Look Homeward
An Open Letter to NH Governor Ayotte
The Field Trip
Dear Governor,
Wasting Public Dollars on Private Education is not just unconstitutional, it’s bad for our kids and terrible for our Democracy. Reforming Public Education is a better way forward.
April 27, 2025
Dear Governor,
While we have never met before, my impressions of you over the years have led me to believe that you are a person of integrity who is willing to take some risks in the interest of good public policy.
New Hampshire is not alone among states where private interests are seeking, for whatever reason, to funnel more and more public dollars into private educational institutions.
They may have the best of intentions, but the effect, nonetheless, is the same. It is consistent with a near-50-year trend, resulting in the transfer of wealth from middle and working-class families, that has led to the greatest disparity of wealth in our nation’s history.
In New Hampshire, the means for achieving this result has been what are termed “Education Freedom Accounts.” which translates into the Freedom to transfer the hard-earned dollars of average folks to those who choose to opt out of the American educational compact, first established through the genius of John Adams in the Massachusetts and New Hampshire constitutions.
The public education of our children lies at the heart of building a stronger sense of community, and public education was the key to what Adams and many of our founders felt was essential to the long-term health of democracy.
In fairness, public dissatisfaction with our public education system has been growing for a long time.
We all bear some responsibility for permitting this to happen. Not out of malice, but at least in part because we have not had a leader who could marshal our imaginations toward a vision of something better. I think you could be that kind of leader.
Let me be clear about something here. I’m not talking about “tax reform.”
The lines on that matter have been pretty well drawn over the years. I crashed my own Kamikaze plane into that aircraft carrier myself back in 1994, and yet today, we are still fighting over it. All the while ignoring what we could be doing to clarify the mission, especially in ways that serve the long-term and career interests of our kids.
I’m talking about genuine reform of the way that we educate our kids to prepare them for success in this new world.
Frankly, I’m betting that adapting our system may help resolve the funding question as well over the long-run, because a system of education that strengthens our sense of community, our democracy, and our faith in our direction and the future of our children will help create a consensus, as time goes by, for the level of spending that is appropriate to the challenges we face.
We have some great resources in New Hampshire who can be helpful to you. RMC Research in Portsmouth has been a leader over the years in innovative change, in fact, Everett Barnes, the CEO, was the teacher who changed my own life back in elementary school and he was a source of inspiration for my own zeal to reform our public schools back when I was in the State Senate and then as a candidate for Governor.
Tom Raffio, of Delta Dental, who has been a hero of mine since he helped my Alice found the Christa McAuliffe Planetarium Foundation, has been working with the NH Coalition for Business and Education to advocate for Competency-Based education. He has proven to be the kind of leader in NH that could help marshal public support.
Tony Wagner, of Holderness, is one of the foremost authorities in the world on educational effectiveness, and Fred Bramante, who has worked tirelessly since I first met him as an opponent in that same race for Governor, has dedicated countless hours over more than 20 years to helping develop a new set of “Competency-based standards” for our public schools.
These standards bring us from the era of education defined by “seat time” to an era where competency defines the bounds of our kid's dreams, where children have a passion for learning, and graduate from high school already on a glide path to a meaningful career.
Now, Fred is a very charismatic fellow, but he is not the Governor. Seizing upon the work he has done with others to craft these new standards for “competency-based learning” could become the thing you are most remembered for years from now, especially if you use this as an opportunity to not only reform the way we learn together but also if you use it as the opportunity to redirect our gaze homeward to our public schools.
I recognize that this final suggestion will be the most difficult for you, but it will also speak the most loudly to both the families of our kids and the amazing educators who truly do want the best for them.
I suggest that you announce your intention to END Educational Freedom Accounts on a timetable fair to those who have recently enrolled their children, with the goal of implementing a rigorous system of Competency-Based Learning and returning the public funds to the public schools to make our schools the model for reinventing public education in the US.
There will be some, on all sides of these questions, who will be critical of what I have said here, and there will be some who feel that I have professed too much faith in your integrity and vision, but I have always prided myself on being a radical centrist first and foremost. That is the reason I am no longer associated with either political party.
My political days are behind me, but I still dream of a day when our schools are once again the center of our communities. I stand ready to help in any way I can to make that happen.
You can be the Governor who really launches us on this path, beginning with the appointment of the next commissioner of Education. The standards, ten years in the making, have already been adopted by the State Board, but the commitment to them has been uninspired at best. The challenge is in their implementation. It is a legacy that will be remembered long after you are gone from public life.
Notes:
NH DOE Competency-Based Standards
NH Secrets, Legends & Lore Podcast with Fred Bramante
Listen to the podcast here:
Podetize Podcast | Apple Podcast | Podbean Podcast | Spotify Podcast
Watch on YouTube here:
National Center for Competency-Based Learning