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New Hampshire: Another Day, Another Charter School Scandal

By dianeravitch
January 30, 2024 //
6

New Hampshire reluctantly accepted federal money to open new charters. The reluctance occurred when Democrats were in charge of the legislature. Once Republicans captured control of the legislature, the reluctance disappeared. Governor Sununu selected a home-schooling parent as state commissioner of education, and New Hampshire is now all in for vouchers and charters.

But New Hampshire can’t escape certain inevitable problems that accompany school choice:

First, sending public money to private schools does not improve education; in fact, it weakens the public schools, attended by the vast majority.

Second, vouchers always cost more than was predicted.

Third, most vouchers will be used by kids already attending private schools.

Fourth, many charter operators are more interested in money than in the hard work of education.

New Hampshire is now going through the throes of a charter school closure. Four other new charter schools in the state have closed.

New Hampshire Public Radio reported:

A charter school in Exeter is closing less than two years after it opened, as former school officials face an ongoing investigation for alleged embezzlement and fraud.

“We tried everything that we could to save the school but sadly, the obstacles were insurmountable,” Jennifer Roopenian, the current chair of the Coastal Waters Chartered Public School board of trustees, told NHPR via email on Sunday.

Roopenian said the board learned of another “financial discrepancy” last week, and “despite our attempts to find a solution, the board had to make the heartbreaking decision to close the school.”

The development comes as the Exeter Police Department is pursuing two investigations into former officials associated with the school, which served students from kindergarten through 12th grade. One investigation involves alleged tampering with a public record; the other involves alleged embezzlement. State agencies, including the New Hampshire Attorney General’s office and New Hampshire Department of Education, say they are also communicating with the police about the allegations but declined to give more details.

Coastal Waters Chartered Public School opened in 2022 with a mission inspired by Waldorf teaching, which focuses on arts, nature and creativity. But some parents say there were red flags that the school was in trouble early on, and no one — the state, or the school board of trustees — was providing proper oversight to ensure its success.

By this winter, the school had lost more than half its student population since its opening year.

“They sold a really good story about the Waldorf method, about how kids would be learning in traditional ways as well as Waldorf ways,” says Stephanie Carr Thomas, a former Coastal Waters parent who pulled her children out of the school in 2022. “But that’s not what happened.”

Coastal Waters Chartered Public School is one of a handful of charters that have opened in New Hampshire amid increased funding and a growing interest in school choice. Charter schools are approved by the State Board of Education and receive funding directly from the state, about $9,000 per student. In 2022, Coastal Waters also won a $1.36 million federal grant as part of the New Hampshire Department of Education’s charter school expansion initiative.

Nicole Mazur, a former Coastal Waters parent and board member, said the school’s alternative vision drew families who couldn’t afford private school but wanted more personalized, outdoor-based education for their kids. And at the beginning, she said, many parents tried to help the school succeed.

“There were people wanting to help and volunteer, and helping to work out whatever kinks there were, just saying: ‘Tell me where to be and I’ll be there, and we’ll help,’’’ Mazur recalled. “There was a lot of excitement and positivity.”

But she said that excitement quickly gave way to concerns about the school’s facilities and finances…

In late 2022, Mazur and several other parents quit the board of trustees and pulled their kids out of the school, citing concerns about their children’s well-being and lack of financial transparency by the board chairman and treasurer, William Libby. Libby did not respond to NHPR’s request for comment.

Reports from both the state and the school show that enrollment continued to shrink over the last year, from 128 students in 2022 to 47 students as of last week…

Some Coastal Waters families say it’s unclear what power the education department has in its own investigation. The department’s misconduct investigations typically involve licensed individuals who have violated the educator code of conduct or code of ethics. But some former Coastal Waters officials didn’t have New Hampshire educator licenses to begin with.

The state requires charter schools to ensure at least half of its teaching staff either hold state certification or have three years of teaching experience. Roopenian, the current Coastal Waters board chair, said the school’s most recent teaching staff met those requirements.

Jesse Peloski, who withdrew his children from Coastal Waters in late 2022, said he worries the mechanisms for reporting and monitoring concerns about charter schools are “potentially very broken.”

“There is a huge desire for alternatives to public schooling,” he said. “But there’s also a huge opportunity for exploitation there.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Ethics, Fraud, New Hampshire, Scandals, School Choice

New Hampshire: Voucher Bills Split Along Partisan Lines

By dianeravitch
January 22, 2024 //
3

Garry Rayno writes a consistently informative report on legislative activity in New Hampshire.

In his latest report, he describes the partisan split concerning ghe state’s voucher program, euphemistically called “Education Freedom Accounts,” which means that taxpayer money will follow if you leave public schools.

The voucher program has already exceeded the costs projected by the state Department of Education. The state commissioner, appointed by Governor Chris Sununu, is Frank Edelblut, who home-schooled his 10 children. He is no fan of public schools.

Republicans, who are in the majority in both houses, have proposed expanding the voucher program and raising the income limits. Their ultimate goal appears to be a universal voucher program where everyone is eligible for a voucher.

Democrats have proposed laws to limit the number of students who get vouchers, to require that income limits are enforced beyond the first year of use, to ban vouchers in religious schools, and to impose accountability on voucher schools.

Rayno writes:

Few programs in state government have an open-ended budget limit, instead most have to stay within the budget lawmakers set.

Some federal programs where the state shares the costs such as Medicaid do not have set limits, but have to serve all who qualify under federal guidelines.

But the fairly new Education Freedom Account program approved three years ago in the state’s two-year budget package has no limit on what is spent from the state’s Education Trust Fund. Sort of like Santa Clause this time of year.

Although the program is fairly new, many attempts have been made to change it during the past two years and this the third session since its passage is no different.

Supporters want to expand the eligibility for students, while opponents and skeptics seek to put restraints and accountability measures on the program that has grown 158 percent since its inception, while the cost has increased 174 percent in figures released earlier this year by the Department of Education.

The future of vouchers depends on which party wins control of the legislature in November.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Funding, New Hampshire, Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers

Nikki Haley Talks About Schools in New Hampshire

By dianeravitch
November 5, 2023 //
24

We keep hoping that some sane Republican will emerge and eclipse The Former Guy. It’s probably a vain hope, but one likely prospect was Nikki Haley, former Governor of South Carolina and Trump’s Ambassador to the UN.

While campaigning in Londonderry, New Hampshire, Haley expressed her negative views about the nation’s public schools. Sadly, she parroted the standard Republican tropes.

She said:

“Stop the gender pronoun classes that are happening in the military,” Haley said, as the crowd cheered in response.

Mirroring the recent culture wars that have unfolded in local school districts like Goffstown, Haley called for “complete transparency in the classroom.”

“No parent should ever wonder what’s being said or taught to their children in the classroom,” Haley said.

Haley implored for the end of “national self-loathing” in schools. “Our kids need to know to love America,” Haley said, claiming that kids are being told America is a racist, rotten country.

“I was elected the first female minority governor in history,” Haley said. “America is not racist, we’re blessed.”

Categories Censorship, Curriculum, Extremism, Fake News, Gender, Lies, New Hampshire, Propaganda, Republicans

Garry Rayno: Cost of New Hampshire Vouchers Explodes

By dianeravitch
October 22, 2023 //
4

The state commissioner of education in New Hampshire, Frank Edelblut, homeschooled his 10 children. He knows nothing about public schools and the role they play in communities. Appointed by Governor Chris Sununu, Edelblut has devoted his time in office to promoting anything but public schools.

He pushed voucher legislation and projected it would cost $3.3 million in its first two years. The actual cost was $22.7 million. The vast majority of children who use vouchers never attended public schools.

New Hampshire has about 160.000 students who attend public schools. In the first year of the voucher program, 90% of the students who claimed vouchers were already enrolled in religious and private schools. The proportion now remains over 80%. Vouchers are now claimed by about 2.6% of the state’s students. About 1/2 of 1% of the voucher users previously were enrolled in public schools.

Vouchers are a subsidy for private school students.

Garry Rayno of IndepthNH writes:

CONCORD — In three years, the enrollment in the Education Freedom Account program has grown 158 percent, while the cost has increased 174 percent in figures released this week by the Department of Education.

For the current school year, 4,211 students are in the program, up from 3,025 at the same point last year, and from 1,635 for the 2021-2022 school year.

The costs have grown from $8.1 million the first year, to $14.7 million the second year and $22.1 million this school year.

This year the financial threshold to participate in the program was raised from 300 percent of the federal poverty level to 350 percent.

That increases the threshold for the current school year from $59,160 for a family of two, to $69,020, and for a family of four from $90,000 to $105,000 annually.

Once a family qualifies for the program there are no future financial limits on earnings.

Department of Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut, who championed the program before the legislature, was pleased more and more students are participating in the EFA program

“It has been three years since the launch of New Hampshire’s successful Education Freedom Account program, and it is apparent that New Hampshire families are taking advantage of this tremendous opportunity that provides them with different options and significant flexibility for learning,” said Edelblut. “With three years of data under our belt, we know that students are coming and going from the program, which is exactly how it was designed – to allow various options for personal learning needs that may fluctuate from year-to-year based on whatever path is appropriate in the moment.”

The program was sold by Edelblut and others as an opportunity for lower-income parents to find the best educational fit for their children if they have problems within the public school system.

However the vast majority of the money spent through the expansive voucher program has gone to pay the religious and private school tuition of students in those schools prior to the EFA program’s creation. [Emphasis added]…

A larger number of EFA students this year left public schools to go into private or parochial schools, 444 students, compared to 282 last school year, and 286 in the 2021-2022 school year.

Overall there are 1,577 new students to the EFA program this school year, while 109 students left the program due to graduation, 75 returned to public schools, and 524 students left the program for other reasons.

The 1,577 new students are 128 more students than the previous year.

When the program first began, the Department of Education projected its first two years would cost about $3.3 million and instead the state paid $22.71 million.

Categories Accountability, Disruption, Education Industry, Funding, New Hampshire, Vouchers

New Hampshire: Anti-Woke Law Jeopardizes Holocaust Education

By dianeravitch
October 9, 2023 //
37

The Boston Globe reported that teachers in New Hampshire are torn between two laws: one requires teaching the Holocaust, the other bans teaching “divisive concepts.” The reactionary “Moms for Liberty” has offered a $500 bounty to anyone who turns in a teacher for violating the “divisive concepts” law. The Anti-Defamation League has documented a sharp rise in anti-Semitic incidents in New England; the majority of those incidents occurred in New Hampshire.

New Hampshire schools have become battlegrounds in the culture wars over racism and gender identity, and comprehensive education on the Holocaust is in danger, experts and teachers say. In 2020, after events including the mass shooting two years earlier that killed 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, New Hampshire passed a law requiring instruction on the Holocaust and other genocides in grades 8 through 12. But then, in 2021, as part of a backlash to the nation’s racial reckoning after the murder of George Floyd, New Hampshire banned the teaching of “divisive concepts” such as implicit bias and systemic racism.

Now these two laws are colliding in the state’s classrooms. Some of the topics that the divisive concepts laws restrict are precisely the ones that Holocaust education experts say must be covered to prevent a repeat of history. A key part of teaching about the Holocaust and other genocides is examining how one group of people could agree to participate in the mass murder of another. The answer, in part, lies in the use of propaganda that asserts one group as inferior. Adolf Hitler modeled his depiction of Jews as an inferior race on America’s racist treatment of Black people and the study of eugenics in this country.

Letters of concern to the New Hampshire Legislature and interviews with teachers reflect that, in teaching about the Holocaust, many feel scared to discuss certain topics as a way to draw contemporary parallels because of the state’s divisive concepts law.

Kingswood social studies teacher Kimberly Kelliher is among them. She says the state’s reporting mechanism for parents to accuse teachers of violating the law — plus a monetary award offered by the parent activist group Moms for Liberty aimed at encouraging such reports — frightens her. “The Holocaust is not a single event. It is a series of attitudes and actions that led to an atrocity,” says Kelliher, who has taught social studies for more than two decades. “When we look at the divisive concepts law, if we are denying people from talking about certain things, then we’re not honestly talking about the attitudes and actions.”

Kelliher, like other teachers I spoke with, said she now avoids the word “racism” when talking to students about the Holocaust. Others say they avoid mentioning current events and hot-button topics such as implicit bias.

But a New Hampshire scholar says it’s impossible to avoid subjects like these if we truly want to learn from the atrocities of the past. “You can’t teach about Nazi perpetrators without teaching about implicit bias. You just can’t do it. What motivates the perpetrator?” says Tom White, the coordinator of educational outreach at Keene State College’s Cohen Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Hitler took advantage of implicit bias and conspiracy theories against Jews that had existed through thousands of years of antisemitism. “The central crux of fascism is to make their followers afraid that they’re under attack by another group, that they’re threatened by another group,” White says. “Implicit bias,” he adds, “is the crux of all of this….”

Under New Hampshire’s law, instruction must include facts about the Holocaust and other genocides, plus teach students “how and why political repression, intolerance, bigotry, antisemitism, and national, ethnic, racial, or religious hatred and discrimination have, in the past, evolved into genocide and mass violence.” Teachers, state Department of Education guidelines say, should help students “identify and evaluate the power of individual choices” in preventing such behavior.

Reports of antisemitic incidents and propaganda are on the rise nationally and regionally, according to the Anti-Defamation League of New England. In 2022, the nonprofit tracked 204 antisemitic incidents in New England, a 32 percent increase from the previous year. In New Hampshire, where 183 of those incidents took place, the spike of white supremacist propaganda activity included a classmate shouting antisemitic comments at a Jewish student; a swastika and the phrase “Kill all Jews” scrawled on a rock in a public place; and a neo-Nazi group distributing stickers with the Star of David and message “Resist Zionism…”

The divisive concepts law in New Hampshire prohibits students from being “taught, instructed, inculcated or compelled to express belief in or support” that someone is “inherently superior” to another based on a particular trait, including sex, race, and religion, and also states that students cannot be taught that an individual is “inherently racist, sexist or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.” Educators who run afoul of this provision can face sanctions, including loss of their teaching licenses…

The state’s two largest teacher unions are suing the New Hampshire education commissioner, the attorney general, and the head of the human rights commission to repeal the divisive concepts law, citing the chilling effect it is having on teaching. Deb Howes, president of the American Federation of Teachers-New Hampshire, says the law’s title, which includes the words “Right to Freedom from Discrimination,” is downright Orwellian in its doublespeak, given the law itself “is in effect chilling speech on the very concept of discrimination against various marginalized groups.”

The vagueness of the divisive concepts law is one of teachers’ biggest concerns, Howes adds. “The divisive concepts law is so broadly worded. None of us are teaching that anyone deserves to be inherently oppressed, but we also know that when you’re talking about either history or the impact of history on current events, there are people who are oppressed and it comes from somewhere,” she says.

Categories Bigotry, Education Reform, New Hampshire, Racism, Republicans

New Hampshire: Republicans Increase Vouchers Despite Public Opposition

By dianeravitch
September 18, 2023 //
7

Gary Rayno of InsideNH writes about the expansion of the state voucher plan by Republicans in New Hampshire, who control both houses of the legislature and the governorship. Income requirements were raised. Enrollment increased. 75% of last year’s students never attended a public school. The biggest beneficiary is religious schools. When the voucher program was first proposed, public opposition was overwhelming. Governor Sununu and the legislators didn’t care.

Open the link to read it all.

Rayno writes:

The war over public education was on full display last week in the battle over PragerU’s financial literacy course and the State Board of Education’s 5-0 decision to approve it.

Despite opposition from the vast majority of speakers and letter writers, the board — stacked with school choice advocates by Gov. Chris Sununu — voted 5-0, with board chair Drew Cline abstaining.

While the controversial organization’s foot in the door was lamented by many after the vote, the on-line financial literacy course will not “cost” the state anything, which cannot be said about the biggest battleground in the education war, the Education Freedom Accounts program.

Last week, Kate Baker Demers, the executive director of the Children’s Scholarship Fund NH, which administers the program, told the freedom account oversight committee about 1,600 new students joined the program for this school year bringing the total number of students to around 4,200, but noted those were rough figures and the Department of Education should be posting the exact figures soon.

While the program is growing, only one major change was made the last legislative session, which increased the financial threshold from 300 percent of poverty to 350 percent.

That increases the threshold for the current school year from $59,160 for a family of two, to $69,020, and for a family of four from $90,000 to $105,000 annually.

Once a family qualifies for the program there are no future financial limits on earnings.

Demers told the oversight committee 200 plus students’ families qualified under the higher income threshold than would have under the former limit.

Last school year, the Department of Education data indicates 3,196 students participated in the program with the average grant per student $4,860 with a total cost of more than $15.5 million without administrative expenses.

The program for the first two years was about $24 million over budget as the department’s estimates of student participation was much lower than reality.

For this school year, there are about 1,000 more total students participating, Baker Demers said about 600 students left the program to either return to public schools, who graduated (111), moved away or for some other reason.

Along with the 1,000 increase in students, lawmakers increased the state’s basic adequacy grant from $3,787 per student to $4,100, and also increased the amount of additional aid for students in low-income families, and with special education needs.

That is likely to make the new average per pupil cost go over $5,200 per student.

That would increase the total costs not counting administrative costs from the scholarship fund organization — to about $22 million this year, an increase of about $7 million.

The state budget contains $30 million in each year of the biennium for the program, so total costs are likely to bump against the $60 million if there is much growth in the program next year.

Most programs with increases like this would be curtailed and limited with talk about halting runaway growth, but that does not appear to be a big concern of the majority party, which has pushed the program along with Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut and Sununu.

Democrats are the ones seeking to put guardrails around the program that draws its money from the Education Trust Fund, the source of all state education aid that is not the Statewide Education Property Tax….

The program was sold as an opportunity for low-income families to send their child to a program more appropriate for their learning skills than a public school.

But that has not been the biggest driver and represents a small percentage of the students enrolled.

About 75 percent of the participants in the past were enrolled in private schools — either religious or secular — and in home school programs.

Whether that figure remains in similar proportion is not something anyone will know until the Department of Education shares its data on its website.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Extremism, Funding, New Hampshire, Religion, Vouchers

Peter Greene: The Microschools Fad

By dianeravitch
September 16, 2023 //
8

Peter Green learned that New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu awarded $6 million to a for-profit organization called Prenda, to establish microschools in the Granite State. It’s not as if Prenda has a track record of success.

He writes:

New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu just gave Prenda a whopping $6 million cut of the granite state’s pandemic school relief. It’s a relatively small slice (the full pile of money is $156 million), but it’s notably a larger per-pupil amount than the state gives in normal “adequate aid.” So who is Prenda, and what is the money for, exactly?

Prenda is a company riding the new microschools wave. Microschools are the next evolutionary strep in homeschooling. Says the Micro Schools Network website, “Imagine the old one-room schoolhouse. Now bring it into the modern era.” Or imagine you’re homeschooling, and a couple of neighbors ask if you’d take on their children as well. Or to look at it another way, imagine back to the beginning of a public system, only this time, your system would only include the students and families you wanted to include.

Microschools like to emphasize their modern awesomeness. From the Micro Schools Network site: While no two micro schools are identical, most share several common traits: a small student population, an innovative curriculum, place-based and experiential learning, the use of cutting-edge technology, and an emphasis on mastering or understanding material. The education that micro schools provide is highly personalized.”

The microschools movement seems marked by a lot of educational amateur columbussing–the breathless announcement of “discoveries” plenty of people already knew. Again, from the network’s website:

Teachers typically guide students’ curiosity rather than lecture at them. Instead of utilizing a fixed curriculum, they integrate subjects that students are passionate about into daily lesson plans and account for each student’s unique strengths, learning style, and existing knowledge.

Because nobody who works professionally in education ever thought of any of those things. Or you can check out a video from Prenda founder/CEO Kelly Smith in which he may tell you ecitedly about how cool it was running his own microschool and seeing students become lively and excited about something they had learned. The microschool movement seems to be very much excited about its discovery of the wheel….

Needless to say, Prenda CEO Kelly Smith is not an educator.

Prenda has said it wants to be the Uber of education, but that really only makes sense if Uber were a service where the state paid the company and then you drove (or “guided”) yourself to your destination. Prenda does exist in a grey area that allows it to escape virtually all oversight. In Arizona, they don’t need a charter, don’t have to get their curriculum approved, and are not subject to any kind of oversight or audits.

There’s no explanation out there of why Sununu decided to spend $6 million on Prenda of all things. Their administration claimed that the microschools “are particularly helpful to students who have experienced learning loss and will thrive with more individualized attention,” but when the individual attention comes from a guide with no educational training (but lots of caring) and a computer program, it’s unclear how helpful it will be. Last fall they had 400 pods of roughly ten each in action; there’s virtually no information about how well these things actually work.

And yet, New Hampshire is handing over a sweet $6 mill in federal dollars. Said Rep Mel Myler (D), member of the House Committee on Education:

Chris Sununu’s decision to use federal funds to advance his anti-public school agenda and help a shady for-profit organization, rather than providing public schools the resources they need to prepare for the next phase of the pandemic, could have serious consequences for our teachers and students.

Good luck to the children of New Hampshire.

And good luck to New Hampshire’s taxpayers, who usually expect recipients of public dollars to have some accountability.

Open the link to see who’s funding this latest “innnovation.”

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Deregulation, Education Industry, New Hampshire

DeSantis Dodges Question from a Teenager in NH

By dianeravitch
September 9, 2023 //
6

A 15-year-old boy in New Hampshire, Quinn Mitchell, asked candidate Ron DeSantis a question he couldn’t or wouldn’t answer. At other appearances in New Hampshire, DeSantis’s security guards kept the boy away from the governor.

“Do you believe that Trump violated the peaceful transfer of power, a key principle of American democracy that we must uphold?” Quinn Mitchell asked Mr DeSantis during a town hall event in Hollis, New Hampshire, in June.

“Are you in high school?” the governor asked before he avoided answering the question, instead saying that Americans shouldn’t obsess about the past.

Quinn, who has seen 35 presidential candidates since 2019, also told The Daily Beast that he was physically intimidated when allegedly grabbed by DeSantis campaign security at two events for the governor.

But DeSantis eventually said that he couldn’t comment because he wasn’t there on January 6.

A tweet cited in the article:

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), when asked if Donald Trump violated the peaceful transfer of power on January 6th: “I wasn’t anywhere near Washington that day. I have nothing to do with what happened that day. Obviously, I didn’t enjoy seeing what happened.”

In response to reporter Kaitlin Collins: Chris Christie ripped DeSantis’s canned response:

@kaitlancollins

Chris Christie on Ron DeSantis’s Jan. 6 answer: “’He wasn’t anywhere near Washington’? Did he have a TV? Was he alive that day? Did he see what was going on? I mean, that’s one of the most ridiculous answers I’ve heard in this race so far.”

The governor’s security guards kept Quinn away from him.

Quinn said he was followed by two guards at an event on 19 August and an attendee told the outlet that they spotted a staffer from DeSantis Super PAC Never Back Down post a photo of him on Snapchat with the caption, “Got our kid”.

The Daily Beast reported that seven other sources confirmed Quinn’s version of events.

Quinn said the campaign’s treatment of him was “really stupid in a small state like New Hampshire”.

Categories Democracy, DeSantis, Elections, Failure, New Hampshire

New Hampshire Considers PragerU Propaganda Videos

By dianeravitch
August 18, 2023 //
5

New Hampshire’s State Board of Education deliberated whether to adopt the infamous PragerU videos for a required financial literacy course. PragerU creates curriculum materials that are intended to indoctrinate children to rightwing views.

Gary Rayno of inDepthNH wrote:

CONCORD — The State Board of Education Thursday tabled an application by PragerU Kids to offer an on-line course on financial literacy until additional information is provided.

Board Chair Drew Cline said he was not comfortable approving the application until he could see the “whole package” including a company proposal to establish a stand-alone website for the course for New Hampshire students.

One of the many criticisms raised at the board’s meeting about the controversial, conservative non-profit organization is students taking the financial literacy course would have easy access to other Prager videos that some organizations classify as misleading on climate change, slavery and racism, immigration, history of fascism and its anti-LGBTQ bent.

The organization’s opponents told the board approving the financial literacy contract pushed by Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut would open the door to other material that did not belong in New Hampshire schools.

The non-profit organization is not an academic institution, does not confer degrees and is not accredited, and has had some of its videos removed from YouTube and Google because of their “hateful content.”

On its website, PragerU Kids says it teaches “American Values” while “Woke agendas are infiltrating classrooms, culture and social media.”
Several speakers at Thursday’s meeting said the organization’s website could lead students taking financial literacy to other videos with messages that would not be appropriate.

Emmett Soldati of Somersworth, said he is proud of the state’s tradition of local government, and shares the belief that PragerU is not right for New Hampshire.

While approving the application would appear to be tacit approval of PragerU, he said, it is more than that because throughout the financial literacy videos and its other videos is its brand and logo.

He said that branding would have to be removed from the financial literacy videos if the board did not want to have the association of other concerns with the organization.

Brandon Ewing of PragerU said the company is planning a stand-alone website for the state’s financial literacy course so students would not have access to other material on its website, which he acknowledged would be hard to navigate for students looking for the literacy course.

That would allow students with their parents to work through the 15 videos and worksheets to the final assessment without having to use the Prager website or with a log in to gather student information, he said.

“We’re a media company and we love the Learn Everywhere Program, and the state’s school choice program,” Ewing said….

But some speakers believed the program was not up to the state standards for graduation requirements.

Kearsarge Regional School District Assistant Superintendent Michael Bessette said using PragerU instead of a locally developed curriculum, is like going to McDonalds and claiming you are going to a four-star restaurant.

He had concerns particularly around competencies as did several members of the board saying five-minute videos with 36 multiple choice questions do not replace a full semester of hands-on teaching.

This is a quick hit replacing quality, Bessette said. “It may be convenient, but you are replacing something of high quality with something of low quality. You are doing a disservice to my children and all children.”
Bessette and other speakers took issue with a report on the application that said department officials had reached out to educators and the extended learning opportunity network to review the videos but did not have anyone respond.

Bessette said he was not aware of any outreach and others said the request went out on July 3 with a July 7 deadline, during a vacation week when many teachers were with their families.

Deb Howes, president of the American Federation of Teachers, called the statement an insult, noting teachers work hard all school year and during vacation time they do like to spend time with their families.

The non-profit PragerU Kids program would help fulfill a state requirement students learn financial literacy to graduate and would be available under the Department of Education’s Learn Everywhere Program.

The program was founded by conservative talk radio host Dennis Prager and uses conservative pundits and activists along with Republican National Committee members to tout its conservative philosophy in its videos it offers free to schools. So far Prager is working with Florida, Texas and Montana on programs, Ewing said.

Several board members pressed some of those opposing the application if the financial literacy videos were biased or contained good content.

Mark Maclean, director of the School Administrators Association said he did watch the videos and they were well produced and the content was good but questioned if it would be enough as a stand alone course to satisfy the minimum standards for financial literacy.

He said you have to understand what a competency-based approach is. There has to be more than one way to determine what a student knows and answering 40 multiple choice questions is not that.

Maclean said some instructional support needs to go along with the video and more robust learning experiences for the students.

He said he watched the video without considering the propaganda the brand uses, but as a piece of information.

“It is engaging, and I like the five-minute (concept), but my concern is the platform this is coming from.”

Louise Spencer of Concord, said she is concerned about the financial literacy video as it had face after face of young people looking with horror when the issue of taxes is raised.

“Oh no terrible you have to pay taxes,” she quoted from the video saying “they figure out taxes are inherently bad and that is indoctrination,” said Spencer. She said she believes taxes are what you contribute to live in a community.

“PragerU is a media company,” Spencer said. “They understand the media is the message.”

A conversation with different viewpoints is best for education, she said, noting the students need a wider range of opportunities.

Rep. David Luneau, D-Hopkinton, accused the board of trying to slip the controversial application through with little notice, when people are not paying attention and with little to no transparency.

Cline asked Luneau if he had concerns about the literacy program and Luneau said he had concerns about Prager.

The producer of this material has a well known reputation for producing extremist propaganda, Luneau said.

“People received a four-day notice to approve material submitted by an organization considered by many people to be a racist propaganda mill,” Luneau said.

The decision about adopting the PragerU videos will be made at the state board’s meeting on a September 14.

Journalist Gary Rayno expects that the state board, packed with school choice partisans, will vote to import PragerU videos, but he explains why this outfit is wrong for New Hampshire. It peddles right-wing propaganda.

Categories Curriculum, Education Industry, New Hampshire, Propaganda

Garry Rayno: History Is Not Always Comfortable

By dianeravitch
May 13, 2023 //
13

Like many other states, New Hampshire passed a law forbidding the teaching of “divisive concepts” or anything that might make students “uncomfortable.” Such laws ban teaching truthfully and direct teachers to engage in self-censorship. Teachers who dare to violate these ridiculous laws risk being fired and losing their teaching license. Such laws are, in fact, shameful and an insult to freedom of inquiry, the freedom to teach and the freedom to learn. Petty tyrants suppress knowledge.

This article was written by Gary Rayno, InDepthNH.org’s State House Bureau Chief.

History is a funny thing.

For example, two communities claim to be the birthplace of the Republican Party, Exeter, New Hampshire and Ripon, Wisconsin.

Around here Exeter is thought to be the holy place, but almost everywhere else in the country — including Wikipedia — believe it was Wisconsin.

No one disagrees its founding was in opposition to slavery, but where it started, well even Jackson, Michigan was thought to be the birthplace for a long time. So, it is anyone’s guess just where the Grand Old Party first emerged.

And the founding place for Aerosmith, which is about to begin its final tour, is also contested.

The Boston Globe and all things Boston, claim the band was formed in the city’s Allston neighborhood.

But a case can be made that the band really formed at the Barn in Georges Mills, a section of Sunapee, and not in Boston.

Two bands played the Barn in the summers of 1968 and 69 and various other places around the Lake Sunapee region, the Jam Band and Just in Time.

Tom Hamilton and Joe Perry were in the Jam Band and Steve Tyler, Joey Kramer and Ray Tabano were in the other band.

They all moved to Boston in 1970 with the idea of making it big with Tabano being replaced by Brad Whitcomb.

But they all played together here and there in Sunapee before moving to Boston.

While the origins may be contested, people in Exeter, Ripon, Sunapee or Boston still feel pride about their place in history.

But some people may not feel pride, they may be embarrassed by the notoriety.

Aerosmith may be one of the greatest American bands selling millions of records and selling out stadiums around the world.

But their lifestyle may not be what you would want your child to experience as some of the members spent considerable time in rehab.

The same could be said about the Republican Party today as it is not the party of 50 years ago and has changed considerably since its founding as an anti-slavery organization.

Several state agencies work together to put up historical markers touting some bit of the state’s history or recognizing state residents who went on to do great things.

I don’t believe there are any historical markers for Aerosmith, but there is a historical marker in Exeter in front of what once was the tavern thought to be the birthplace of the Grand Old Party.

On Route 3A in Bow is a historical marker noting the birthplace of Mary Baker Eddy, an author and religious leader who founded the Church of Christ, Science in 1879, and the Christian Science Monitor and several other publications.

While Christian Science is a well-known religion, some find its teachings controversial.

But the marker remains near the home of her birth.

In Boscawen there is a historical marker and a monument to Hannah Dustin, a woman who was captured by Native Americans in Haverhill, Massachusetts and taken north to an island in the Merrimack River. At night she killed 10 Native Americans and scalped them and freed two others who were captive.

While there were few questions asked years ago about the monument, now it is considered controversial.

There are numerous other monuments to Native Americans and settlers’ interactions, often not for the best, around the state.

In Canaan there is a historical marker for Noyes Academy, the first co-ed academy for black students.

But it was not long before the outraged local citizens forced the black students to leave and dragged the academy building down Canaan Street to the middle of town.

However, a number of the students went on to be black leaders including Henry Highland Garnet, who was the first African American to preach in Congress.

A new historical marker installed in Concord will be removed because of concerns raised by two Executive Councilors, Joe Kenney of Wakefield and David Wheeler of Milford, and backed by Gov. Chris Sununu.

The marker honors Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, “The Rebel Girl,” who was born in Concord in 1890, and went on to be a noted union organizer, women’s rights activist and a founder of the American Civil Liberties Union.

What could be the problem with any of those three accomplishments?

Well, the issue that had councilors upset was she was a member of the Communist Party.

“Wonderful, we are recognizing and honoring someone who joined the Communist Party and died a Soviet,” Kenney wrote in an email to the council. “The same Soviets I fought against during the Cold War with patriotic Americans. This is Crap!”

At the council meeting last week, he called her “Unamerican” and a “Communist.”

During her heyday, many unionists were members of the Communist Party as the polar opposite of capitalism. Many artists and musicians were also members, but as folk singer Dave Van Ronk used to say “communist with a little ‘c.’”

Flynn was convicted in 1951 under the Smith Act which made it illegal to be a member of the Communist Party and jailed for 28 months.

Flynn went to the Soviet Union where she died and is buried.

“One thing I am doing right now is review who does have the final say, the authority when it comes to state markers on state lands and all of that. So we will review that whole process,” Sununu told reporters after the Executive Council meeting. “I don’t know whether it is the council that should have the final say or view or anything like that. It is something we can definitely talk about. But we are going to look at the process internally.”

So now deciding on which historical markers will be a political decision?

Flynn was a controversial figure but so was Mary Baker Eddy and the Noyes Academy certainly is not New Hampshire’s best foot forward.

History is not always comfortable, and really shouldn’t be.

Scalping Native Americans is not a comfortable notion, neither is intimidating young black students, nor is the work Flynn spent her life doing to uplift, particularly textile workers in the mills of New England and around the country.

History should reflect what happened, not what we wished happened or what we want to hide from our children.

That is what is so troubling about the divisive concepts law passed two years ago and the rush to ban books someone doesn’t agree with for whatever reason.

If we cannot be honest about our history and what was and was not done, we cannot learn from it, and we will keep repeating it and repeating it.

History should not be Groundhog’s Day.

Garry Rayno may be reached at garry.rayno@yahoo.com.

Distant Dome by veteran journalist Garry Rayno explores a broader perspective on the State House and state happenings for InDepthNH.org. Over his three-decade career, Rayno covered the NH State House for the New Hampshire Union Leader and Foster’s Daily Democrat. During his career, his coverage spanned the news spectrum, from local planning, school and select boards, to national issues such as electric industry deregulation and Presidential primaries. Rayno lives with his wife Carolyn in New London.

Categories Academic Freedom, Accountability, Freedom, Freedom to Read, History, Lies, New Hampshire
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