Among the tasks before the State Legislature this session is to come up with a definition for educational adequacy.
Late last year, the State Supreme Court ruled that if lawmakers don't arrive at a definition by June 30th, the court might step in.
On Monday, Governor John Lynch announced he and legislative leaders want to use current school standards as a starting point.
Also on Monday the House and Senate Joint Task Force on Adequacy held the first of five public forums on the issue.
NHPR Correspondent Sheryl Rich-Kern attended the meeting in Nashua and files this report.
Nashua’s Elm Street middle school has a large auditorium.
On Monday evening, most seats were empty.
Ambient room sound, fade under
A small crowd of about 50 people came to tell legislators how to define an adequate education.
But one thing the forum's organizers didn't want to talk about on Monday – at least officially--was funding.
Moderator Randy Benthien laid down the ground rules for comments..
Benthien: Really focus on our topic, which is defining educational adequacy. Not other things. It’s not about how it’s going to be paid for. It’s not about something else that might be a pet peeve of yours.
But with microphones and prepared scripts in front of them, many people could not talk about education without mentioning taxpayer dollars.
Goulder: Morton Goulder, Hollis, New Hampshire. Special needs is really handled very expensively in New Hampshire. (paper rustling) I don’t understand why bright children also shouldn’t have special needs. Why should they be treated as second-class citizens and special needs children be treated as super citizens, if it goes into funding.
Teeboom: My name is Fred Teeboom. I’m an alderman here in Nashua, a citizen of Nashua.
Teeboom argued that students should study subjects, such as math or mechanics, according to their skills.
Each pathway, Teeboom says, would have its own budget.
Teeboom: Different schools would get different funding depending what they get. It’s not based upon some arbitrary property-tax per kid calculation. It’s based upon education.
HallowellMIT: Robert Hallowell of Nashua. The notion that I can get up here and tell you what I think an adequate, or either a minimum education is, and not discuss how much it’s going to cost, is absurd. Because what I’m going to state to you is that I would like every student to graduate from MIT. And if we had tens of billions of dollars, we could do that. We don’t.
Hallowell wants the state to define standards and goals, but leave specific methods up to each district.
After fifteen people took turns at the mike, task force co-chair, Senator Iris Estabrook, a Durham Democrat, addressed the audience.
Estabrook: By holding a very inclusive process, we hope to come out with recommendations that will have wide support.
Light applause
Lawmakers already hold a draft of those recommendations in hand.
Governor Lynch and the Adequacy Task Force are proposing minimums for such items as the school calendar and student-teacher ratios.
The Governor 's recommendations also outline what and how much students should know in each subject area and grade.
Still, residents will have four more public opportunities to offer their own thoughts.
The Adequacy Task Force is holding two more forums next week… in Manchester and Plymouth.
In March, the task force travels to Dover and Claremont.
State officials say they won’t come up with a definition of educational adequacy until later this Spring.
And once they do, they’ll have to decide how to pay for it.
For NHPR News in Nashua, this is Sheryl Rich-Kern.
