With less than a week before its deadline, the Joint Legislative Committee charged with pricing out education adequacy has fully developed a set of principles.
What remains unclear is just how much those principles would cost.
New Hampshire Public Radio’s Dan Gorenstein reports.
The majority of the ten lawmakers on the committee agree on a couple of key building blocks to fund education.
They want to send money to the school level, instead of directing it to the district.
They believe that all schools should receive a base, or universal amount of funding.
In this case, the committee has added the cost of items like teacher salaries, instructional materials, transportation and custodians to arrive $3,500 per pupil.
The majority of the committee also agrees on top of the universal grant, additional aid should go for students on free and reduced lunch, special education and non-native English speakers.
And Democratic Senator Iris Estabrook, who chairs the committee, says that is a major step forward.
1:40 the cost of providing an adequate education is not the same in every school in the state. And the committee has acknowledged that there is a universal set of costs, but there are different costs in different schools depending on the special populations in the schools.
Rough estimates suggest the committee is proposing to spend about 670 million in universal aid, 70 million for special education and about 2 million for English Language Learners, or ELL.
To the chagrin of Republicans on the committee, what hasn’t been priced out is how much money would be allocated for students on free and reduced lunch.
And Senator Bragdon says that’s a big hole.
1:27 b/c the committee refuses to take any kind of stand on that it’s really hard to know if that’s a 200 million dollar problem or a 500 million dollar program.
Senator Estabrook defended the decision not to put a price tag on that part of the formula.
She says what a majority of the committee did do was endorse a plan that would provide up to double the base aid for schools that have high concentrations of kids on free and reduced lunch.
4:00...we really feel there is a much more meaty policy discussion that needs to happen to decide how to we get from universal to double. Are there steps? Is there a slope? Are there break points? What are the concentrations that really trigger more need? We are not talking about all schools get universal costs, and only those with over 75% concentration getting two times.
Estabrook and others feel like the committee has put parameters in place.
And when the report is sent to the full Legislature at the end of the week, they have a solid roadmap to follow.
Bragdon and other Republicans feel like after 5 months of work the committee punted.
But when asked whether this formula could pass, another Republican member quipped, you’ll have to ask the Democratic leadership, it’s their game.
For NHPR News, I’m DG.
