Dorothy Bauer

This bill takes local control of education away from the citizens. While charter schools, when well run, can provide a successful alternative to public schools, as does the Surry Village Charter School, they have a record of failure and do not have enough oversight to prevent fraud, such as Coastal Waters in Exeter, or ability to manage fiscal needs, as Leaf Charter School in Alstead. Any claims of higher test scores can be explained by the fact that students are self-selected and therefore a subset of the total population, and special education services are not typically provided with the same intensity as in public schools. Public schools, by their nature, have to enroll everyone, so comparing charter school scores with public schools is like comparing bananas with fruit salad. This bill is written with a bias that will create harm in our educational system, in our town governments, and for families who do not have the where-with-all to transport their children to alternative schools.