AFT-NH Legislative Bulletin (2023-04)

AFT-NH  Legislative Bulletin (2023-04)

Action Alert

We hope you are all faring well now that winter has made its way into New Hampshire this week.  Our snowblower got quite a workout, as did our generator. We have had snow, power outages, wind and rain – but none of it stopped the NH House and Senate from working on bills in committee last week.

Voucher Accountability Coming to the Senate This Week  Conservatives and taxpayer advocates often speak of making sure government funds are spent well and are spent on what they were intended for. That standard seems to apply to a lot of things, but it has never applied to the school voucher program. Many of these same conservatives and taxpayer advocates are also ardent supporters of the state’s voucher program despite it being over budget and without necessary checks to make sure public money is being spent is being spent as it was intended. We also know that in other states with similar voucher programs we have seen a disturbing trend of an abuse of funds and outright fraud.

SB 141 looks to bring accountability to the voucher program in three specific ways. Right now, a staggering three quarters of students taking a voucher were already homeschooled or in private schools. The state was spending absolutely ZERO tax dollars on educating these students before the voucher law passed because their parents chose to access other forms of education. That is entirely their right and taxpayers were not being billed for these individual choices. This program has not brought additional choice to education as these families were already not in public schools. This bill would make sure you have been in public school for at least one year in order to access a voucher.

The bill also requires an annual determination of eligibility to make sure families still qualify for the voucher program.  Currently, you can take a voucher in kindergarten and still receive it 13 years later in your last year of high school, even if your family’s income has tripled in that time.

The last thing the bill does is require a report of the number of students participating in the program in each district so we can see how vouchers are affecting our public schools and public school district budgets.  We need to get serious about accountability with this out-of-control voucher scheme. We need to support SB 141. Please take the action requested below.

Addressing the Teacher Shortage   Also, this week we have a very modest bill in the Senate to help to attract new teachers to the classroom. We know there are two parts to the teacher shortage. One challenge is attracting new teachers but a bigger challenge is supporting our current teacher workforce. Educators who feel burnt out by the constant attacks on them, lack of funding support, and years of pandemic learning need our support and the state’s support. This bill does nothing to help address the issue of supporting our current education professionals, but it does incentivize new educators to become teachers instead of choosing a different career path which we are seeing at alarming rates across the state and country. Here are the details:

• It provides grants to help students with demonstrated financial need so they can complete their student teaching without that requirement becoming a financial barrier to entering the field of education.
• The program would be funded with federal grant money from the American Rescue Plan, which would last through 2025.
• After that, the State of NH would have to decide to take up and fund the program, or it would go away.  

We support SB 140  as one measure needed to ease the workforce shortage. We will continue to work to make sure our current workforce also gets the support it needs. Again, please sign in and support this bill.

Lots of Important Votes in House Education Next Week   House Education has heard a lot of bills over the last three weeks from voucher expansion to curriculum mandates to school funding bills. Many of these bills will have votes next week in executive session. These bills, if the committee recommends passage or that the bill be voted down, will then move to the full House. Please keep your eyes here for next steps on bills as they make their way through the process. We will be reaching out to you to have you contact your Representative or Senator about particular bills to support committee recommendations or oppose them when it comes time for the full House and Senate sessions. Watch for information in future updates or in special Red Alerts!

Action Alert   You can sign in SUPPORT to SB141 and SB140 and make sure the Senate Education Committee knows that New Hampshire supports accountability in the spending of our public funds and that we need to do more for teacher recruitment AND retention.

Click the following State Senate link to submit your opinion:

https://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/remotecommittee/senate.aspx

You will need to submit your support to each bill.

Step 1: Fill in your personal information.

Step 2: Select January 31st for both bills.

Step 3: Select Senate Education Committee

Step 4: Select Bill Number (SB 141 and HB 140) [You need to submit the form twice.]

Step 5: Select a member of the public and you are representing yourself.

Step 6:  Select SUPPORT

Step 7: Click Submit.

We thank you for your continued interest and advocacy. If we all take a moment or two to do these requested actions, just maybe we can stop bills that will hurt our public schools.

For breaking news and other legislative information, please be sure to like us on Facebook at AFT New Hampshire or follow us on Twitter @AFTNewHampshire to receive the latest news.  Please share this with friends so they can sign up for this bulletin at http://nh.aft.org/.

You can also read written testimony submitted to the legislature at STATE HOUSE NEWS.

Week of January 30^th Legislative Hearing Schedule