Bruce Jenket: NH public schools are failing at educating our children

To The Daily Sun,

Steven Dionne’s “Elected officials show they don’t care what voter’s think” letter to the editor missed the mark (tinyurl.com/2r52penf). The majority of his comments were attacks against Gov. Kelly Ayotte and our state GOP representatives.

I’m not sure if Mr. Dionne’s rant was that he disagrees with the school voucher program as a whole or just that higher income applicants became eligible under SB 295. His $100 million estimate was from “Reaching Higher NH,” a teachers support organization. Here’s that estimate: tinyurl.com/2s4cd2rn. They “assumed” all private school students and home-schooled students will apply for school vouchers when currently only 25% do.

To put things into perspective, New Hampshire spent just under $4 billion for K-12 in the 2023-24 school year, tinyurl.com/4ekxe863. The voucher program cost taxpayers $27 million last year. That’s less than 1%. Much ado about nothing in my opinion.

What individuals like Mr. Dionne can’t understand is why NH even has a voucher program. To be blunt, it’s because the NH public school system is failing our kids. Here is a link to the NH Department of Education for the Laconia School District: tinyurl.com/4ye528zk. Laconia has an 85% graduation rate. And of those that do graduate, their proficiencies are only 43% in English, 30% in math and 30% in science. And parents wonder why their adult children live at home into their late 20s.

Until school administrators wake up and stop wasting time teaching diversity, equity and inclusion, critical race theory, gender fluidity and other woke nonsense, parents want an alternative. I live in Moultonborough and our math and science proficiencies are under 50%, tinyurl.com/4vy79d6a. I ran for school board this year to address this issue but lost. Parents opting for private schools or homeschooling realize our public schools are failing our kids. That is the real issue that needs to be addressed.

Bruce Jenket

Moultonborough