New Hampshire’s House of Representatives is looking to confirm whether college students know basic civics, or what Free-Staters think civics is.
The N.H. House recently passed H.B. 112, which would require college students in the state to pass a citizenship exam to graduate from any of N.H.’s public colleges or universities, according to a March 29 video report by WMUR.
Rep. Michael Moffett (R-Loudon) argued this bill was to “cover gaps” in education because there are older students and out-of-state students who go to N.H’s public higher education institutions, according to the reporting.
Moffett added, “Why shouldn’t they also have a foundation in civic knowledge. We also have out-of-staters, the lot from Massachusetts, who don’t take this test in Massachusetts like we do in New Hampshire. Why should they be not required to have this basic, fundamental civics knowledge.”
Political Director for WMUR, Adam Sexton, stated in the video report that previous legislation requiring some form of civics exam was vetoed by Governor Chris Sununu a few years ago as it was viewed as “redundant.”
Firstly, according to doe.mass.edu, Massachusetts does require civics education for high school, as do most high schools in the U.S. It would be insane not to have some sort of civic education for high school youth generally, never mind prospective college attendees.
Secondly, we need to stop pretending that House Free Staters are looking out for the well-being of N.H.’s education system. A leaked group chat in January showed Rep. Kristin Noble joking about segregated schools, according to NHPR. The N.H. Republican Committee did some mild backpeddling by suggesting that Noble meant political segregation as if that is somehow better.
The Free-Stater movement is objectively trying to make the N.H. system worse. With H.B. 112, they say that college students should have a baseline of civic knowledge. Yet, in the last budgetary cycle, they cut the University System of New Hampshire by 14%. In February, the N.H. Attorney General’s office appealed to the N.H. Supreme Court for the review and overturning of the Claremont Decision, a 1993 ruling that requires the state to provide adequate funding for an adequate public education.
There is no political willpower in the ruling GOP government to provide this for N.H. citizens. Their only goal is to slash and burn: Cut state business and enterprise tax, cut state funding in all sectors and vote no to income or sales tax, leaving the taxpayer with a bloated and archaic property tax system.
We need a clear change in the state government if we are meant to have any semblance of a functioning society. There is no way we can continue to have these freaks running our government and complaining about functioning states like Mass. because they are bold enough to have a more reasonable system of taxation and government. There are serious flaws in Mass. as well that should not be overlooked, but the geriatric anarcho-libertarians of the N.H. government have zero room to judge.
Timothy Fitzpatrick can be contacted at
tfitzpatrick@kscequinox.com
