Editor's note: Today's editorials address both conservative and liberal fears about CACR 12, the constitutional amendment on education funding that is up for a vote on Wednesday. First, we address the fear of losing “local control” of public education. Second, we address the fear of having public schools defunded.

CACR 12 requires the state of New Hampshire “to maintain a system of public elementary and secondary education and to mitigate local disparities in educational opportunity and fiscal capacity.” Critics claim that this “enshrines Claremont” by ending local control of public education and ceding new power to the state. It does not, for the simple fact that public education in New Hampshire never has been under local control.

The New Hampshire Historical Society has a useful primer on the state's educational history. It reveals the following historical facts:

--New Hampshire separated from Massachusetts in 1680. That year, the new province passed a law requiring schools in all towns of 50 or more households.

--In 1693, the colony required selectmen to impose an equal tax rate to finance schools.

--In 1719, the colony required all towns to hire schoolmasters and imposed fines for selectmen who refused.

--In 1789, just five years after the current state constitution was ratified, the new state set the budgets for all local schools and imposed fines on selectmen who refused to fund them.

--It was not until 1842 that towns were allowed to raise their own money above what the state required for public education.

--It was not until 1862 that school districts were allowed to raise their own school money.

--In 1919 the state created the State Board of Education and gave it supervisory authority over all public schools, establishing our modern public education system.

Never in the entire history of New Hampshire were local communities fully in charge of public schools. The provincial, colonial and state governments of New Hampshire always have had authority to set public education policy, and always did.

CACR 12 imposes no new state control. What it does is overturn the Claremont and Londonderry Supreme Court rulings that forced the state to fund all school districts equally. Thus it restores legislative control over public education and its funding. “Constitutional conservatives” ought to support that enthusiastically.