Education Commissioner

Frank Edelblut

Students should be ‘getting authentic outside-of-school, work-as-learning types of opportunities,’ says Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut. (Sarah Gibson/NH Public Radio)

New Hampshire Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut has played a central role in shaping the state’s K-12 education system since he was appointed five years ago, including overseeing the Department’s response to the pandemic.

Q. The Department of Education recently contracted with a career development and vocational education program that will allow students to be paid to work at places like child care centers, manufacturing companies and retail stores. Tell us more about that.

A. This is a program that we refer to as Work as Learning. It’s a little bit of an unusual name, is what I’ve heard from people.

When students are given the opportunity to engage in authentic work outside of the traditional schooling environment, the learning that takes place is really valuable to them.

We have been partnering with New Hampshire businesses to provide workbased learning opportunities for students, and these are opportunities that have been vetted both by the Department as well as the Department of Labor.

Some are paid internships, some are unpaid, some are career exploration, some are more authentic work. Where they are paid, the Department, using Covid relief funds, is able to match 50 percent of the wages for those students in work-based learning opportunities, up to $15 an hour.

Q. You’ve also advocated for more of students’ education to happen outside of traditional school, with programs like Learn Everywhere and more money for homeschool and learning pods. In your ideal world, what should the default public school experience look like in New Hampshire?

A. To clarify one point, there is no funding for home education programs. I just wanted to make sure that we’re clear about that. But I have been a big, big and strong advocate for learning opportunities and learning pathways for our students all over the place.

Q. Aren’t those school vouchers going toward homeschool and learning pod education?

A. Yeah. So none of the learning pod funds go to home education. That’s Covid relief funds that we offer the learning pods for. And then home education students are a separate class. So in New Hampshire, there are four types of qualified education programs: You can go to a public school, traditional or charter; a nonpublic school; or you can be a home education student; or an Education Freedom Account student. And I think what you’re conflating is the idea of a home education student and an Education Freedom Account student. Those are two different programs. They reside in two different parts of our statute. And so I think it’s just important that we keep those distinguished.

Q. The education freedom accounts, that is taxpayer money that’s going towards the opportunity for a student to learn outside of a traditional public school.

A. Absolutely. So that provides an opportunity to craft a pathway for learning in any number of ways. But that may include a nonpublic school. It could be that they’re buying courses from a local public school to be able to get it. But the point is that it has a different set of requirements around it, different set of accountability around it that is different than a home education program.

Q. So what should the ideal public school experience look like in New Hampshire?

A. What we’re doing is trying to create pathways for students across the board. I had an opportunity to meet with Secretary Miguel Cardona from the U.S. Department of Education. And one of the comments he made was saying how we have an advantage coming out of Covid. We want our students to recover. But what do we want them to recover to? Do we want to go back to what we were doing before Covid, or do we want to lead and move forward? He emphasized moving forward.

He was talking about his son during Covid attending school three days a week in person, two days a week not in person, but remotely. And he said, why couldn’t we imagine a world where that is what a traditional school setting might look like, where they’re in classes three days a week and they’re doing the more traditional kind of academic studies? And maybe on these other two days a week, they’ve got these work-based learning opportunities. And so they’re out getting these authentic outside-of-school, work-as-learning types of opportunities.

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