A coalition of non-profit organizations has released a report on educational issues facing the Granite State. Testing, accountability and public involvement all emerged as major themes. The report?s release came, ironically, on the same day, the state Supreme Court issued their latest Claremont decision. NHPR?s Dan Gorenstein reports.
www.nhconnection.org
A coalition of non-profit organizations has released a report on educational issues facing the Granite State. Testing, accountability and public involvement all emerged as major themes. The report?s release came, ironically, on the same day, the state Supreme Court issued their latest Claremont decision. NHPR?s Dan Gorenstein reports.
With one sentence, the state Supreme Court drew a clear line of ownership over educational policy. The court wrote it is the job of the Legislature to establish that policy.
So once again New Hampshire lawmakers have been given responsibility for crafting standards to measure adequacy and finding the mechanisms to fund it. A bunch of state non-profits called the New Hampshire Civic Connection has a few suggestions. The group, which includes New Hampshire Public Radio, has released what they are calling a notebook, a compilation of conversations from public forums, poll results and research. And what the report has found, says NHPR?s Jon Greenberg, is a broken system.
6:04 we recognize there needs to be a full discussion about testing, and other ways to assess school performance. The current mechanisms do not work well. They fall short.
Last winter, the New Hampshire Civic Connection held a series of public forums where the issue of testing always arose. Doug Hall with the New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies, says the public understands that a testing system is not enough. He offers a quote from one of the meetings.
15:27 you can?t fatten cattle by weighing them. If you are going to set up a testing regime, that?s fine, but that doesn?t bring improvement in quality of and by itself. And so that other action is necessary.
One coalition member suggested coordinating high school curriculum and content of state-wide tests. The UNH Survey Center?s Andy Smith suggested moving the adequate education conversation away from funding.
13:08 we felt the focus had been too much on the funding of education. And the quality of education issues about what kind of eduation are we buying with our dollars had been pushed to the side. So we tried to do, we really can?t do much on funding, we can focus on quality.
The New Hampshire Civic Connection says their groups will be addressing these issues in the coming months. Coalition members say now that the Supreme Court has thrown the issue back to lawmakers, talking to the public might not be a bad place to start. Doug Challenger with the New England Center for Civic Life.
26:43 if we continue to ask citizens to thoughtfully engage and deliberate about this issue, that they have some wisdom, and if we can develop an approach that asks our elected officials to work with the public, and not just for the public, there might be some more productive outcomes.
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