The Concord Monitor wrote about education funding in a recent editorial –more specifically, the lack of funding that the state provides to its schools.The legislature has discontinued the school renovation grants, reduced aid to many districts in the education funding formula, and has held the funding per pupil stagnant at $3,500 in order to avoid a broad-based tax, leaving towns and cities to increase their local and property taxes:
At the heart of the problem is the Legislature’s determination that an adequate education for a child without special needs or low-income background can be had for $3,500 per year. That figure was laughable when it was adopted in 2008, when average per-pupil spending was in the $10,000 range. Today, per-pupil spending averages more than $14,000 per year.
According to the editorial, the low funding levels don’t meet the state’s constitutional responsibility of an adequate education under the Claremont decision. But districts and taxpayers won’t challenge the state out of fear that even the $3,500 would be taken away, leaving the state off the hook for its students.
An inadequate education system not only hurts our students, but the future of the state:
While other states are moving forward, New Hampshire is falling behind in ways that fail its students, shortchange the state’s economic future and serve as a disincentive for young families to move here or remain here.
Read the full article here.
