AFT-NH Testimony on HB 283
From Debrah Howes, President AFT-NH
Dear Chairman Cordelli and Members of the House Education Policy Committee:
My name is Debrah Howes. I am the president of the American Federation of Teachers -NH. AFT-NH represents 3,500 teachers, paraeducators and school support staff, public service employees and higher education staff across New Hampshire.
I write to express the overwhelming opposition of my members to HB 283. All of our public school students have the right to a robust, well rounded public education that prepares them for career, the workforce, higher education and full participation in the civic life of their communities. Not only do all students have this constitutional right in New Hampshire, but it is the state’s obligation to fund it.
This bill would lower the quality of the education many of our students receive by limiting the subjects considered in the state’s funding formula to Math, English/ Language Arts, Science and History. Anything else would be extra and presumably could be provided at local expense. Many of our local school districts are already overstressed in their ability to absorb the state’s unconstitutional shifting of the burden of funding public education onto the backs of local property taxpayers and cannot pick up any further costs. Yet all Granite State children deserve, and have a right to, great public education!
The global problems that we are experiencing in New Hampshire and across the country will be solved by the students within our schools today. We must ensure that every child has a complete, robust, and engaging curriculum that builds their minds, bodies, and characters. All public-school students deserve to learn in their neighborhood public schools the academic content, problem- solving, critical thinking and teamwork skills that will allow them to succeed in a 21st century economy as global citizens. To do anything less is selling the 160,000 Granite State students who rely on public schools short. Indeed, it would be selling the future of our state short.
Yet, instead of rising to this challenge, some New Hampshire politicians are considering House Bill 283, a bill that drastically narrows what public schools would be required to teach to four core domains: English Language Arts, Math, Science and History. If this bill passes, public school students across the state could find classes in computer science and digital literacy, personal finance literacy, engineering and technology, world languages, music and art education, as well as physical education, health, and wellness treated as nonessential luxuries which are no longer part of a state mandated “adequate education.” Yet these are all subjects and content areas that are instrumental to the academic and personal development of students and the economic and technological development of our state as part of a global economy.
What’s especially disappointing is that three years ago when NH Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut brought a nearly identical bill forward, he advocated for it by calling it a bold step that will allow public schools to focus on finally closing the achievement gap. What it really does is tells students, their families and their communities that the state does not believe they are worth a complete, well-rounded education that engages the whole student and prepares them well for the modern economy. It is disappointing because it will increase the already large gap between public school students whose families who can afford to offer private lessons and opportunities beyond those four core domains and those whose families can’t.
As any teacher knows, it is often those subjects that HB283 considers “extras” that keep a student engaged in learning throughout the school day. We all have our stories of a child who becomes more successful in core academic subjects after something in one of those “less essential” areas caught their attention and lit up their mind. For one boy I knew it was drawing. When he learned in Art class how to draw with perspective to make things “look real,” that changed his outlook on school. He got a taste for learning something he enjoyed and found that he enjoyed learning. Suddenly the things he was picturing in his brain he could draw on paper, and they looked how he imagined them! He was so pleased with himself that he wanted to draw all the time. This helped him open up and communicate more. He could draw pictures about what happened in the books he read, and then write about it, so it improved his writing. He also wanted to read more, so he had more to draw about, so that improved his reading. He showed more persistence in working on his math, especially when he could draw his solution, and then label it with equations. His academics improved because of his love of art.
At a time when schools need to focus on the best and most engaging instructional practices to support student learning by engaging their interests and connecting those to broader academic subjects, this bill’s focus seems to be only saving money at the cost of students’ futures. If followed it would end up with more students having a pale virtual learning experience for anything considered not a core domain, rather than a deep, engaging learning experience with a professional, in person, certified instructor. An experience that enriches the student as a well-rounded human being but also sparks their joy of learning and persistence to pursue core academics. Offering world languages and engineering and art online does not come close to the experience that could happen in the classroom.
Similarly, asking a high school English teacher to weave Art into her English class is going to only give public school students a small taste of what is directly adjacent to the curriculum being studied, not a full, robust grounding in the discipline. Asking the elementary school teacher to also weave in art, music, computers and digital literacy, physical education, and health actually crowds the plate of that elementary classroom teacher EVEN MORE, as she is now teaching all those subjects along with language arts, math, science and social studies! How many of them will she be able to do well? However, leaving those subjects out of elementary schools means you are not educating the whole child and not preparing them for middle school, never mind life.
This bill would relegate a rich curriculum and deep learning opportunities to a privilege that would be open only to well-off students whose parents can afford plenty of private lessons, or those living in property rich communities where the schools continue to invest in students, leaving the majority of New Hampshire students who rely on a public-school education with only the “basic, no-frills” education. AFT-NH members emphatically reject this premise. Our state needs to re-focus on supporting innovative approaches to curriculum and instruction by continuing to require the content that would greatly improve students’ access to the knowledge and skills they need to be successful.
All Granite State children deserve the opportunity of robust, well rounded public education. It is their constitutional right. I urge you to vote Inexpedient to Legislate on HB 283.
Sincerely,
Debrah Howes
President, AFT-NH