InDepthNH.org (https://indepthnh.org/category/op-ed/page/2/)
The advocates for opening the state’s school voucher program, Education Freedom Accounts, to all students in the state regardless of their parents’ income did a massive public relations and organization effort before the public hearing last week on House 115, which would remove the salary cap from the four-year old program.
With all of the uncertainty swirling about education in NH as a result of school funding lawsuits and cretinous efforts to micro-manage what is taught in schools and who can use which bathroom, Governor Ayotte’s leading new policy announcement was (drumroll) to ban cellphones in schools. Republicans cheered.
As a New Hampshire citizen/taxpayer, and as a past home education parent who did not seek or receive any voucher, tax credit, or other taxpayer funding during our homeschool years, I find the ongoing debate about expansion of New Hampshire’s EFA (Education Freedom Account) program particularly fun to follow.
But in recent years, the New Hampshire legislature has been attempting what was once the unthinkable in our Granite State, trying to upend once precious “local control.”
There has never been a better example of the need for term limits than demonstrated recently in the mud wrestling over the federal budget.
My former Sunday School students will recognize the name of Frances Perkins, the first woman to serve as a member of a presidential cabinet. It’s important to know about her and what she accomplished, and helped FDR accomplish.
In a recent op-ed, former Rep. Marjorie Porter opposed a proposed NH House rules change that will be debated on Wednesday.
If you followed the New Hampshire legislature the last few terms and listened to Education Freedom Account advocates, you would think public schools are cesspools of indoctrination, obscene materials, bullying and protectors of perverts.
That’s why I am very disturbed to hear the current majority leader has filed an amendment to the rules to institute a pocket veto in NH and allow committees to determine what bills they will be heard. In the Live Free or Die state, the peoples’ voices should be heard.