THEY’RE BAAAAAACK!!

What’s back? Why, school vouchers.

These vouchers are available to students whose family has an annual income at or below 300% of the federal poverty level, which translates into $90,000 for a family of four. These vouchers can be used as tuition for home schooling, and religious and private schools. So far 87% has gone to religious schools. The average voucher is about $4,800, with varying amounts dependent on certain characteristics of the student.

Hearings will take place on Thursday, January 19 before the House Education Committee on proposed bills HB464 and HB367. These two bills are looking to expand school voucher eligibility. 

HB464 would expand the program to include students in districts where the public school has been designated as “persistently dangerous”, students eligible for free or reduced price meals, students with a parent in active duty in the military service or National Guard, students with a documented approved manifest educational hardship, children with disabilities, are homeless, migratory, in foster care, English language learners, students who are bullied and students who live within the boundaries of a “low performing” public school, which is based on standardized testing or graduation rates. 

HB367 would expand the program by raising the income eligibility level to 500% of the poverty level which translates into $150,000 for a family of four.

To date, nearly 90% of these public funds has been disbursed to students who were already being home schooled or attending a private school. Only 694 students left the public school system for private or home schooling. Which means that $22.8 million could/should have been spent in property poor districts and/or low income areas. THAT is what would have helped thousands of students in those school districts.

We have no idea if this program is operating in a fair manner. Where is the oversight? Is there any? Why is 88% of the vouchers going to children in religious schools? Do we know if any students were turned away from private schools or alternative education providers because of race, religion, LGBTQ identity or other discrimination? 

Perhaps, a study with convincing and valid conclusions needs to be done before expanding a program where less than 700 students state wide availed themselves of. 

If you would like to voice your opposition to these two bills before the end of the day Thursday, Jan. 19, sign in on the on-line portal. You will need to do this twice, once for each bill - and note that they are being heard by the House Education Committee. You DO NOT have to submit testimony in order to oppose these bills. 

UPDATE: The Keene School Board has voted to restore funding for the special education positions that had been proposed to be cut. Thanks to all who advocated for this change! 

The Keene School Board faces some imposing challenges in formulating this year’s budget proposal, with the end of federal Covid relief money and increased operating costs, largely due to inflation.  Nonetheless, they recognize the importance of increasing compensation for teachers and tutors to try to attract educators to fill the many vacancies that have been left open in the system. 

The School Board is proposing compensation increases for teachers over the next four years of 3.7%, 2.6%, 3.0%, and 2.3%.  For tutors, who provide special education services to individual students, they are proposing total compensation increases of 7.5%, 7.2%, and 4.1% over the next three years, as well as an increased contribution to health insurance for tutors working 30 hours/week or more.

Keene residents attending the meeting expressed their gratitude for the hard work the Board continues to do, but also expressed their profound frustration with the Board’s proposal to cut special education positions at Franklin, Fuller, and Symonds Schools. 

The meeting was packed, and the many special educators in attendance impressed on the School Board the need to look beyond the numbers, beyond the ratios, and beyond the formulas to consider the full experience of each student and each teacher in our schools. Keene does not use “weighted ratios” when calculating special educators’ caseloads, i.e., the precise needs of each child are not taken into account. 

The needs of some children are considerably greater than others, and when educators give those children the attention they need and deserve it makes it much more difficult for them to provide the same level of care and attention to other students.  Our teachers are committed to giving each of our children the educational experience they deserve, and the current formula for determining student to teacher ratios does not take this into account.

School Board chair George Downing pointed to the compensation increases as evidence of the Board’s effort to acknowledge the exceptional work of our teachers and attract more educators to our schools, but some in attendance pointed out that attracting and retaining teachers is not just about compensation – it is also about the culture of the schools and the teachers’ ability to believe that they are being given a real chance to fulfill their mission to serve every child.  This cannot be achieved by increasing the demands on their finite time and energy, no matter how dedicated they are.

Due to a minor error in calculation, the final numbers on the budget – and their impact on tax rates – were not available tonight.  The board will need to revise the budget to account for the error and will presumably have a corrected version available to the public very soon.  The end result will be a modest increase in total operating costs, accompanied by reasonable increases to provide deserved compensation increases for teachers and tutors.

At a time when Republicans in the House are proposing two new bills (HB 367 and HB 464) that will increase public funds diverted to school vouchers by an “indeterminable” amount, it is vital that the community stand behind our teachers and our public schools.

The Reverend Dana McLean Greeley was my wife's great uncle. I never knew the man but I am quite fond of his many decedents. 

Rev. Greeley was head of the Unitarian Universalist Association during the 1960s, and in that role played an important part in bringing white support to the cause of civil rights. 

In 1965, Unitarian Universalist ministers were among those who answered a call from Dr. Martin Luther King for participants from northern white churches to participate in voting rights marches between Selma and Montgomery Alabama. One of the UU ministers, Rev. James Reeb, was assaulted and beaten to death by segregationists at that time.

It was following Rev. Reeb's murder that Rev. Greeley went down to Selma in his role as head of the UU church. There he participated in organizing the memorial service for James Reeb and in negotiating with law enforcement for the peaceful passage of marchers in the streets. The actions in Selma, including the martyrdom of Reeb, were crucial in building public support for the Voting Rights Act, which was passed by Congress later that year.

After Selma, Rev. Greeley became far more involved in the civil rights movement and built a strong relationship with Dr. King that lasted until King was assassinated in 1968.

In 1985, one year before his death, Rev. Greeley was interviewed for Eyes on the Prize, the seminal documentary of the civil right era. The full interview video can be found hosted by the library website of Washington University in St. Louis, but I have excerpted below some of what he had to say about his relationship with and admiration for Dr. King. 

There has been a lot of apprehension and misinformation going around about Keene's Downtown Infrastructure Improvement and Reconstruction Project. The City has put out a new video that I think does a good job explaining the project being proposed, the process that got us to this point, and the next steps forward. 

I like this project because it addresses several drawbacks with our current downtown, starting with the ridiculous and wasteful traffic pattern we have around central square. Right now, we have a situation that combines the difficulty of merging in a traffic circle with the delay of waiting at a stop light. Its the worst of both worlds.

What the new design shows us is that our traffic pattern could be far more efficient if, instead of having that intersection be both a circle and a stoplight, we picked one or the other. A redesigned intersection would be more efficient in terms of: 

• Driver time saved
• Reduced impact of automobile noise and exhaust on users of the downtown space
• Less pavement needs to be dedicated to car traffic, freeing up that space for more people-centric uses

That last one is key. Right now, our main intersection downtown is so inefficient that entire lanes of asphalt north of the square can be turned into a pedestrian plaza and traffic would still get out of the city center faster. 

If you want to make your voice heard in support of this project (or against, even) come to the public informational meeting at Heberton Hall at 5:00 PM on Monday, January 30. 

An electric vehicle (EV) uses one or more electric motors to drive the car. It can be powered independently by a battery system, using solar panels or by changing fuel to electricity. Another way is to use a collector system using electricity from extravehicular sources. EV’s are believed to be the technology that could decarbonize road and highway transportation, which accounts for 16% of global emissions. 

There are many modes of EV transportation now including rail and road vehicles, nautical and electric aircraft and spacecraft. There’s a “Moonbike” that is part bike, part snowmobile, in addition to trucks, cars and motorcycles. The auto industry has been looking into electrification plans in order to comply with policy regulations while keeping a competitive position in a changing market. In 2021 quite a few automakers proclaimed their goal of going all electric in the future. This could mean a larger range of models to choose from along with more competitive prices. 

This has all led to a huge growth in the electric vehicle industry and the need for nationwide EV charging stations. In 2021, the availability of these stations increased by nearly 40%. 

Here in New Hampshire, Senate Bill 52, a proposal to jump start investment in electric vehicle infrastructure, is scheduled for a hearing before the Transportation Committee next week. Thanks to Clean Energy – NH you can find the text of SB52 here.

Call or email your representatives to let them know you support this critical step to keep our state competitive as EV adoption accelerates here in New England and nationwide.

You can find your Senator and their contact information here and your House member(s) here.

EV info sourced from www.iea.org/reports/electric-vehicles

My friend Raleigh Ormerod is a man of many talents. In addition to being a fellow Keene City Councilor, inventor of the Swiffer, and a rather impressive father, it turns out he is also quite an artist. Now, after going through several years of difficult medical challenges, Raleigh has drawn on that experience to come out with a compelling debut art installation at Dartmouth Medical Center. 

The pieces in his new installation, "Prime of Night" are computer-designed images that have been produced as limited edition prints on a glossy metal surface. They feature nocturnal animals on a black background, with each animal composed of exquisitely detailed geometric shapes. 

These prints evoke the best of Raleigh's personality - organized and analytical, detail oriented, colorful, innovative, with an underlying tone of benevolence, connection to nature, and peacefulness. As Raleigh says, the high-gloss metal evokes a feeling of "strength, resilience, and hope." 

The overall effect is positive and uplifting, which I think is a good place for contemporary visual art to be in this, the year 2023. It's been a rough stretch and we all could use some brightness and hope. 

Raleigh's installation on display through March 31, 2023 at Dartmouth Medical Center's 2K Lobby Gallery in Lebanon, New Hampshire. I hope there will be an installation in Keene someday.

Check out the video of his artwork below and visit his website for more details.

There was a good showing in Concord today of people testifying in support of HB 61 that would get rid of the Divisive Concepts Law.

The Divisive Concepts Law is part of the broader racist Republican attempt to undermine public school systems as a means of privatizing education. New Hampshire's particular Divisive Concepts Law is a piece of copycat legislation brought over from Rick DeSantis' Florida. Its the legislative part of that whole nebulous "Critical Race Theory" brouhaha that was very popular with Republicans for quite a while before they got their butts handed to them on that issue in last November's election, and in the March election before that. 

It turns out that voters aren't as racist as a lot of people assumed! Maybe Republicans will take the hint and back off from this ill-advised relic of the culture war from several FOX News cycles gone by. 

The purpose of the Divisive Concepts Law is to make sure that a full and honest discussion of the experiences of racial, ethnic, and religious minority groups is excluded from the American classroom. It says, for example, that white parents can sue a teacher if they feel their kid is somehow made to feel uncomfortable about being white because of a discussion about slavery in school. Or they don't like a book about Star-Bellied Sneeches. 

It seems that parents who insist their kids play dodgeball will do anything to protect the poor dears from maybe feeling the least twinge of conscience over the recognition that they are the beneficiaries of a system built upon 500+ years of genocide, enslavement, and racial oppression.

Of course, many of the "parent" groups that have pushed this stuff are actually the local arms of Koch-sponsored, out of state conservative dark money organizations. Groups looking to experiment with education policy have been targeting New Hampshire because it is small, pliant, and a little money can go a long way. Last year, after this hateful and offensive bill was passed through scurrilous budget process shenanigans, some of these groups put up money to set up a hotline so that parents could inform teachers for being too woke.

I get that race is a difficult topic for a lot of my fellow white people - though far more so adults than children. In my experience, children can handle discussions of race - and Black children don't have any other choice. Sheltering white kids from these discussions means that they are being denied the tools and knowledge they will need to prosper in a multiracial society. Throwing a wet blanket over all discussion of racial issues and calling it "colorblindness" is not the way forward here.

I highly recommend watching - or listening, really - to this video testimony, which features Rep. Jodi Newell and Rep. Nicholas Germana, back-to-back. Jodi talks about the chilling effect the Divisive Concepts Law has on classroom discussion, and what divisiveness really is. Then Nick brings the history.

The Report of Keene's Ad Hoc Committee on Housing Stability was presented before the City Council's Planning, Licenses, and Development Committee today. This has been a long time coming, and is the product of a lot of hard work by a lot of good people. 

Some may recall my role as a City Councilor in the establishment of this Ad Hoc Committee. After yet another expulsion of people camping outside behind a local shopping center, I got together with Councilors Bryan Lake and Catt Workman, and the three of us wrote a letter to the Mayor and City Council with a set of proposed actions that the City could take with respect to the ongoing crisis of housing and homelessness.

This is the agenda we asked for:

• Establish locations around the city to be designated as appropriate for camping. These locations should be provided with city-funded dumpster and latrine services to minimize the impact of campers on the on the local environment.
• Establish a “safe parking” program, entailing the designation of parking lots where people living in their vehicles would be allowed to park and sleep overnight in relative security.
• Work with our social services partners to provide occupants of camping and parking areas with outreach support and pathways to more stable housing opportunities. 
• Review building code and zoning ordinances to make room for lower-cost housing solutions, such as tiny houses, cottage communities, and conversion of existing spaces into accessory dwelling units.
• Work to expedite projects that bring expanded housing capacity into the city, with a balanced focus on both subsidized and market-rate housing.
• Find a long-term solution for the lack of public bathrooms downtown.

There was a rather amazing hearing before a Council committee, with public support from a panoply of voices, including activists, advocates, agency representatives, health professionals, the clergy, public officials, and people experiencing homelessness. I told my own story of being homeless when I was 19. That meeting demonstrated to the Council that there was broad, community consensus on the need to put together a new strategy for Keene, and the matter was eventually referred to an Ad Hoc Committee appointed by the Mayor.

That Committee sat every month from April through December. I was not on the Committee, but I went to all the meetings, and so did a bunch of other people - the Monadnock Interfaith Project held ice cream socials at the UU church to strategize before every meeting. Boy howdy, that's how you organize.

The report that was presented earlier this evening was the culmination of the Committee process, and provides us with a strategy that we can follow that will help our community meet the needs of our most vulnerable. Now that it is being released, it is up to City Staff and the City Council to take up its recommendations individually to make sure that they actually come to fruition.

Do the recommendations that have come out of this Committee give the community everything that Councilors Lake, Workman and I asked for?  No, but, but we got a lot of what we wanted and there are some big wins. 

This is a long post already, so please find its continuation in Part 2.

There was a hearing for HB 34 before the House's Children and Family Law Committee. It would raise the legal age for getting married from 16 to 18 in New Hampshire.

The bill was introduced by its sponsor, Rep. Cassandra Levesque (D-Barrington), who is the activist and legislator largely responsible for getting the age raised to 16 (from 13 for girls and 14 for boys), back in 2019. Since then, Republicans have been stonewalling on getting the age raised all the way up to 18, 

Rep. Levesque described the generational impact that child marriages have on peoples lives, as has occurred within her own family history. She spoke of the how child marriage commonly coincides with trafficking and abuse. She described a case of a 16 year old being married to a 49-year old, in exchange for financial compensation to a parent, as an example of something that happens and should not be sanctioned by law.

"You have to be 18 to sign a legal contract. Why do we allow 16 year olds to sign a legal contract of marriage?" Rep. Levesque asked,. She noted that girls who get married at 16 face a barrier to getting legal representation if they want to get out by getting a divorce, because they are not legally old enough to sign a contract with a lawyer. 

Republicans were predictably harping on the idea that marriages under 18 in New Hampshire are quite rare. Which is true - these marriages have become pretty rare. This article says 10 in the past three years. To me, that's a signal to close the book on the practice. But to Republicans, ensuring that someone can marry two years before they can vote is more of a "freedom" thing.

However, as one might expect, what it really boils down to is abortion. The theory goes that if a 16 year old gets pregnant, they would be less likely to get an abortion if they could get married instead. It seems that some people look back fondly on the days of shotgun weddings and see a lot of value in coercive models of family behavior.

The hearing closed with the moving testimony of Rep. Maria Perez (D-Milford). She shared her story of being sold into an arranged marriage when she was a minor, and of the abuse she endured at the hands of a much-older husband.. 

Her statement is queued up in the YouTube link below - it is recommended watching. Milford can be proud of its State Rep.

Remember Christmas Eve? There had been some crazy weather coming through, as temperatures dropped from balmy to bitter cold and falling rain turned to ice. The storm affected grid infrastructure all across the country and power distribution lines were failing all over New England. Heroic utility linemen were sacrificing their holidays to make sure the rest of us had light.

That day also saw some wildness in New England's energy market. I know I wasn't the only nerd reloading ISO New England's real time maps and charts that day just watching in morbid fascination as electricity prices went through the roof. Check out this graph from ISO New England.

Electricity prices on Christmas Eve were already extremely high - averaging over $484 per megawatt hour (MWh) over the course of the day. But in the late afternoon they hit escape velocity, with regional prices peaking at $2,816/MWh around 5 PM. By contrast, I just checked the cost of a megawatt hour right now and it is $45.72.

ISO New England did not call for controlled power outages on Christmas Eve, but did declare a capacity deficiency, meaning the region’s supply of electricity was insufficient to meet required operating reserves in addition to satisfying consumer demand, at 4:30 p.m. This action was taken after approximately 2,150 megawatts (MW) of resources scheduled to contribute power during the evening peak became unavailable.

The way energy markets work, energy companies commit to being able to sell electricity to the grid when it is called for, and they are compensated for this commitment. Many fossil fuel-powered plants are kept around for the purpose of collecting these capacity payments, which are supposed to ensure when a demand spike in energy occurs, there will be generation capacity to fill it.

While blackouts on one of the chilliest days of the year were narrowly avoided, one can't ignore that, on Christmas Eve, several of our region's power generation companies failed to deliver the power they had been paid to commit to provide. Our regions dirtier, expensive, oil-powered plants were fired up to cover the shortfall that day, to fill in for natural gas plants knocked offline during the cold.

I don't have any grand lessons to draw here, except to say that its important to examine how the systems that support our lives perform when they are under stress.

I do have a couple other thoughts. First, keep this story in mind the next time Republicans try to undermine energy efficiency programs like NH Saves, claiming they just want the best deal for ratepayers. There are real capacity constraints in our electricity system, and the one of the best ways to live with them is to ensure that we aren't wasting the power we do have.

Second, I think there is a case for moving our peak capacity generation systems away from fossil fuels, and toward solutions like biomass, biofuels, hydrogen, and battery storage. The capacity payment system is a subsidy for power generation systems that are too expensive for every day use but can be counted on to help out in a pinch. If we are going to have this subsidy around anyway, why not use it to finance something a little greener?