Awaiting Language of Bills
As the year comes to a close, all the bills have been filed but we are awaiting the publishing of language and the bills the Senate is able to keep confidential for the time being. However, with more than 1,000 bills expected to be filed we do know what most of the issues will be just based on the title published. Around 150 of those bills fall into some category of education policy or finance. Here are some of the biggest volume areas:
Vouchers
Our biggest challenge this year is likely to be the drive to greatly expand eligibility to the unaccountable school voucher program. It has already siphoned tens of millions of dollars away from public education and, as a result, driven up local property taxes. If the legislature decides to grow this program, it will continue to downshift costs for public education to local property taxpayers and result in cuts to community school budgets when districts cannot make up the difference. Keeping the priority on funding public education in our state will be the paramount goal this session.
School Funding
There are quite a few school funding bills regarding everything from changing the formula for state aid per pupil contributed to local school districts, to changing the definition of what constitutes an adequate education overall. There are also several bills related to the statewide property tax. Many of these bills are looking to make changes in anticipation of some kind of direction from the two major school funding lawsuits working their way through the Courts. Some of these proposed bills are positive in forecasting a reaffirmation of the Claremont decision while others are likely looking to reduce aid if the Court says the legislature can set all the terms for what is included in a funding model.
Special Education
There are dozens of bills related to special education. With the recent announcement of a shortfall in State special education aid as compared to current cost, there are bills looking to increase and radically change how the state allocates special education dollars. Additionally, there are several policy changes being proposed around how special education is administered at the local school district level.
Culture War Bills
We also know we will see the return of the culture war bills that include legislation like a so-called “parental bill of rights” and attempts to ban certain kinds of books in public schools. In the past, these bills have targeted certain students and attempted to insert educators in the middle of family situations to score cheap political points. Guarding against educators being a part of this game is something we will be pushing back against.
Watering Down Education and the 306s
More bills are back to try and water down the standards of the education profession, including legislation we saw last year that creates permanent uncertified part-time teacher status for public schools.
On the heels of the approval of the new minimum standards for public school (306 rules) approval ust last week, we will need to be on our guard at the local level holding our school boards and administrations accountable to preserving strong standards for our students.
New Year Training for NEA-NH Members on Engaging New Legislators!
There is no doubt that this session will be another challenging one. With an abundance of new legislators this session, it will be our job as educators to talk to them early about the importance of their local public school and the effect that downshifting costs to fund an unaccountable private education will have on our students and property taxpayers.
Sign up for a New Year virtual training on engaging with New Legislators, on Tuesday, January 7th from 6:00 – 6:30pm. This will be accompanied by the release of a toolkit to make it easy for you to advocate with the legislators in your home district and at the State House. Registration required!
Use NEA-NH’s Bill Tracker
As always, be sure to follow each bill we are using the NEA-NH legislative tracking tool. You can see bills by category and sign up to get e-mail updates on them, too.
Questions
If you have questions on the upcoming session and how you can be involved, please contact me at bhawkins@nhnea.org.