It is a poignant, beautiful book. I wish I had read it at 17,” she said. “Yet …we see her book removed from school libraries in the guise of protecting our children. What are we protecting them from?”
Damon noted Cordelli’s bill contains the three-prong test for obscenity that is already in New Hampshire law, but he doesn’t appear to know how the test should be applied.
“Banning books like ‘Speak’ does not protect children,” Damon said, “it harms them.”
Her amendment would have the state board of education issue a yearly advisory for school boards to ensure they are complying with the three-prong test for challenging materials.
Cordelli opposed the amendment saying the state board does not issue advisories, the Department of Education does and he believes commissioner Frank Edelblut would be happy to issue advisories. Edelblut has been criticized for questioning the decisions of several school boards over books he thought should have been removed.
Rep. Nicholas Germana, D-Keene, proposed an amendment that would hold responsible those challenging books spuriously or in large numbers for attorney and other legal fees if the challenges failed, noting in one case in Utah a challenge of 200 books took 10,000 hours of staff time and cost $100,000.
Those costs should not be passed on to taxpayers, he said, if a court determines the action was in bad faith or intended to harass or overburden a school district.
“They should not be allowed to abuse the system,” he said, but Cordelli accused him of trying to intimidate parents not to challenge materials.
Both amendments were defeated.
Rep. David Paige, D-Conway, said lawmakers have a choice in addressing school library materials, they can talk by each other to score political points, or take a step back and ask if they share a common core.
The First Amendment ensures students have access to a broad range of perspectives, he said. Parents have every right to question material in their children’s schools, Paige said, and school boards should have policies in place to address those concerns.
But he called Cordelli’s bill unnecessary state overreach and in many cases unworkable, noting the final determination should be left to local boards, not the politically appointed state school board.
And he said when the state board is the final arbitrator, they are not directly accountable to local voters like school boards are.
“We’ve seen the impact of legislation like this in other states,” Paige said, “it discourages schools from purchasing books even if they have valuable content.”
He said he can decide what his children can read, but not anyone else’s child.
Cordelli said his bill is about age-appropriate material not about banning books.
He said the state’s obscenity law exempts education, but his bill would remove that exemption for grades K through 12. “Why are young children exposed to obscene material when we send them to school,” he asked, noting there are books and common apps that contain incest, sex between adults and minors, rape, sexual assault, cutting and suicide.
He claimed there is a lot of misinformation about his bill.
“Sexually explicit materials have no place in our schools,” Cordelli said. “This is not about banning books, it is about making sure children have age-appropriate books.”
He then began reading from two books graphically describing a rape and an unwanted seduction that had several people calling for him to stop reading, saying it was inappropriate, but Packard declined to stop him telling him to avoid the most graphic parts, which Cordelli ignored as he continued reading.
The bill now goes to the Senate.
The House also granted hearings officers in the Department of Education subpoena power in code of conduct investigations, although officials acknowledged they have always been able to receive the material they sought.
House Bill 520 had originally been a request from outgoing Department of Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut and in the past failed to clear the House.
Supporters said the hearing officers need to have material that is not always forthcoming.
An attempt was made to grant subpoena power through the Attorney General’s office as most other state agencies with subpoena power use their authority, but bill supporters rejected that attempt and instead passed the bill and sent it to the Senate.
The House indefinitely postponed House Bill 549 which would have prohibited using Education Freedom Account grants for religious schools and institutions of higher education.
The indefinite postponement means the subject of the bill cannot be heard again in this two-year term.
The House passed House Bill 50, which originally would have repealed the state’s divisive concept law which a federal court found unconstitutional because it was overly vague and because of that could put educators’ careers in jeopardy.
The bill was amended to prohibit discrimination in much the same way as the divisive concept law, but said teachers had to knowingly or intentionally violate the law before they could be sanctioned.
Rep. Patricia Cornell, D-Manchester, noted under the bill an allegation could be brought by anybody, not just a student’s parent.
The bill passed on a 183-157 vote and goes to the Senate.
The House voted 194-148 to approve House Bill 292 which would establish a commission to study school administrative unit consolidation.
Rep. Peggy Balboni, D-Rye Beach, noted the bill already prescribed an outcome and contained mostly state officials and not local educators or administrators. She called it another violation of the long-standing tradition of local control.
The House also passed House Bill 90 which would allow adjunct college professors teaching in dual and concurrent courses for high school students to be part-time teachers in public schools without a teaching certificate.
But the House killed House Bill 137 which would have allowed towns and cities that collect more money than they need from the Statewide Education Property Tax to cover the cost of the adequate education for their students to use the money for local school and municipal projects in violation of a court ruling that is currently awaiting a state Supreme Court decision.
The House meets again Thursday which is the deadline for acting on bills that do not go to a second committee for review.
Garry Rayno may be reached at garry.rayno@yahoo.com.