In an oped the Concord Monitor titled “Our Turn: To improve education, reach higher,” the Nashua Telegraph featured as “Reaching Higher NH aims to meet school challenges,” and the New Hampshire Business Review titled, “Let’s champion our public schools: Reaching Higher NH will work to ensure the promise of our public schools is available to all,” the Reaching Higher board outlines the importance of supporting New Hampshire’s public schools. Though our schools face challenges, many are going above and beyond to deliver quality, innovative approaches to student learning and, as Rath and Reische state, we must come together as a state to support their good work:
…Our schools face real challenges… More than two-thirds of our 12th-graders are not proficient in math and a majority are not proficient in reading. The result is that too many need remedial work in college or in job training. We have over 3,000 STEM job openings a year but must challenge ourselves to ensure that our students have the opportunity to fill them.
But New Hampshire’s public schools have become incubators for innovation in recent years. School districts such as Sanborn Regional, Pittsfield and White Mountains Regional and charters such as Nashua’s Academy for Science and Design are leading the way in offering innovative teaching that maintains high standards while meeting the special needs of each student. It would be easier to fall back on the familiar, but our children deserve better.
We have formed Reaching Higher New Hampshire because we are committed to our children and their schools. We must act now to preserve our strengths, while investing energy and resources to ensure that schools meet the demands we are placing on them.
We are all in this together. As parents, we want to see our children succeed. As educators, we take pride in the accomplishments of our students and in our contributions to their futures. As business people, we rely on our workforce and want to help our schools prepare students for the jobs of tomorrow. As proud citizens of New Hampshire, we want to ensure that all our students get the opportunity to achieve their dreams.
Read the full piece here.
