Also on today’s menu:
State Lags In Support For Elderly, Disabled
Alternative Plans Under Discussion For House Leadership
Biden Brokers Aid To Gaza Amidst Conflict
Representatives of the New Hampshire Press Association, the Granite State News Collaborative, and the New Hampshire First Amendment Coalition have sent a letter to the New Hampshire Department of Education, asking for any documents relating to a 13-member task force that over the past two years has been reviewing the rules governing minimum standards for public schools. The department has contracted with the National Center for Competency-Based Learning to consider overhauling the rules, but the task force meetings have been closed to the public in apparent violation of RSA 91-A, the state’s Right-To-Know law.
Fred Bramante, president of the National Center for Competency-Based Learning and the former chair of the Board of Education, has served as chair of the task force since the Executive Council approved the contract in November 2020, but there are no meeting minutes, records of votes, or attendance listings, the news organizations contend. The New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled in the 1976 case of Bradbury v. Shaw, that a private committee that is heavily involved in government is subject to the right-to-know law.
Elizabeth Brown, an attorney for the Department of Education, sent a formal response, stating that the department would not be making the materials public. “The relationship between NHED and NCCBL is a contractual relationship,” she wrote. “NCCBL is not part of NHED nor is it subject to RSA 91-A. NCCBL’s contractual obligation to ‘convene and facilitate the work of a Task Force that includes representation from all stakeholders’ does not alter NCCBL’s legal relationship with NHED nor transform NCCBL into a public body subject to RSA 91-A. … The critical component of the law that is ignored by the Request is that [for] the committee [to be considered a public body, it] must be ‘established by the general court.’”
She added, “Mr. Bramante’s personal comments on NCCBL’s website are irrelevant.”
The Department of Education released a draft of the new rules in March and it must approve of the rules in 2024, when the last decade’s rules expire. Bramante has been conducting listening sessions around the state to hear from parents and educators, and he has said the state has an opportunity to move forward on an effort that began 20 years ago to change public schools into a competency-based student assessment approach that focuses on mastery, rather than grades. The department expects to have a final draft ready by November 9.
Bramante has argued that the review process has been the most transparent of any previous review. “This has been the most inclusive process in the history of this document,” he told lawmakers in the House and Senate education committees at a meeting last week.
State Lags In Support For Elderly, Disabled
New Hampshire ranks 24th nationwide and last in New England when it comes to support and services for older residents and people with disabilities, according to AARP’s latest analysis. It scored near the bottom on Medicaid spending, and earned low rankings for the percentage of people who are hospitalized while receiving care at home or in nursing facilities.
The state did better at the number of nursing home residents who are up to date on COVID-19 vaccinations, and the employment rate among people with disabilities, according to the report.
AARP assessed the states and the District of Columbia in five areas: affordability and access to services; the choices people have about their care; safety and quality of care; support for family caregivers; and community integration. The analysis found that Granite Staters are spending more of their annual income on in-home or nursing home care than their counterparts in other states, and New Hampshire ranked 31st on the availability of adult day services.
Alternative Plans Under Discussion For House Leadership
With House Republicans having rejected the nomination of Ohio Representative Jim Jordan as speaker for the second time, members have been discussing alternative plans, such as introducing a resolution to give Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry more authority to conduct business, but any effort to empower McHenry would require the same House majority vote as electing a speaker. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-New York, told reporters that he is open to discussions with Republicans who were interested in governing in a bipartisan way.
Representative Steve Womack, R-Arkansas, said that Jordan supporters’ threats to put up opposing candidates to any member who does not vote for him “has not helped one iota” and he explained, “All I can tell you is that the tactics that have employed against me — the publishing of my office phone number and the messages, whether it’s conservative media or anybody else — this is all a result of going after people who do not basically represent the viewpoint of a whole lot of hardcore right-wing conservatives.”
Congress is approaching the deadline for a vote to avoid another government shutdown, and the impasse is preventing leaders from passing legislation to support allies in the wars in Israel and Ukraine.
Biden Brokers Aid To Gaza Amidst Conflict
President Joe Biden Jr. succeeded in persuading Israel to allow international assistance to Gaza, with Egypt agreeing to send 20 truckloads of humanitarian aid and Biden saying an additional $100 million in humanitarian assistance would be delivered to Gaza and the West Bank, but with the understanding that the aid would end if Hamas militants interfered.
Israel had cut off the flow of food, fuel, and water in Gaza after the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack. The Rafah border crossing connecting Gaza and Egypt was been damaged and the roads need to be repaired before aid can start flowing.
Meanwhile, the National Security Council has determined, based on “overhead imagery, intercepts, and open-source information”, that the massive explosion at Gaza’s Al Ahli Arab Hospital, which Palestinian officials say killed hundreds, was not caused by Israel, instead being the result of an errant rocket launched from a site west of the hospital. Israel says it was a Palestinian rocket, launched by a militant group known as Islamic Jihad, that exploded in mid-air and fell on the hospital grounds.
Columnist Robert Reich commented, “Biden gives a pitch-perfect speech about the October 7 massacres, holding Hamas clearly and firmly accountable. Then he says publicly that an Israeli occupation of Gaza would be a ‘big mistake.’ And he quietly and shrewdly engages other Arab heads of state to help restore peace.”
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