(From the Seacoastonline, April 13, 2008)
By JOE WILLIAMS
Just because the national press corps and presidential want-to-be's have packed their bags and taken a brief respite from the New Hampshire political scene (the 2012 presidential race reportedly doesn't start until at least Labor Day this year) doesn't mean that the eyes of the nation aren't fixed on the Granite State right now on crucial issues involving public education.
At stake is whether or not schools will be allowed to adapt to the rapidly changing realities of the modern era. The pressure is on the Senate and Gov. John Lynch to follow in a long line of progressive Democrats who understand that the time has come to save public education — essentially from itself — by allowing the state's innovative public charter schools to be funded on par with the public schools.
Charter schools are doing important work in New Hampshire, providing quality public school alternatives to students and families who are not best served by their traditional education offerings. Not a single student is forced to attend a public charter school, but that they exist at all means that frustrated families at least have one last option short of abandoning public education altogether.
Standing up to considerable pressure from teachers unions, the Education Committee of the House voted 12-2, the Finance Committee 16-8 and the House 204-118 last month to spend $1.5 million to keep the state's initial 10 charter schools open for another year. These alternative schools were originally funded with money from Washington, but those grants expired. It is no surprise that charter schools are not always very popular with the public school bureaucracies with which they compete, but that doesn't make them any less public so long as parents want to choose them for their kids.
By voting to step up to the plate and fund these important education alternatives, legislators have sided with parents and an increasingly frustrated public that believes that public education options and innovation in schooling are good things for students in New Hampshire. These are public schools that are serving to keep students engaged in their education, contributing mightily to the governor's initiative to lower the dropout rate. Closing these schools by refusing to recognize them would represent an unprecedented step backward.
By passing the bill in the Senate and by signing the bill into law, Gov. Lynch would join a long line of Democrats who have determined that public charter schools are an important part of the education reform toolbox. The nation's pioneering charter school law in Minnesota nearly 17 years ago was created with significant bipartisan support. In fact, of the 40 states passing a charter law, 24 passed it when a Republican was governor and 16 when a Democrat was governor, and about two-thirds of the states passing a charter law did so when there was no single party controlling both the Legislature and the governor's office.
Former President Bill Clinton, recognizing the important role that charter schools could play in expanding public school choice, created the nation's first federal funding streams for these schools, which increased over his presidency from $6 million to $190 million by 2000.
And in this year's presidential contests, every single major candidate for office — in both parties — expressed support for charter schools. Each member of the N.H. Senate lined up behind one of the candidates, Democrat or Republican. The question arises: are these senators out of step with the national leadership of their party?
The New Hampshire House recognized clearly that progress is crucial when it comes to public education. The nation will be watching Gov. Lynch and the Senate closely to see if they agree.
Editor's note: The writer is executive director of the New York-based Democrats for Education Reform. He is also the author of "Cheating Our Kids: How Politics and Greed Ruin Education."