Our Comment:
The State Board of Education deserves high praise for again speaking out about the state’s chartered public schools. They and the Commissioner have embraced the 21st-century by supporting schooling options as part of the system of public schools statewide. American schooling is no longer only the school in your community—it is the school where a student feels safe and can thrive. For most students this will be their resident school. But this only-one system leaves too many children behind.

House Bill 1642 is about chartered public school funding in New Hampshire. HB 1642 reminds us that these schools are solely funded on $3800 per student in state aid (an amount that would allow no other public school to function). State aid to other poor public schools is more than $5500. With a community component, total average funding statewide is approx. $13,000.

When the charter school law for state-authorized schools passed in 2003, the funding policy involved a local contribution for resident students, similar to the local contribution resident districts pay to a regional technical high school their student attends. The following year, the local contribution was removed from statute.

In 2003, the funding policy also included weighted state aid. The legislature changed this amount also to approx. $3500 as a fixed amount.

Without the weighted state aid, and without the local district contribution, these schools have so little funding they cannot exist. They receive no funding to pay for facility costs.
Yes, the schools were all willing to do some fundraising and to keep costs low. That is the model for these public schools—operating at 80% of average costs. But none of the schools signed up for operating at 30% of average costs, the current situation.

Since the 2003 legislation was passed, the schools have been stripped of local contributions and stripped of weighted aid. If other public schools could function on $3800/year, they would. But the situation is impossible.

In addition, the schools cannot charge parents tuition by statute, and they cannot levy taxes to bring in a local contribution.

House Bill 1642 brings attention to the whole chartered public school funding story, It was originally submitted to fix this situation. It was amended to be a one-year provision adding the equivalent of a weighted aid portion of $2700 per student to the 7 schools that are regional and independent. The one-year provision would help these schools continue until 2009-2010 when they again would receive the targeted or disparity component of state aid.

House bill 1642 was amended 5 different ways on Tuesday to try to find a solution, so these schools would not collapse at the end of this year. The Senate Finance Committee voted against the bill on Tuesday, saying there was no money to support a weighted aid provision for a few hundred students for one year. The same Finance Committee voted to support millions in future spending for facility funding for the state’s public-private schools that receive full tuition from every student—either a public school or private tuition. So is the issue really just money?

Most likely, every school district could provide $2,000 or $3,000 for one or a few students who feel they would be better suited for the charter school education. Some school superintendents have, in fact, supported charter schools. Some district school boards are paying a small tuition for their few attending students, particularly for the specialized high schools—in arts, math/science, equine studies, and drop-out recovery.

What could be a better investment for $3,000, really, than to send a 2nd –grade student who isn’t learning to read to a public elementary school whose specialized mission is to teach struggling children to read through intensive programming?

In fact, any public school could recruit a student to fill an exiting charter school student’s place. We have an open enrollment law and public schools can open the doors to new students for the same fee they send to the charter school. Quite a few people would appreciate a change of school—even if to have students attend closer to where parents work.

In sum, House Bill 1642 is not just about the survival of a few, unique independent chartered public schools. The bigger issue is whether or not the forces that control education will embrace a small amount of schooling innovation. Aside from these few hundred students in the 7 independent chartered public schools, New Hampshire needs to be a competitive public education state. And it will not be competitive if it has no choice, charter, or magnet schools.

Over and over these students, when interviewed, tell us that they felt a weight lifted from their shoulders when they found the right school for themselves. The days of requiring children to attend a school that isn’t right for them and forcing taxpayers to pay for all the need-to-fit adjustments have passed, really. What is happening in all other states is that students who want to leave their assigned school for a different and better-fit public school are allowed to do so. That way, our state and nation hopefully have more children who thrive during their years of becoming educated before adulthood.

Having a charter school funding system that is functional helps the state bring in millions of dollars which goes directly to districts and cities that want to start a chartered schools. Our state will become ineligible if we don’t at least provide a system of reasonable funding—an amount the charter schools say is approximately $8,000/student which is less than 80% of what districts are paying on average.

The State Board of Education urges the legislature to figure this out—they are striving to say that these schools are important to the state. The legislature is saying the state cannot bear the full burden of expense for these schools—there has to be a local component. The Schools are saying to please be at least fair—and not strip them of all the options and leave them begging for funding each year. The parents say – how come my community provides zero of our public funding to my child while everyone else’s child receives the benefit of our taxation.

In the final analysis, the legislature probably had the system right when it was advanced in 2003. The schools did not register as non-profits with the Secretary of State—they were just public schools when authorized. There was a public school district contribution. There was weighted state aid. The model was 80% unless by agreement the funds were less or more. And if districts wanted to delay payment until their state aid for these particular students arrived, someone (the state?) set up a borrowing system and paid the interest for 3 years.

House Bill 1642 needs to pass in some form. And then New Hampshire can become one of the top education states in the nation, recruiting in businesses and families with school-age children. We need to join the country on choice schooling. And we have everything in place but a few details.

Excerpt from our Press on Funding Public Schools, May 1, 2008

A school district’s statutory “duty” is to provide an education “to all pupils” who are district residents until graduation or age 21 (RSA 189: 1-a)

Our state funding policy says public education funding responsibility is “an integrated system of shared responsibility between state and local government” (RSA 193-E:1).
It makes no sense to abandon the state’s new program of charter schools.