Open Enrollment/Predator Schools

A Christian perspective?

On October 17^th the NH Supreme Court, in an opinion written by Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald, put another nail in the coffin of public education in NH. The Supreme Court upheld an interpretation of the new “Open Enrollment” law that allows a parent to enroll a child in a public school in a district in which a student does not live and requires the school district where the child does live to pay tuition to the new school, even if the child’s home district did not vote to participate in the Open Enrollment program and even if the receiving district does not incur any additional cost to take on the transferring student.

NH legislators lifted the Open Enrollment scheme directly from ALEC, the Koch Brothers funded, radically libertarian organization that proposes legislation for Free Staters to propose in their home state legislatures. The NH version of the ALEC template gives the receiving school district discretion to reject applicants that the ALEC version doesn’t. This makes it easier for the receiving district to reject high cost students with special ed plans. Stated another way, this allows high cost students to be more concentrated in struggling districts. The NH version also makes the transfer permanent, as long as the transferring student behaves and desires to be in the new district.

Pittsfield was the targeted district in the Supreme Court case. It struggles mightily. I previously wrote about John Freeman, a former superintendent, who reformed the district and improved outcomes with federal and private grants that increased district spending by just 5 percent. Unfortunately, when the grants went away, so did the improvements. Among other problems, Pittsfield is among the school districts with the lowest spending on teacher wages. A new teacher with a child is paid so little that the teacher qualifies for SNAP (food stamp) benefits and the child qualifies for the free and reduced cost lunch program. Exceptionally low wages leads to constant turnover. Constant turnover means teaching is inconsistent and new teachers treat Pittsfield as an extra internship before moving to districts that pay living wages.

NH has a 1950s style school funding system that is more dependent on the value of property in a community than any other state in America. The equalized value of property per pupil in a community, as you all know, is a measure of a school district’s financial strength. Pittsfield is bottom ten on this measure. It has $1,070,794 of real estate against which it can levy a tax to raise money for schools. The average property wealth in NH is $2,082,222 per pupil.

The receiving or more accurately “predator” district in the Pittsfield case was Prospect Mountain. Prospect Mountain is a joint effort of the Alton School District and the Barnstead School District. Alton has an equalized valuation six times that of Pittsfield at $6,381,900. Barnstead is at $1,658,290 per pupil.

I remember pitching the constituent unions of the AFL-CIO for an endorsement when I ran for governor. I talked about making school funding fairer, as I always do. The business manager for the Iron Workers Union responded that he had just moved to Alton, why would he want to change anything. It’s probably unfair, but this is how I think of Alton. We got our’s, screw you. I didn’t get the endorsement by the way.

Enter Cornerstone.

Interestingly, the “state” wasn’t represented before the Supreme Court by the NH Attorney General or a lawyer from the NH Department of education in the Pittsfield case, according to the published decision. The Prospect Mountain side of the case advancing the concept of predator districts was presented by lawyers from Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher, the fifth largest law firm in the US by revenue. Gibson’s client was a group called Cornerstone. Cornerstone is a Christian advocacy group operating in NH. Cornerstone Policy Research is a 501c3 non-profit. Cornerstone Action is a 501c4 lobbying group. Cornerstone Policy Research is a state affiliate for a national group Focus on Families. Cornerstone bills itself as “NH’s Voice for Christians in Concord and the Courts.” Extreme-conservatives Karen Testerman and Kevin Smith were former executive directors of the group.

Why would a Christian advocacy group be supporting predator school districts in NH?

John Freeman says it best. Not satisfied with taxpayer-funded vouchers that fund private and religious schools or home “schooling,” John points out the legislature has now created a system of predator school districts.

… the emergence of at least one (for now) predator school district that can legally poach promising students from other districts, poorer school districts, neighboring school districts, struggling districts already disadvantaged by poverty and now further disadvantaged by [this] legislation.

[Worse yet, this] scheme allows for the predator districts to schedule their application deadlines in the late spring and accept rolling admissions into the subsequent school year . . . after the victim districts have adopted their budgets for the upcoming year, resulting in unanticipated obligations heaped on the districts when it was already impossible to reconstruct annual budgets to accommodate the added financial obligations.

Perversely, such predator districts might not incur any additional expenses for the inclusion of a few students in each grade, while the victim districts would not realize any savings….

Follow the money.

The Open Enrollment scheme means that the victim district pays the predator district 80 percent of its per pupil cost, even if the new student has no additional cost to the predator district. Pittsfield, one of the poorest districts in the state, now pays $17,319 in tuition each year to Prospect Mountain, one of the wealthiest districts. In addition, Pittsfield loses its $4100 adequacy payment from the state.

I could understand why students might transfer out of Pittsfield to get better opportunities at Prospect Mountain.

As Dr. Freeman further points out,

Without a doubt, the persistently low salaries for teachers and other staff members, the resulting high rate of staff turnover, the limitations on student programming options due to funding struggles, and the immeasurable impact of poverty have played significant roles in wounding public education in Pittsfield, wounding the community of Pittsfield.

Here’s the thing, and Dr. Freeman proved it with the grants he helped the Pittsfield School District win, the “remarkable progress made with the help of temporary grant funds provided a vision of what was possible; Pittsfield - and other communities disadvantaged by economics, the unconstitutional state funding structure, and poverty - need not be condemned to the bottom of the barrel. Pittsfield could enjoy vibrant, student-centered schools that served both its students and its community, were they not disadvantaged by both the debilitating inactions and the destructive actions of legislators.”

Pittsfield is a failing school district. Does the Open Enrollment scheme, with its punitive tuition payments, help Pittsfield get better? Does the scheme help Pittsfield to compete? Pittsfield’s school taxes are already $2.00 higher per thousand than the state average in a community with a median household income a full $30,000 less per year than the state’s average.

Will Pittsfield’s loss of a top student and $21,419 get back advanced placement classes, woodshop, academic coaching positions, a reading teacher, or a program of extended learning opportunities?

Would this pass for Christian charity?

Probably not, which is likely the point of the legislation passed by NH Free Staters backed by a “Christian” advocacy organization, like Cornerstone.