Well, Gov. Chris Sununu and Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut have put another nail in the coffin of public education by pushing further funding for Prenda, an independent for-profit company tasked with spending our tax money on non-public schools.

Last year Gov. Sununu gave the out-of-state corporation a no-bid contract using COVID relief dollars and agreed to pay them $5,000 per student, which is more than the average $3,800 per pupil adequacy payment to local school districts. On December 8, the Executive Council approved this $5.8 million contract.

I don’t know about you, but I feel robbed of the tax money I have been paying to support our public schools. Remember, the money the State hands out also comes from us. And in case you missed this, Prenda is under investigation in the state of Arizona for siphoning public taxpayer dollars while providing little to no oversight for quality education.

I remember people from Arizona testifying at one of the New Hampshire legislative hearings on this matter saying what a wonderful deal this would be for the people of New Hampshire. As I recall, they spent so much time at the microphone that many New Hampshire residents were cut short on testifying.

According to Edelblut, the current program that started eight months ago has attracted few takers among public schools. “Principally as a result of constrained availability of qualified staffing, the program’s initial start is slower than anticipated.” So we are now going to throw $5.8 million more dollars into it? The primary focus of this program is to recruit enough students to keep this multi-marketing scheme alive.

Do Gov. Sununu and Commissioner Edelblut know that we have 14,925 public school teachers in our 1,837 public schools who are already qualified to teach our children? Of course, they do. Give our public schools the support they need to develop more programs to support all students. Do Gov. Sununu and Commissioner Edelblut, paid by taxpayers, understand that we expect our State Department of Education to support our public schools, not turn them over to for-profit corporations with our tax money? Of course, they do.

Here are some questions. Do parents of special education students understand they are waiving their rights to protection of certain special education laws if they sign up for one of these programs? Do parents know there is no requirement to be a trained educator or other qualified individual to provide instruction? You need only to have previous paid or volunteer working experience with children or homeschooling your own children.

Do you want an out-of-state corporation that is under investigation in Arizona for the very same scheme in charge of the education of New Hampshire’s youth? Do you want Prenda to decide what curriculum will be taught in the State of New Hampshire? I think Gov. Sununu has gone way too far to placate the base he thinks he needs to get re-elected. As soon as we started down this slippery slope with Commissioner Edelblut, he should have fired him and put someone in place who believed in our public schools, paid for by our tax money. This is a black mark on our state and on his legacy.

(Judith Ackerson lives in Franklin.)

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