Strafford Superior Court Justice Brian Tucker on Monday ruled against the New Hampshire Department of Education’s request for an injunction against the Croydon School Board for paying tuition to send five students to the Newport Montessori School. The following statements from education policy experts at The Heartland Institute – a free-market think tank – may be used for attribution. For more comments, refer to the contact information below. To book a Heartland guest on your program, please contact Jim Lakely, director of communications, at [email protected] and 312/377-4000.
“I applaud the decision by Justice Tucker to deny the preliminary injunction against the Croydon School Board. This is a simple case of the state trying to bully a tiny school district into ending its school choice program, while leaving five other district choice programs in place.
“The New Hampshire Department of Education should focus on the thousands of children it is failing to educate properly instead of forcing five students back into its one-size-fits-all school system. The state should immediately withdraw this lawsuit and stop its legal bullying.”
Lennie Jarratt
Project Manager, Education
The Heartland Institute
[email protected]
312/377-4000
“Nothing illustrates the myth of local control more clearly than New Hampshire attorney general suing to deny Croydon citizens educational choice.
“In this instance, a small district uses the far more efficient system of school choice instead of building expensive government infrastructure. In return, the state of New Hampshire initiates a lawsuit attempting to strip citizens of choice and impose its one-size-fits-all solutions.
“The court’s appropriate denial of a preliminary injunction should be only the first step. The best outcome for the citizens of New Hampshire would be for the court to find that it is the district system that is failing New Hampshire citizens, not the small district of Croydon.”
Bruno Behrend
Senior Fellow, Education Policy
The Heartland Institute
[email protected]
312/377-4000
“Justice Tucker has made the correct decision here. The Croydon School Board has both truth and precedent on its side. The attorney general’s office had previously given its intimated support for Croydon’s school choice program, which has so far saved the city $16,000 just from these five students.
“Patronizing, condescending, and insulting statements from the AG’s office that these children are being ‘irreparably harmed’ by not being in the public school system, which is the only place they can receive an ‘adequate education,’ actually do wonders to help build support for school choice, so I encourage them to keep up the rhetoric.”
Tim Benson
Policy Analyst
The Heartland Institute
[email protected]
312/377-4000
The Heartland Institute is a 31-year-old national nonprofit organization headquartered in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Its mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems. For more information, visit our Web site or call 312/377-4000.
Lennie Jarratt is the former director of the Center for Education Opportunities at The Heartland Institute
Bruno Behrend, J.D., is a senior fellow for education policy at The Heartland Institute.
Tim Benson joined The Heartland Institute in September 2015 as a policy analyst in the Government Relations Department.
