By GARRY RAYNO, InDepthNH. org
CONCORD — The chair of the House Finance Committee called the state’s school boards corrupt at a meeting Wednesday during a debate over expanding the Education Freedom Account program.
Rep. Kenneth Weyler, R-Kingston, called the boards corrupt because he claimed they have not done anything to raise student performance levels.
“This education system we have in our state is a failure. It just keeps going up in cost and no increase in testing results,” Weyler said. “There is no discipline at all on education because the school boards are just corrupt, they do not do anything about the failures.”
Rep. David Luneau, D-Hopkinton, and a former Hopkinton school board member, tried to interrupt Weyler saying, “That is just offensive,” but Weyler continued.
“Some parents are taking action against this by moving their children,” he said. “It is quite a sacrifice by the parents to do this because they have to provide the transportation and all the other things involved.”
The New Hampshire School Boards Association defended their members saying they work hard to address educational needs while the state has continually underfunded its obligations.
“Locally elected school board members across New Hampshire work diligently to address the needs of students, families, educators, taxpayers and local communities,” said the association’s Executive Director Barrett Christina. “Despite decades of the state underfunding its own mandates and downshifting education costs to local school districts, towns and municipalities, our local school boards have consistently supported and developed educational programs that serve diverse student populations and contribute to New Hampshire’s standing among the top three public education systems in the nation.
“Recent remarks by Representative Weyler do not reflect the dedication and hard work of our local school board members, nor do we believe they represent the views of the local community members and the taxpayers who elect them,” Christina said.
Weyler said all the talk about the expense of the EFA program loses sight of the fact it should save school districts money when kids leave public schools.
Very few of the 5,300 students in the EFA program left public schools to join, about 75 percent of the students in the program were in private or religious schools or homeschooled when their parents applied for grants making it largely a subsidy program for parents paying the cost of their children’s non-public education.
“There should be savings for every child that leaves if we’re spending over $20,000 per student,” Weyler said. “When that student leaves the local schools, there should be big savings in property taxes. That is never mentioned.”
Responding to statements that opponents of the state’s voucher plan far outnumber supporters, Weyler blamed educators for skewing the numbers.
“You have thousands of people working for this corrupt system and they are the ones making the phone calls,” Weyler said, “and I object to it.”
Rep. Rosemarie Rung,D-Merrimack, asked Weyler to apologize to the hundreds of school board members across the state as she was at one time along with another member of the committee.
“We have done our best for our communities,” she said.
Weyler said perhaps he exaggerated but for the last 20 years he had not seen any improvement in the operations of schools and the accomplishments of the students.
“Perhaps I exaggerated, but it is a failure,” he said
Rung asked him to come to Merrimack to a board meeting and see how what he said is not accurate.
Weyler said he watched the scandal in his local school board.
Rep. Kate Murray, D-New Castle, reminded the committee that New Hampshire public school students rank third in the country overall.
The committee voted 14-11 down party lines to recommend Senate Bill 295 expanding the voucher plan be passed by the full House.
The vote could come as early as next week.
Garry Rayno may be reached at garry.rayno@yahoo.com.