Click on the headlines below to read recent news coverage on school funding and tax equity as well as commentary by NHSFFP and friends.
For press inquiries, please contact our Communications Manager, Noah Telerski, at ntelerski@fairfundingnh.org.
February 14, 2022 – Ethan Dewitt, New Hampshire Bulletin
For many New Hampshire communities, town lines can still make a major financial difference.
In Brookline, residents in a house worth $200,000 are required to pay $4,140 in annual local school property taxes, the highest rate in the state. One town over, in Mason, a home valued at the same $200,000 carries a tax bill of $2,358.
In Claremont, residents pay $19.64 in local education taxes for every $1,000 in assessed property value; just up the Connecticut River in Hanover, residents pay $9.01 per $1,000. Despite the lower property values of the less-advantaged towns, residents pay much more proportionally in taxes to fund their schools.
As debates rage over critical race theory, education freedom accounts, and mask policies in schools, the question of school funding inequities has received less attention the past two years.
But the problem persists despite 30-year-old landmark state Supreme Court decisions and an ongoing 2019 lawsuit targeting the funding gaps. And this year, like years before, lawmakers say they have proposals for how to deal with the issue.
One idea would inject more aid to schools while keeping the same funding formula. Another would uproot that funding formula and find new ways to distribute aid.
Yet some advocates say both proposals are half measures. Their preference: that New Hampshire eliminates its reliance on property taxes to fund public schools.
According to Rep. Dave Luneau, the problem with New Hampshire’s school funding formula is that its creators have been looking through the wrong end of the telescope.
Currently, districts start out the same under the formula: Any district that can’t fund the minimum amount of tuition per public school student with local property taxes alone receives $3,786.66 per student at minimum. Then, districts receive additional funding for students who qualify for free and reduced lunches, require special education, are English language learners, or have fallen below the proficient level on the third-grade state assessment. Those additions can add thousands of dollars in annual state funding for the education of a student.
The system is based primarily on equal funding; adjustments are based mainly on the income profile of a district’s students. Luneau argues that’s a backward focus. Instead of orienting its state education aid around individual students’ economic status, the state should distribute the money based on a more meaningful metric: the ability for the school to provide adequate opportunity, he says.
“Keeping the flat formula and expanding the fiscal disparity aid is a really expensive way of doing that, because you’re essentially already distributing the state dollars, which is close to a billion dollars, and you’re distributing it fairly uniformly whether you’re Manchester or you’re New Castle,” the Hopkinton Democrat said.
Luneau’s proposal would reimagine the formula. His bill, House Bill 1680, would eliminate that default sum given to all districts that receive adequacy aid and replace it with a new calculation – an “opportunity budget” – based on how much each district needs in funding to give children an equal opportunity to achieve the state assessment averages.
Under the bill, the Department of Education would evaluate each school district using criteria such as student assessment scores and graduation and attendance rates, as well as intrinsic factors that might make boosting those rates harder, such as population density and high-cost staffing.
Those evaluations would be fed into a formula to determine what the district receives from the state to create an equal opportunity for success.
The idea: New Hampshire’s definitions of what constitutes an adequate education, and what needs to be funded, would be focused on the ability to improve student outcomes.
The bill is driven by the conclusions of the 2020 Commission to Study School Funding, which Luneau chaired, and which found that New Hampshire’s unequal school funding system was forcing some towns to pay more in local tax dollars to achieve the same testing outcomes.
Rather than pegging state dollars to the number of low-income students, the commission found that the Department of Education should tie the funding to schools that are falling behind on the metrics that determine whether students have equal opportunities. That could mean some districts that currently receive state aid get less, while others get more. The aid would be phased in gradually over the course of eight years.
It is unclear exactly which districts would benefit from the realignment; the Department of Education has not carried out a fiscal analysis. But Luneau’s bill faces significant hurdles. Last week, the House Education Committee voted, unanimously, to recommend sending the bill to interim study to allow lawmakers to study it over the summer. That recommendation will arrive before the full House this week.
Still, Luneau hopes the bill presents a new vision for school funding that could be bipartisan – particularly one that doesn’t raise state taxes. And he said that additional months to study the issue could help shore up that support.
“What we do here has to be a durable solution,” he said. “And the way to do that is absolutely by working across the aisle.”
Over in the Senate, Sen. Erin Hennessey has a more traditional idea to help lessen inequality: keep the current funding formula but give needy districts more aid.
In a bill with bipartisan support, Hennessey is proposing to give “property poor” towns – those with low property valuations – up to $650 per low-income student to augment the additional funding the districts already receive. Towns with equalized property valuations of less than $1 million per student would automatically get a $650 increase for students qualifying for free and reduced lunch. Towns with valuations up to $6 million per student would get a sliding scale of aid per student, while those with valuations of $6 million per student and greater would get no additional aid.
The bill would provide direct funding bumps to towns that have traditionally struggled. Pittsfield would receive $240,889 over the next two fiscal years, Claremont would get $854,060, and Berlin $678,123, according to an analysis from the Department of Education attached to the bill. Property-rich towns, like Hanover and Wolfeboro, would receive no aid.
To Hennessey, the approach fits with what she says is Republicans’ larger vision for school funding: add support for traditional public schools to reduce inequity for the majority of students, while at the same time boosting alternatives for the minority, through charter schools, private schools, and homeschooling via education freedom accounts.
“(The question is) just what’s best for the kids that we have, and how are we going to best educate them?” Hennessey said. “And I think this is a good tool we can use to fund things in the state.”
The bill has also attracted buy-in from across the aisle; two Democrats, Sen. David Watters of Dover and the late Rep. Barbara Shaw of Manchester, sponsored the bill. And it appears to have momentum this year. It passed out of the Senate by a unanimous voice vote.
Hennessey says she sees the $650 aid provision as a potentially permanent addition to the funding formula.
“Now ‘permanent’ is dependent upon future legislatures,” she said. “But this is saying, ‘Hey, future legislators, we need to continue to look at this and make sure that we’re getting additional aid to the towns that need it the most.’”
Yet as lawmakers tinker, some interested observers say neither proposal fixes the heart of the problem: property taxes. In testimony to lawmakers, the advocacy group New Hampshire School Funding Fairness Project argued that while additional aid to struggling districts was welcome, the solution needs to be a more robust educational investment in the state.
“HB 1680 would fall short of attaining the kind of comprehensive reform needed to ensure the state of New Hampshire fulfills its constitutional responsibility to provide an adequate education to every child,” said Jeff McLynch, the group’s director, in testimony to the House Education Committee after praising Luneau’s bill.
Hennessey’s bill would keep the formula and build more aid on top; Luneau’s bill would revamp the formula but keep the state’s overall spending levels on education the same. To McLynch, both ignore the bigger goal.
“While there may be shared responsibility in delivering an adequate education, the responsibility for funding an adequate education for every child is the responsibility of the state of New Hampshire and the state’s alone,” McLynch said.
Luneau said the Legislature should use the funding and political momentum it has now.
“Working within the existing state’s resources, we can dramatically improve our ability to close opportunity gaps,” he said. That means the state’s thorniest education funding question – whether the state needs an income tax – can be sidestepped for now, Luneau said.
“That may be a discussion that continues forever in the state,” he added. “But if closing opportunity gaps is put on hold forever, while people debate that, then we’re not doing right for our kids.”
January 12, 2022 – Meg McIntyre, NH Business Review
Manchester West High School senior David Chestnut remembers hearing a distinctly unconvincing pitch from a college recruiter during a giant assembly about why he and his classmates should go to college.
The recruiter tried to get the high schoolers excited about the idea of coming to his campus. But as Chestnut looked around, he saw that few of his classmates were even paying attention, let alone interested.
This wasn’t surprising to him, though. Chestnut thought the assembly was just as ineffectual as the other nudges the school’s guidance counselors had sent encouraging students to go to college, mainly through email and intercom announcements.
Those guidance counselors had their work cut out for them. As of 2017-18, federal data showed that each guidance counselor in the Manchester School District served an average of 278 students. The statewide average is one counselor for every 568 students across all grade levels.
“It’s an assembly line,” Chestnut said. “They are trying to prepare you in the most generic way possible.”
Unfortunately, the generic doesn’t fit a student like Chestnut, the son of Filipino immigrants who didn’t graduate from college in America.
“My mother is a first-generation immigrant. She was the first of my family to attend college but she never graduated,” Chestnut said. “So when I was growing up in America with a single mother, it was very difficult for her to juggle her jobs and my education.”
Cases like Chestnut’s could be one of the reasons that, between 2016 and 2019, an average of just 43.7 percent of Manchester West’s students enrolled in a post-secondary program immediately after graduation – significantly lower than the statewide average of 56.1 percent.
The numbers get worse at other New Hampshire high schools. Newport, Farmington, Pittsfield and Nute in Milton are all below 40 percent, while the post-secondary enrollment rates for the top-performing schools were nearly double that of Manchester West, with Bedford, Windham, Souhegan and Hollis-Brookline all above 75 percent.
As conversations continue around how to improve New Hampshire’s school system, the root cause of these educational disparities is heavily debated. So too are the measures used to track them, such as standardized testing and college enrollment data. And opinions differ widely on addressing the gaps, from increasing investment in the public system to expanding private “school choice” options.
Education experts agree that the breadth and depth of learning experiences students have access to can affect their outcomes at school. But there is little hard data to tie specific opportunities to those outcomes, making arguing for them that much harder.
Data does show that students’ experiences in New Hampshire public schools can vary widely, based primarily on where they live. Educators and policy experts say these inequities are partly tied to how much a community invests in opportunities for students, in and out of the classroom.
Continue the coverage at NH Business Review.
December 14, 2021 – Garry Rayno, In DepthNH
CONCORD — Fewer students took the statewide assessment tests this spring and those who did on average performed below earlier levels for math and English, but were near historical levels for science.
Released Tuesday by the Department of Education, the assessment scores show New Hampshire students fell well short of past results for proficiency in math, less so in English and just slightly below in science.
Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut blames remote learning and the pandemic for the poorer results, but students in some school districts like Hanover and Bedford performed as well or even better than they did in the past, while students in large cities and property poor districts did not come close to past results with their historical levels.
“It is clear and understandable that trauma from the pandemic continues to impact schools, students and teachers,” said Edelblut. “Nationwide, assessment proficiency in both reading and math has slipped in the past five years, even pre-pandemic.”
He noted parents continue to have valid concerns about their children’s academic progress, and said measurable improvements are the goal and the state’s focus.
Overall 38 percent of students scored proficient or above in math for 2021, but 48 percent did in 2019; 52 percent scored proficient or above in reading in 2021, compared to 56 percent in 2019, and 37 percent were proficient or above in science, compared to 39 percent in 2019.
No assessment tests were given in the Spring of 2020 due to the pandemic.
“The impact to math scores was noticeably larger than for ELA (English Language Arts) scores. New Hampshire’s results in ELA are some of the smallest decreases we have seen nationally, which is good,” said Scott Marion, executive director of the National Center for the Improvement of Educational Assessment, a Dover-based technical consulting firm. “Similarly, in New Hampshire, the learning disruptions seem to be consistent across the different racial groups compared to where they started. Nationwide, however, the gap between high and low performing students tended to widen.”
But the gap between school districts in the state indicate what the Education Funding Commission emphasized in its 2020 report, that students from property rich communities perform better than those in property poor districts.
For example, districtwide Hanover students did better in two of three categories in tests this spring compared to two years ago for area proficiency and above, 83 percent in English, 79 percent in math and 83 percent in science falling just short in math.
Bedford students also performed close to their 2019 scores, at 78 percent, 70 percent and 58 percent, which was better in science than 2019.
However Newport had considerably less students reaching proficiency or above this spring with 20 percent, 10 percent and 24 percent, all well below their scores in 2019.
Pittsfield students scored 38 percent, 21 percent and 32 percent, with math and English below 2019 scores, but science above.
Portsmouth students were near their 2019 scores but were below in all three categories this spring with 73 percent, 61 percent and 44 percent.
Manchester students were considerably below their 2019 scores in 2021 in two categories, 27 percent for English and 14 percent for math, but science was 2 percent above 2019 at 17 percent.
Rochester students were significantly below their 2019 scores this spring at 35 percent, 28 percent and 34 percent.
The New Hampshire School Fair Funding Project said the state education funding system so dependent on local property taxes is an inequitable system that plays out in graduation rates and test scores.
“All New Hampshire children deserve the same chance at a quality public education and a school funding system that relies mainly on local property taxes only serves to create separate and unequal opportunity,” the organization said in a statement. “These inequities will be exacerbated in the coming years due to the legislature’s decision not to extend Fiscal Capacity Disparity Aid in the last budget, a program that previously sent additional state education aid to communities with particularly low property value. If we’re concerned about declining proficiency, we shouldn’t be reducing funds to school districts.”
The group noted that under the current state budget Newport will lose more than $700,000 in state education aid, Manchester will lose over $1.2 million, and Rochester will see a drop of more than $2.7 million.
The number of students taking the tests were also significantly lower this spring than two years ago, according to the report.
This year 73,406 New Hampshire students completed the assessment tests for math versus 91,050 in 2019.
For reading, participation numbers dropped from 90,785 students in 2019 to 72,880 this spring.
And science, which is measured in fewer grades, dropped from 37,720 in 2019 to 28,495 this spring.
“In general, we know that the students who learned remotely fared worse than those who learned in-person,” said Marion. “While everyone’s scores suffered nationwide, the test scores for those students who had in-person learning suffered less. This was generally the case in New Hampshire as well, especially in mathematics.”
Individual school information is available on the Department of Education’s website.
Garry Rayno may be reached at garry.rayno@yahoo.com.
September 28, 2021 – Meg McIntyre for Granite State News Collaborative, Eagle Times
Public education in New Hampshire stands at a crossroads.
While schools continue adjusting to the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, they’re also at the center of state-level discussions about what and how students should learn — and who should pay for their education.
The launch of “education freedom accounts,” which aim to give more students the ability to seek public education alternatives, has spurred concerns about private and religious schools diverting funds from local districts. Legislative language that prohibits “inculcation” of certain ideas in the classroom — including teaching that one group of people is inherently racist or sexist, or superior or inferior to another — has recently sparked discussions on discrimination, censorship and erasure. Meanwhile, the future of school funding in the Granite State hangs in the balance with the state’s funding formula under scrutiny in the courts.
These and other conversations are coming to the fore as the state becomes more diverse, especially among school-aged children.
Over the next few months, the Eagle Times, Granite State News Collaborative and its partners, will explore these and other topics in a series of articles about New Hampshire’s education system as part of its race and equity reporting project.
“We understand that the state of our classrooms and children’s education is a direct reflection on the current state and eventual future of our communities — the very ones that they will someday inherit and lead,” said Eagle Times managing editor Jordan J. Phelan. “Therefore, it is imperative, now more than ever, to gain a better understanding of the availability and access to resources and opportunities that presently exists for students in New Hampshire public schools. Using statewide data and a collaborative team of journalists, we will examine education inequity in the state of New Hampshire and focus on solutions to provide the best available education to all students.”
The stories seek to amplify voices and explore concerns while highlighting what is working and the communities spearheading solutions. In fact, we’re launching the series with an article examining how one New Hampshire high school is bringing new perspectives into the classroom to help students explore race and justice.
“We know this journalism is essential. Our governor recently claimed systemic racism does not exist in our state. Granite Staters, and even national pundits, often refer to ‘Lily White New Hampshire,’” said Granite State News Collaborative Director Melanie Plenda. “We aim to educate the state about itself and help New Hampshire’s diverse history and reality become part of the public conversation on this issue.”
Shifting demographics
While most of New Hampshire — almost 90 percent, according to 2019 census estimates — is non-Hispanic white, there are pockets of diversity in the state, and some parts of the education system have struggled to serve a changing population.
“Almost 40 percent of the children in Manchester and Nashua are minorities. Those kinds of numbers are not that different from what you would see in bigger urban areas,” said Ken Johnson, a senior demographer at the University of New Hampshire. “So in a sense, some parts of New Hampshire are becoming increasingly diverse at a much more rapid rate than other parts of the state are.”
Though the state’s demographic shifts are relatively recent, members of marginalized communities in New Hampshire say inequities are not new: The state’s schools have long served some learners better than others, with poor students, students with disabilities and students of color most often left behind.
Advocates argue that the state’s funding system creates inequity, with local property taxpayers shouldering the burden of paying for schools. The state’s definition of an “adequate education” — the subject of a lawsuit working its way through the court system — gives schools about $3,800 per student, and some districts receive extra money based on socioeconomic factors, like the percentage of students eligible for free and reduced lunch or receiving special education services.
But districts actually spend an average of $15,000 to $17,000 per child, according to the New Hampshire School Funding Fairness Project. Local property tax revenue bridges the gap, putting cities and towns with lower property values at an immediate disadvantage. And the chasm in resources from community to community is large — Newington has about $15 million worth of equalized property value per child, for example, while Manchester has about $860,000, and Berlin less than $500,000.
“Students of color and low-income students tend to live in these property-poor communities. But then being in a property-poor community creates this economic inequity doom loop, where businesses don’t want to move to an area that doesn’t have good schools,” New Hampshire School Funding Fairness Project Communications Manager Molly Murphy. “So they don’t get the tax revenue that they need for their schools, and it’s just a repeating cycle.”
Continue the article at EagleTimes.com
To become involved in guiding our coverage of education inequity in New Hampshire, contact Granite State News Collaborative engagement reporter Nour Habib at nour.habib@collaborativenh.org.
March 24, 2021 – Jack Rooney and Staff, Keene Sentinel
Jack Rooney can be reached at 352-1234, extension 1404, or jrooney@keenesentinel.com. Follow him on Twitter @RooneyReports.
February 11, 2021 – Staff, New Hampshire Public Radio
Gov. Chris Sununu presented his two-year spending plan Thursday, a $13.8 billion package that proposes sweeping tax reductions and a series of what the governor called “generational investments” in the state.
The budget plan, which would increase state general fund spending by 7% over the current budget, includes a handful of new proposals, like the creation of a state Department of Energy and the merger of New Hampshire’s public higher education systems, as well as cuts to several of the state’s major revenue sources. Sununu, a Republican overwhelmingly re-elected to a third term in November, described the overall proposal as a balanced approach to meeting the state’s financial needs in a time of economic uncertainty.
“This budget makes smart, strategic, targeted investments without having to balance it on the backs of our essential workers,” he said in an address delivered via livestream. “And it focuses on core, everyday services that prioritize the people of our state.”
State lawmakers will now take Sununu’s proposal and rewrite it to their own terms, with negotiations likely to stretch until June when the current state spending plan expires. Several of the proposals Sununu outlined Thursday are sure to attract scrutiny from the Legislature. This includes a plan to merge New Hampshire’s public university and community college systems, a move the governor said will create administrative efficiency and better outcomes for students as campus enrollments decline with more education going digital.
“Allowing students the ease of creating their own pathway in education will be the defining characteristic of this modernized 21st century system,” Sununu said.
Other new initiatives proposed by Sununu include the creation of a Public Integrity Unit at the New Hampshire Department of Justice, as well as an independent office to investigate local police misconduct. Both proposals come from a taskforce the governor established last year to examine issues around police conduct, transparency and accountability in the wake of the killing of George Floyd.
Spending for social services
Throughout his address, Sununu alluded to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, praising his administration’s management of the crisis and noting the impact the coronavirus has had on businesses, schools and local communities across the state.
Sununu’s budget outlined several changes in social services programs that have been affected by COVID-19, including mental health services, developmental services and child protective services.
His plan would fund the state’s current mental health plan, which Sununu says is critical in the face of strain caused by COVID-19. He would also increase spending at New Hampshire Hospital by $50 million over the next two years. And his budget adds $47 million in new spending on services for people with developmental disabilities.
Sununu also envisions a $50 million bump in funding for children’s mental health, more than twice the planned spending in the current state budget.
“And we are not stopping there,” Sununu said. “My budget spends millions more on mental health for seniors and our veterans as well. These vulnerable populations faced the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic the hardest and we have to focus our efforts where the struggle is greatest.”
Sununu’s proposal also revived several ideas lawmakers rejected in his last budget proposal, including a voluntary paid leave program that would start with the state workforce, and a $10 million student debt relief program funded with money generated by 529 college savings plans.
Tax cuts at the forefront
A centerpiece of Sununu’s proposed budget is a sweeping list of tax cuts aimed at residents, retirees, businesses and tourists.
“Tax cuts for everyone,” said Sununu. “Whether you are a small business just starting out, a family of four looking to enjoy a meal out, or are retired and enjoying life in the Granite State.”
His plan would trim the Meals and Rooms tax, currently at 9%, to 8.5%. He’s also backing a cut of one of the state’s major business taxes, the Business Enterprise Tax, as well as increasing the filing exemption for small businesses with a value under $250,000.
Sununu also proposed a five-year phase out of the Interest and Dividends Tax, which last year generated $125 million in revenue.
“We are providing equitable, across-the-board tax relief for the people of our state,” he said.
Sununu’s focus on tax cuts is in line with the prevailing Republican ideology on the matter in the State House right now. Several bills moving through the Legislature would enact versions of Sununu’s tax rate changes, and with Republicans now enjoying majorities in both chambers, further tax cuts seem all but certain this year.
Despite the lower rates, Sununu’s budget relies on an optimistic forecast of economic growth, with business taxes still projected at bringing in $75 million more in revenue over the next two years, and total tax revenues growing to $2.73 billion in the next fiscal year. That is up from this year’s projected tax collections of $2.69 billion.
Funding education in the pandemic
Sununu says that in spite of slight revenue shortfalls, his plan does not cut aid to public schools.
His budget proposes a fix for districts that have seen their free and reduced lunch applications plummet this year because of the pandemic, allowing schools to use last year’s pre-COVID numbers to calculate state aid. Broader versions of this proposal have bipartisan support in the Legislature.
Sununu also proposes adding $15 million each year to the Public School Infrastructure Fund, which helps fund safety and facility upgrades to schools.
And the governor proposes sending more revenue from the state’s Meals and Rooms tax back to cities and towns, to the tune of about $15 million more in additional money over the next two years.
In spite of proposed decreases to adequate education aid, Sununu says that his budget “ensures that we spend more money per child on public education than ever before.”
A spokesperson for the governor’s office did not go into detail about that claim, but the budget assumes that the number of children enrolled in public school will continue to decline.
Critics said Sununu’s plan still fails to meet the true needs of the state’s public schools.
“It’s likely that his proposed budget will fall well short of what local schools need to be able to serve the students in their communities,” says Jeff McLynch, Director of the New Hampshire School Funding Fairness Project, which advocates for more public school funding and property tax relief. “Right now, cities and towns are staring at a likely $90 million decline of state education funding in the face.”
A new Department of Energy?
Sununu also proposes creating New Hampshire’s first Department of Energy, which would include a focus on offshore wind and would combine the Office of Strategic Initiatives, Public Utilities Commission and Site Evaluation Committee.
A summary provided by the governor’s office says the move will allow the PUC to focus on regulation as an “administratively attached agency,” while the new department’s leader heads up energy policy-making and program implementation.
State utility consumer advocate Don Kreis has wanted this for a long time. He says the PUC’s quasi-judicial structure is not ideal for taking public input.
“Dis-aggregating those two functions has the potential to make policy-making more accessible to people who want to interact with the policy-makers and influence them,” Kreis told NHPR.
This new structure would be similar to what’s in place in Massachusetts and Vermont. Kreis hopes the proposed agency’s leader would be more focused on ratepayers than energy producers.
“Ultimately, energy is a means to an end, and we want our energy to be as sustainable and as reliable as possible while not becoming too expensive,” Kreis said. “The right kind of commissioner to make sure that happens is somebody who has a pro-consumer orientation.”
The new energy department, with a proposed budget of about $70 million, would also take over the state’s fledgling office of offshore wind industry development. Sununu said in his address that this will let the state “continue to take big steps to harness the massive potential for renewable energy production off the coast of New Hampshire.”
The state is involved in a joint federal task force on wind development in the Gulf of Maine. The roughly decade-long process kicked off just over a year ago.
Reactions and next steps
Democrats say Sununu’s plans – particularly his desire to cut business taxes – run the risk of increasing the burden on local property taxes.
“The governor’s optimism of an increased business tax revenue while instituting business tax cuts is completely counterintuitive,” said Sen. Cindy Rosenwald, a Nashua Democrat. “Several of his proposed measures could very quickly lead to shortfalls that will be left to fill by New Hampshire’s property taxpayers.”
Sununu is sure to encounter different priorities from some Republicans at the State House as well, though with his party in the majority, he may have an easier time with this budget than in years past. The governor’s budget proposal now goes before the House Finance Committee, which begins hearings next week.
(Reporting in this story came from NHPR’s Josh Rogers, Annie Ropeik, Todd Bookman and Sarah Gibson.)
January 16, 2021 – Hadley Barndollar, Seacoast Online
PORTSMOUTH – It’s a tale as old as time in New Hampshire.
Despite several state Supreme Court rulings, including two findings of unconstitutionality, the income and sales tax-less Granite State cannot come to a consensus over how to adequately and equitably fund its public schools.
According to 2018 Census data, New Hampshire’s percentage of state funding per student was the lowest in the country. And its reliance on property taxes goes unmatched.
The city of Portsmouth has been working quietly to lead a renewed lobbying effort to bat down a potential proposal alluded to in a 181-page final report released in December by the state Legislature’s Commission to Study School Funding.
The report floated a possible revival of the “donor/receiver town” education funding model that previously existed in the state. No such legislation has been introduced yet for this session, and officials in Portsmouth are hoping it will stay that way.
That’s because the model, unmodified and as presented in the report, could require the city of Portsmouth – the state’s No. 1 donor town – to raise an additional estimated $40 million through a local education tax and statewide property tax. Those funds would ultimately be sent to the state and then redistributed to other less-fortunate communities for their education costs, according to Nathan Lunney, business administrator for the the Portsmouth School District.
November 23, 2020 – Garry Rayno, InDepth NH
CONCORD — Lawmakers should be urged to use the Education Funding Commission’s recommendations to begin changing the system as soon as possible.
That was the commission’s consensus as it met to review and suggest changes to a final report on its work that will be voted on Nov. 30.
Commission members spent more than two-hours parsing the findings and recommendations in the report that will receive a final review next week before it is given to legislative leaders and Gov. Chris Sununu.
Consultants hired by the commission to study the state education funding system found what many have known for some time: that students in property poor-communities do not perform as well as students from wealthier communities that provide greater educational opportunities to their children.
The consultants, American Institutes for Research, also proposed a statewide property tax system to level the playing field without spending additional money on public education.
The commission is recommending a fundamental change in how the state defines an adequate education, and how it determines state aid to school districts by considering student and community needs.
The draft report said lawmakers should address the major recommendations with a phased approach over three biennia but several board members said the legislature should address the recommendations as soon as possible.
Commission member and former Department of Revenue Administration Commission John Beardmore was the first to raise the issue and others soon agreed.
Commission chair Rep. David Luneau, D-Hopkinton, said they discussed a phased approach so as not to “shock the system.”
He did not believe they needed to specify a specific time period but noted one legislature cannot bind another legislature to follow its directives.
Former state Sen. Iris Estabrook said to phase in the recommendations over three biennia “is asking for trouble.”
There needs to be language to implement the recommendations as soon as possible, she said.
Others agreed including Jeff McLynch, project director for the New Hampshire School Funding Fairness Project.
“If the Commission still chooses to endorse a five year phase-in, it should clarify language in the draft report detailing how that phase-in could be accomplished, as one description of it could be open to multiple interpretations,” he said during the public comment period at the end of the meeting.
He also urged commission members to adopt the proposed statewide property tax as the funding mechanism to provide both student and taxpayer equity.
“The draft report does outline three models of how the costs of an adequate education might be met, but only one – a single statewide property tax at a rate sufficient to provide full state funding – would likely ameliorate existing inequities while complying with constitutional mandates,” McLynch said. “The Commission should endorse that model in combination with a robust, state-funded property tax relief program for low- and moderate-income taxpayers.”
But another person who spoke at the end of the meeting disagreed with using a statewide property tax for funding.
Portsmouth’s assistant city attorney Jane Ferrini said the state should find another source of money to pay its share of school funding, not resurrect “donor towns” like Portsmouth.
She noted education is not the only area where the state has down-shifted costs.
Ferrini said her city lost over $7 million in revenue-sharing and had to pay an additional $20 million when the state stopped paying 35 percent of retirement costs for municipal and school employees.
And the state has not “caught up” with what it owes cities and towns for their share of the rooms and meals tax revenue that was also discontinued, costing Portsmouth $3.5 million.
The commission also decided to include a section in the report indicating what each school district would receive in state aid under the new distribution system, which was also a suggestion from McLynch.
The commission is scheduled to meet at 2 p.m. Nov 30 for its final meeting.
Garry Rayno may be reached at garry.rayno@yahoo.com.
September 24, 2020 – Rick Ganley & Mary McIntyre, NHPR
The New Hampshire Supreme Court heard oral arguments Thursday in a case that’s the latest in a decades-long debate over whether the state pays enough for public education.
Multiple New Hampshire School Districts are suing the state for not meeting its constitutional obligation to fund an adequate education for all students.
NHPR’s Morning Edition Host Rick Ganley spoke with Natalie Laflamme, one of the attorneys representing districts who support the lawsuit.
Note: This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity
Rick Ganley: Can you first explain what this case means in the context of this long, drawn out battle that’s between public schools in the state?
Natalie Laflamme: Sure. So, as you correctly said, this is a long, long battle. The first Claremont decision [when] the first time the court declared this constitutional right came out in 1993, just for reference for everybody. And more or less people have been fighting about it ever since. So this recent lawsuit, as you said, was brought by four school districts in the southwestern part of the state. Our amicus brief represents 26 other school districts throughout the state. We have big districts, small districts, regional districts, rural, urban. And it really just shows not only how long this has been happening, but that it affects so many people in the state, a really diverse number of districts.
Rick Ganley: And, of course, it always hinges on this definition of of an adequate education. And again, to be clear, you’re not arguing in front of the Supreme Court today, but as you said, you’re filing a brief on behalf of additional districts who say the state’s current funding formula is unconstitutional. What essentially is the argument?
Natalie Laflamme: So the argument that the petitioners made — theirs was a little more focused on themselves in a way. So they argued that the state owed them a certain amount of money. Because of their definition of adequate education, they left out a number of important factors that their districts had to pay for, specifically transportation, building costs, school nurses, superintendent. So their argument to the trial court was the state is not funding all of these categories that go into adequate education. They owe us money. And the trial court ended up looking at the statute. The court said this is unconstitutional. It’s irrational, doesn’t make any sense. It’s clearly doesn’t meet an adequate number.
But the state has appealed that. And so we, the amicus, have come in and just said the trial court was absolutely right. And the other issue at play here, besides adequate education, is about taxing fairly. So to fund that adequate education, we rely on property taxes. And another constitutional obligation of the state is to fund those proportionately, to tax proportionately. So our brief really focuses a lot on that issue, which the trial court didn’t reach. And we also back up the petitioners and say on the adequacy argument they’re right. The court’s right. This is completely irrational and unconstitutional.
Rick Ganley: As you said, the districts say it costs way more than the state pays to cover the cost of providing what they deem a constitutionally adequate education. What do they say is the actual price tag the state should be paying?
Natalie Laflamme: So the way it works is the state sets a number, they call it the base adequacy grant, and right now that’s about $3,700 per student per year. And then the state also gives differentiated aid. So extra money for how many students are on free and reduced lunch, which is a measure of poverty. How many are English language learners? How many are in special ed? So they get a little more money for those.
But even overall, the state basically pays $4,500 dollars per student per year to the districts. The average cost in the state for one pupil per year is about $16,000 to $17,000, and that’s right around where the petitioners are. So the petitioners are arguing you’re only paying about a third of our actual cost, and there’s no way that that small amount of money would fund an adequate education. And the state argues, yes, that is adequate. School districts might be paying more, but they’re choosing to add more aspects to their schools that are above and beyond adequate.
Rick Ganley: And again, a district’s ability to be able to do that would really depend on local property taxes.
Natalie Laflamme: Exactly, and specifically how much property value is in their district. And so on average, there’s about $1.1 million of property value per student. So that’s the property that you are able to tax to fund one students education. But this varies wildly. As you can imagine, different districts have different properties, property values, different features. So on one end of the scale, you have a town like Moultonborough that has over $7 million of property that it can tax for each student. On the lower end, you have a place like Berlin that has about $370,000 dollars of property value to get their education taxes from. That’s it. And in general, a lot of these districts can’t raise the same amount of money, so they end up funding their schools less amount per pupil.
Rick Ganley: Now, you grew up in Berlin, didn’t you?
Natalie Laflamme: I did.
Rick Ganley: How did the debate play out in your school in Berlin?
Natalie Laflamme: So I don’t know how aware people are of the issue. Like, obviously, everyone knows the taxes are high and that always comes up every year when the city council debates the budget. But I think people don’t have an awareness necessarily of how disproportionate is across the state. And I think that’s something that’s starting to get in people’s minds now. But I do like pointing out, just for perspective, that the first Claremont decision came out when I was pre-kindergarten, and now I am several years out of law school and we’re having the exact same arguments. The same issues are at play, and the state hasn’t really done anything. So I think that this is going to start playing out differently in towns, that people are putting more pressure on the state. They’re starting to realize, hey, it’s not our fault necessarily that our taxes are so high. We’re working from such a small property value, and the way the state has chosen to fund schools really puts us at a huge disadvantage. And I think everyone’s always intuitively known that, but now it’s kind of really coming out in the numbers and people are talking about it a lot more.
September 19, 2020 – Laura Kiernan, Concord Monitor
Using 10 years of the state’s own data, a team of independent analysts, hired by the Commission to Study School Funding, has stacked up the evidence to prove “something that a lot of us may have felt for a long time,” the commission chairman Rep. David Luneau of Hopkinton said at a recent meeting.
“To see it in writing,” Luneau suggested, brought a “new level of meaning and recognition” to the experts’ key finding: “New Hampshire’s existing school funding system is inequitable from both student and taxpayer perspectives.”
Cities and towns “with higher poverty rates and lower property wealth are doubly penalized,” according to the report, which was prepared by the American Institutes for Research (AIR) and presented to the commission over the past several weeks. School districts with the highest number of economically disadvantaged students spend less, on average, than districts with the fewest needy students. Communities with the least property wealth “impose the highest local education tax rates to be able to fund their children’s education,” the report concluded.
One chart dramatically illustrated the impact on students of the inequities in New Hampshire’s school funding system. That data clearly shows that the school districts in less wealthy communities, that spend less but have the highest level of disadvantaged students, perform below the state average, based on student assessment scores, graduation and attendance rates. That evidence of inequitable outcomes across school districts “justifies the need for funding reform,” the report said. Students in those high-need districts “are not being provided an equal opportunity to learn,” the report concluded.
While parents, and teachers and school staff grapple with concerns about whether school doors will open at all in the COVID-19 crisis, the long struggle over the way New Hampshire’s funds its schools moves on, but with renewed energy.
Tomorrow, the 17 commissioners resume examination of the AIR report but they remain far from adopting any recommendations to revamp the current school funding system. On Thursday, the state Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the latest school funding lawsuit – litigation that could open the door for the justices to review the language and directives in a long line of school funding decisions that date back to 1993. The new case, brought by the Contoocook Valley School District and three others in southwest New Hampshire, is backed by 26 additional school districts, including Concord, Manchester and Nashua.
Despite decades of hard fought battles in the state courts about fairness and marathon wrangling in the state Legislature about costs, the AIR researchers concluded that current system “is not working for large segments of New Hampshire students and taxpayers.”
A school funding formula should give every child, no matter where they live or what their needs may be, an equal opportunity to achieve a common set of goals in school, a baseline that the AIR researchers have developed as a national model, and used in other states. For “equal opportunity” to happen here, the system needs to change, their analysis showed.
What AIR has put before the commission is a new funding formula that would fundamentally change the way New Hampshire has financed public schools for decades – ever since the state Supreme Court declared that every child is owed an “adequate education,” paid for by the state. The AIR models preserve New Hampshire’s historical commitment to property taxes, which now fund more than 70% of school costs, through local education taxes (at widely varying rates depending on property wealth) and the Statewide Education Property Tax (levied at a rate set by the state but retained locally). The AIR proposals – there are two versions – would pool local and state education property tax revenue in Concord and then distribute state aid, recognizing that some school districts, with the highest student needs, require more resources than others to provide every student equal educational opportunities.
“The funding of an adequate education should be better shared so that communities with the least wealth do not have to tax themselves exorbitantly to raise sufficient revenue to provide schooling,” the AIR report concluded.
Veterans of school financing wars know that the concept of sharing the wealth for education has been defeated before by coalitions of wealthy communities. But, they also wonder whether there is a greater willingness now to address economic inequities – to close the gap between property-rich and property-poor communities – than there was 27 years ago when the struggle over money for public schools began.
Whether the commission endorses some or all of AIR’s proposals – which education reform advocates favorably described as promising – the bottom line is that the future of real education finance reform will ultimately be decided in the State House.
“It’s really up to the Legislature and governor to determine how the state goes about funding its public schools,” Luneau reminded his fellow commissioners.
Advocates for education reform, recognizing the potential impact of November’s statewide elections, have ramped up their efforts to marshal public support for the commission, which plans to deliver its report to the governor and Legislature on Dec. 1 for consideration in the 2021 legislative session.
The nonprofit N.H. School Funding Fairness Project, which has led a statewide grassroots effort to generate public support for school funding reform and property tax relief, has invited the public and all candidates for the House and Senate and Executive Council to join in five “virtual regional forums” in late September and October. The project, which is funded by the N.H. Charitable Foundation and others, has gathered 400 signatures on a petition supporting the commission’s work, which it will present to the members tomorrow. “Reaching Higher New Hampshire,” a nonpartisan think tank that analyzes public education policy issues, and has testified before the commission, is producing a video – due for release in October – in an effort to unravel school funding complexities for a general audience.
And in what must be a first, the School Funding Fairness Project is also hosting a “Supreme Court Virtual Watch Party” this Thursday, on Zoom, for those who want to see the Attorney General’s office attempt to persuade the high court to overturn a lower court decision last year that declared the current school funding formula unconstitutional. An attorney for the School Funding Fairness Project will provide commentary after the arguments.
Continue the article at ConcordMonitor.com.
The AIR report, as well as graphs and charts, are available at https://carsey.unh.edu/school-funding-study/resources.
by Molly Murphy and Jeff McLynch, January 21, 2022 – Concord Monitor
It’s a New Year, but New Hampshire still faces an old problem: deep and enduring inequities in educational opportunity and enormous differences in property taxes. The tremendous gap between what the State has determined to be the cost of an adequate education – about $4,700 per student on average – and the costs communities actually bear – roughly $19,300 per student on average – are a glaring testament to these injustices, as are school property tax rates that range from $2.27 to $20.89 per $1,000 of value.
These two injustices, in turn, arise from a single source. The State of New Hampshire has failed for decades to fulfill its fundamental responsibility to provide an adequate education to every child. Instead, it has shifted that responsibility onto local property taxpayers, forcing them to bear $2.3 billion in costs each year, costs that should be met with state revenues.
That really is the heart of the problem. As a result, the heart of the solution is clear.
The only remedy to such injustices is to end that downshifting and to make sure the State of New Hampshire meets its responsibility, once and for all. But, that’s not news to most Granite Staters. New polling from Hart Research, commissioned by the NH School Funding Fairness Project shows 61% of Granite Staters support a statewide education funding system. To achieve greater equity for both students and families the State of New Hampshire must generate the $2.3 billion in funds that local property taxpayers now put up each year.
Importantly, in shifting responsibility for providing an adequate education to the State, back to where it belongs, any revenue source that is put in place at the state level must be aimed at replacing existing local school property taxes, so that families and business owners are not further buried in unaffordable property tax bills.
Data shows the wealthiest New Hampshire residents pay less than 2% of their income in property taxes, while New Hampshire’s middle class pays more than 6% of their income to property taxes. And, polling confirms, 63% of Granite Staters favor an education tax system based on one’s ability to pay. Ensuring New Hampshire meets its fundamental responsibility does not necessarily mean that total amount of school funding throughout the state will go up or go down. What will change is who pays for our public schools – and how.
In the months ahead, NHSFFP will be actively leading the conversation about the critical importance of lifting responsibility for providing an adequate education off of local property taxpayers and putting it where it should have been all along – the State of New Hampshire. As part of our 2022 “Get on the Bus” tour, we’re traveling to 25 communities in 5 months to empower hundreds of Granite Staters to take action on this vital issue. We owe it to everyone in the Granite State – students, parents, and taxpayers – to address this issue head on.
The NH School Funding Fairness Project is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to using grassroots and legislative advocacy to create lasting, equitable reform for school funding and property taxes. Jeff McLynch (Exeter) is the Project Director, and Molly Murphy (Concord) is the Communications Manager.
by Molly Murphy and Jeff McLynch, December 31, 2021 – Concord Monitor
It’s the most wonderful time of the year — fresh snowfall, holiday cheer, hot cocoa and property tax bills. Well, maybe that last one isn’t so wonderful.
Homeowners across the Granite Stater are grappling with their latest property tax bill, and for many, it’s the single largest bill they’ll pay all year, creating real hardships for families living on fixed or low incomes.
In response, some may rail against their assessor’s office or their school or select board, but New Hampshire’s property tax problem isn’t due to local decisions. Since a large portion of local property taxes is levied to pay for public education, the problem actually stems from choices state policymakers have made for decades now.
Simply put, the state of New Hampshire has consistently shirked its obligation to provide and pay for an “adequate” education for every child. The state pays on average $4,700 per pupil to each district to cover the cost of providing such an education, but districts spend on average $17,000 per pupil, with a range in per-pupil costs of $8,000 to well over $50,000.
Continue the opinion piece at concordmonitor.com.
Jeff McLynch, project director for NH School Funding Fairness Project. He lives in Exeter. Molly Murphy is communications manager for NH School Funding Fairness Project. She lives in Concord.
by Molly Murphy and Jeff McLynch, July 10, 2021 – Concord Monitor
Another state budget season has come and gone, and once again the spending plan it produced falls well short of meeting New Hampshire’s school funding needs. With students and educators facing myriad challenges post-pandemic, the shortcomings of the current budget are troubling enough on their own.
As this budget marks the latest in decades of state budgets that have failed to achieve meaningful and long-lasting reforms to fully fund our schools and aid our taxpayers, it should be of grave concern to anyone invested in our shared future. Rather than allowing our elected officials to pat themselves on the back for leaving their task unfinished, we should take a close look at this budget’s real impact on Granite State children, families and communities.
Because New Hampshire’s school funding formula bases aid in part on enrollment and because fall 2020 saw an uncharacteristic, pandemic-related dip in school enrollment, school budgets across the state were threatened right from the start of this year’s budget process.
In fact, when the legislature first convened in January, state education aid was projected to fall by close to $90 million between FY 2021 and FY 2022. While budget writers took some steps to address these issues, the FY22-23 budget ultimately only does part of the job. While the budget that the governor signed into law resolves part of that shortfall, it still leaves a $27 million hole in school budgets for the coming year and will force municipalities to again raise local property taxes to fill in the difference.
Continue the opinion piece at ConcordMonitor.com
Jeff McLynch, project director for NH School Funding Fairness Project. He lives in Exeter. Molly Murphy is communications manager for NH School Funding Fairness Project. She lives in Concord.
by Jeff McLynch, April 30, 2021 – New Hampshire Bulletin
It’s spring again in New Hampshire, a time for blooming daffodils, filling potholes, and passing laws.
As the weather has warmed, there has been a lot of discussion about the $90 million state education funding hole our public schools face in the coming year. That hole represents a loss of state aid to districts and is caused by pandemic-related changes in enrollment and free and reduced-priced school lunch applications, as well as the expiration of additional aid and fiscal capacity disparity aid for higher-need districts.
This hole is alarming, heartbreaking, and lifechanging. If nothing is done to prevent the shortfall, thousands of students and educators will feel the impact of further devastating cuts in their classrooms, and families across New Hampshire will watch their local property tax bills increase in order to fund a bare minimum education.
For those who’ve been following the school funding debate for some time now, the problem is all too familiar. What’s worse, $90 million is merely a pothole. On the long and bumpy school funding road, a much larger sinkhole lurks around the corner.
The problem in this budget is $90 million deep, but New Hampshire has long fallen hundreds of millions of dollars short of its constitutional and moral school funding obligations. Solving the problem at hand is urgent and necessary; the long-lasting impact of giving today’s young people a better funded school and today’s property taxpayers a fairer bill cannot be understated.
But, recasting the system as a whole, so that all future Granite State families have a fair shot, is long overdue. This issue is not confronted solely by Claremont or ConVal. This is not an issue limited to one town or one school district. This is a New Hampshire issue.
Students across this state see their worlds constantly shift as school budgets are slashed year after year, cutting favorite teachers, needed classes, career development programs, and more. Parents struggle to give their kids a fair shot at a future while needed school services, such as teaching aides and therapists, are threatened by lack of funds.
Senior citizens who worked hard to retire see their property taxes escalate each year, eating more and more of their fixed income. Young adults are struggling to build a life while reconciling stagnant wages and skyrocketing housing costs caused, in part, by rising property taxes. The school funding and property tax problems touch all of us, inaction harms all of us, and a more equitable system will create a better New Hampshire for all of us.
Earlier this month the budget baton was handed to the Senate and its leg of the relay is well underway. Many education and tax issues have been debated this season and many share one fundamental problem: for too long New Hampshire has up-charged its property owners, while shortchanging its future.
The Senate has already taken modest action in passing Senate Bill 135, which offers a remedy to the funding shortfalls caused by pandemic-related enrollment and school lunch changes. This legislation closes the $90 million hole about halfway, but further action is needed to fund our schools and aid our communities. This fall will bring a return to school following an academic year like no other. At present, that return looks to be shadowed by budget cuts necessitated by the funding shortfall.
Other bills and amendments proposed earlier this session would have guaranteed schools no less in state aid in each of the next two years than they receive in the current one, protecting against further pandemic upheaval and the expiration of current innovations to target aid where it’s needed most.
We strongly urge the Senate to include similar provisions in its upcoming budget. The work for a more just school funding and property-tax system will not end when this budget is signed. However, decisive action on this issue in the Senate is a crucial first step to greater equity for all Granite Staters.
Jeff is the Project Director of the NH School Funding Fairness Project.
Kathy Hubert, January 27, 2021 – Concord Monitor
The COVID-19 pandemic has tested institutions across New Hampshire in ways we never would have imagined a year ago, none more so than our public schools.
Students, families, educators, and administrators have had to adapt to constantly changing circumstances and to institute new ways of learning, often with little time and fewer resources. As a Granite State native, a longtime member of the local business community, and the parent of seven public school graduates, I know firsthand the importance of a quality education and am proud of the resilience and dedication our schools and schoolchildren have shown.
Because of that background, I am also, unfortunately, far too familiar with the painful and painfully frequent spending cuts and property tax hikes that have been synonymous with our public school system for decades now. I am deeply concerned that we are about to let that history repeat itself yet again.
Due to the pandemic and changes in law, public schools across the state face a possible loss of $90 million in state education aid in the coming year. In my hometown of Newport, the loss is expected to be about $1.2 million. As a result, we could see a local school property tax rate increase of roughly $3 per $1,000 – or almost $600 for a family with a home worth $200,000. Such an increase could come even though many communities across the state have already cut school spending to the bone.
Sadly, this story is by no means unique. The drop in state aid will likely be felt by families, not just in Newport, Claremont, or Charlestown, but in every corner of the state and could force more than 20 cities and towns to raise local property taxes by $2 per $1,000 or more in the months ahead. Of course, if you’ve followed this issue closely, as I have, it will come as little surprise that most of the communities who face the steepest potential hikes are those already forced to rely on sky-high property tax rates to ensure their children receive the education they need to succeed and to thrive. For instance, since it stands to lose more than $700,000 in education aid and since its assessed property value is so far below the state average on a per pupil basis, Allenstown would need to resort to a local property tax increase of more than $2.30 per $1,000 to make up the difference.
Continue the opinion piece at ConcordMonitor.com.
Kathy Hubert is a lifelong resident of Newport and a former owner of Hubert’s Department Stores. Among her civic and community endeavors, she is a member of the Board of Directors of the NH School Funding Fairness Project.
John Tobin, September 28, 2020 – New Hampshire Union Leader
ALTHOUGH largely unheeded in the shadow of COVID-19 and the 2020 election, two simultaneous efforts to resolve New Hampshire’s longstanding school funding and property tax inequities have moved forward during the spring and summer. Both will reach crucial turning points in the coming weeks.
More specifically, the constitutionality of the current school funding system may soon be decided by the New Hampshire Supreme Court, while, after months of research and discussion, the Commission to Study School Funding is preparing its recommendations for long-term reform of the current funding formula and the property taxes used to pay for it.
In March 2019, the Contoocook Valley School District (ConVal) and three other nearby districts filed suit challenging the constitutionality of the state’s school funding formula, which provides a base annual grant of $3,709 per student, even though the actual costs school districts incur average $16,000 per student. Because the state fails to meet its funding obligations, local taxpayers must make up the difference, at disproportionate tax rates that violate the state constitution. In June 2019, a superior court decision held that the current funding formula was irrational and unconstitutional and it directed the Legislature to fix it. The state appealed that ruling and the case was argued before the state Supreme Court late last week.
As the result of extensive and genuine grassroots pressure, the Legislature last year created an independent commission to study the school funding system and recommend long-term solutions that would create a more equitable and realistic funding formula. The commission is slated to issue its recommendations for further legislation by December 1, about the same time as we might expect a ruling from the Supreme Court in the ConVal case.
Continue the opinion piece at UnionLeader.com.