Karen Burnett-Kurie: HB 129 is costly and undermines public education

To The Daily Sun,

There is a hearing in Concord on New Hampshire HB 129: relative to "evidence-based" within public education, on Thursday, Oct. 16, 10 a.m. It will create significant expenses for all NH public schools. Chair of the Finance Committee holding the hearing is Kenneth Weyler and Vice Chair Dan McGuire, and people can call 603-271-3165 with input.

This bill states: "the term 'evidence-based' is either poorly defined or undefined in both law and educational practice.” This is not true. The Oxford dictionary states: “an approach to medicine, education, and other disciplines that emphasizes the practical application of the findings of the best available current research.” Also, evidenced-based is utilized in medical practices, social sciences and business; why a bill focused solely on education?
The bill goes on to state: “'Evidence-based' under this section means methods or techniques that meet at least one of the following requirements, without regard to peer review status: (a) Reproducibility in multiple, well-designed studies within a single discipline. (b) Independent confirmation by well-designed studies across multiple disciplines." How are these definitions substantially more clarifying? What is allowed for "indicators" in these "well-designed studies?" Since education is by nature multidisciplinary, what will distinguish studies "within a single discipline" versus "multidisciplinary?" Who or what is qualified as "independent confirmation?" They’re eliminating the use of peer review in this definition. Why? How is reproducible determined if not with peers? The bill states: "[the Legislature] believes that while peer review of studies has uses, including evaluating the proper design of studies, peer review alone has no weight in evaluating or falsifying truth claims." What does “alone" mean? Peer review is never the only technique used. How do they think replicability is determined? 

This bill adds significant costs for local school districts, undermines local control and has no benefit.

Karen Burnett-Kurie

Wolfeboro