One of the many problems with the “appointed” members of the New Hampshire Board of Education is, they do not answer to the people of New Hampshire.
Below you will see a letter from the Chairman of the Board of Education in New Hampshire seeking approval from New Hampshire’s Commissioner of Education, Virginia Barry, on what official position they should take as a collective body.
Public education in New Hampshire is supposed to be locally controlled. However as the Board pushes forward with Common Core, and the Obama “redesign” in public education, we are seeing more erosion of local control.
The letter below shows the cronyism between the appointed board members and the Commissioner.
In some other states, their board members are elected. That means the board members answer to the voters.
In New Hampshire, we saw the appointment of Bill Duncan to the New Hampshire Board of Education last year proving that Governor Hassan is willing to appoint political cronies versus someone who has superior qualifications.
This does not serve New Hampshire students, teachers, voters or parents well.
Why would Chairman Raffio oppose Rep. Cordelli’s proposed legislation that requires the BOE to compare new “Standards” to current standards and nationally recognized standards? The legislation also would require a fiscal analysis to be done prior to adopting new academic standards.
These are reasonable and logical duties the Board of Ed should already be conducting PRIOR to any adoption of new standards.
Unfortunately the NH BOE did NOT do their due diligence when adopting the Common Core Standards in 2010. There was never a fiscal analysis done even though many requested that information. Several people have gone before the NH Board of Education and asked for an estimate on the cost of Common Core to New Hampshire voters and school districts. Those requests have gone ignored by the Board.
Where is the documentation on the thorough analysis of the old NH Standards versus the Common Core Standards versus the nationally recognized BEST standards in the country at that time? Answer: No where to be found.
The New Hampshire Board of Ed rubber stamped through a set of lousy academic standards in Math and English for our kids and they are getting ready to do it again with the new Next Generation Science Standards.
Make no mistake about it, the NH Board of Ed not only ignores the public when they make requests and provides no information that should be done during any standards adoption process, they also protest ELECTED Representatives when they have to put in statute, what the Board should already be doing!
We suggest parents, teachers, school board members, etc. become even more vocal with Governor Hassan and the New Hampshire Board of Education. Let them know that as they look to adopt the new Next Generation Science Standards without doing a thorough analysis and cost analysis, we will be there watching and opposing such a ridiculous process.
We also encourage New Hampshire residents to support Rep. Cordelli’s legislation below.
