Elenore Freedman

Elenore S. Freedman (January 15, 1926 - April 16, 2022) was an American educator. She was called the "dean" of educational reform and advocacy in New Hampshire, is a former New Hampshire education executive and was a co-founder of The Derryfield School in Manchester, New Hampshire. In 1990, Freedman received the Granite State Award for Outstanding Public Service from the University of New Hampshire, and she was included in Notables in NH as one of 422 people who "helped shape the character of the state."

Early life
Born in 1926 to Benjamin and Dora (Markovitz) Finklestein, Freedman graduated from Brockton High School (Massachusetts) in 1943 and Radcliffe College (B.A.) in 1947. She married Peter S. Freedman in 1947.

Early volunteer work
Living in Marion, Massachusetts, she co-founded (as a volunteer) the local chapter of the League of Women Voters, and was elected its first president.

NH Council for Better Schools (1957 - 1969)
Moving to Bedford, New Hampshire, she became Executive Director of the New Hampshire Council for Better Schools in 1957. During this time, she:
 * Published The Upper Quarter (a study by Margaret Ronzone Cusick) in 1959, a three-year study of the top 25 per cent of New Hampshire high school graduates. The study, a subject of subsequent conferences, showed that nearly half of the top quarter of all high school seniors in New Hampshire didn't attend college, and over 15 percent of this group did not even graduate from high school. The survey further showed that while there were almost twice as many girls as boys in the top quarter, more than two thirds of those boys went to college while less than half of the girls did.
 * Was appointed by New Hampshire Governor John W. King in 1965 to a delegation representing New Hampshire at the 1966 Governors' Conference to draft an inter-state compact on education sponsored by the Study of American States and led by Terry Sanford, former governor of North Carolina. The resulting recommendations, published in 1966, included the development of "a master plan for school district reorganization", a minimum teacher's salary, expansion of vocational training, and a compulsory kindergarten program for all public school pupils. The recommendations were promoted by King in addresses, discussed on NH television, and endorsed by the NH Schools Boards Association (which Freedman would later lead) as well as the New Hampshire Education Association (representing 6,000 state teachers).
 * Represented the group, lobbying on behalf of issues important to New Hampshire education.

NH School Boards Association (1970 - 1974)
In 1970, Freedman became program coordinator, publications director and administrative assistant for the Center for Educational Field Services (a joint office of the N.H. School Boards Association and the University of New Hampshire). While there, she coordinated an annual education conference (co-sponsored by the four state Associations of School Boards and which featured keynote speakers such as Ralph Nader),  and lobbied on behalf of issues impacting education.

NH Association of School Principals (1974 – 1988)
In 1974, Freedman was appointed Executive Director of the newly formed NH Association of School Principals, which merged the two former Associations of Elementary and Secondary School Principals. The association ran state-wide conferences and workshops for New Hampshire school principals, sometimes as joint conferences with the NH School Boards Association. These conferences provided training as well as a forum to discuss some of the most pressing educational issues at that time. As director, Freedman also lobbied in Concord and in the media on behalf of New Hampshire education-related legislation.

Association for Effective Schools / School Improvement Program (1988 – 1991)
In 1988, Freedman was chosen to be director of the newly formed NH School Improvement Program, directed by the NH Alliance for Effective Schools.

This program was offered to New Hampshire schools as a collaborative venture by 19 educational, business and governmental organizations, including the New Hampshire legislature, the N.H. Charitable Fund, the Federation of Teachers, the N.H. Leadership in Educational Administration Development (LEAD) Center, the Business and Industry Association, the University System of New Hampshire, and local school districts.

<!-- Starting here, we lose the focus on Freedman. This section should be drastically cut, or removed: An independent evaluation of SIP described the program: "SIP is designed to enable participating schools to simultaneously tackle critical issues related to student success and develop the capacity to manage ongoing change. Once accepted into SIP, schools select a team that includes the principal, and parent, teacher, school board, and district administration representatives. The SIP team receives intensive training on educational issues, leadership and organizational change at a summer institute, and then over the next three years is responsible for leading planning and implementation of the school change effort. During these three years the team works with specialists in facilitation and consultation, receives a 'profile' of the school that provides data to consider in creating a plan for school change, receives funding for technical assistance, and is offered workshops and networking opportunities."

10 schools were chosen for the pilot program in 1988, which grew to over 30 by May of 1991.

An independent evaluation of the program in 1991 found that "New Hampshire can take great pride in this Program which is gaining recognition as among the best efforts in the country to improve public education."

The program was studied nationwide, and won national recognition in November 1989 as one of four educational programs in the United States featured as models of educational public-private partnerships.

The 1991 evaluation summarized that "The Program provides a critical element of what is called for in the Governor's Task Force on Education… At great effort and with remarkable skill over the past three years, the key parties in New Hampshire public education — teachers, administrators, parents, students, state officials, businesses — have joined in an agenda of unusually high quality. This ambitious program seeks to change entire schools… "

The evaluation's chief criticism of the program was that SIP needed to "… more tightly focus and quantify its objectives and improve its capacity to set benchmarks and track the performance of individual schools."

Controversy
SIP came under attack after the New Hampshire governorship transitioned from John H. Sununu (governor 1983–1989), who strongly supported the program, to Judd Gregg (governor 1989-1993), who did not.

Early in 1991, New Hampshire's state Board of Education advocated against SIP and endorsed using the funding to give tax rebates to parents sending their children to private schools. Supporters of SIP noted that the governor and several members of the board sent their children to private schools. The legislature opposed the Board of Education's agenda and proposed a bill to strip the state Board of Education's rule-making authority to set education policy and rules for New Hampshire's schools. This bill was ultimately ruled against by New Hampshire's attorney general.

The controversies surrounding SIP drew the attention of the New Hampshire press, including editorials in the Manchester Union Leader, New Hampshire's only state-wide newspaper and a strong supporter of Gregg.

In August 1991, Gregg revoked the contract and ordered the education commissioner to put the program out to competitive bid, even though the program had been approved by the legislature and signed into law. Supporting Gregg's position, a member of the Executive Council said, "The issue has been clouded somewhat by the program vs. the process." He said he had reports on "how well the program is being administered, but it's the process that bothers me." Later that month, RFPs were sent to seven firms, with three responding.

In September 1991, the state Department of Education reviewed all submitted bids, and awarded the contract to SIP. Less than a week later, Gregg threatened to cut the program's funding at the Governor and Executive Council meeting in October, citing an anticipated budget deficit. However, SIP was awarded the two-year contract at the October meeting, without debate. ...end section that needs drastic trimming-->

Freedman retired from the program in 1991 but it continued through its two-year term. At its 1993 Governor and Executive Council meeting, the contract was awarded to a private consulting firm, primarily citing its "...method for evaluating schools." SIP was, however, given a "continued voice and role" in the program. Two years later, the program was eliminated from the NH budget.

The Derryfield School
Along with her husband Peter, Elenore Freedman was a founder of the Derryfield School in Manchester, New Hampshire, a private, independent, non-sectarian, college preparatory day school, serving families in southern New Hampshire. Elenore Freedman had known R. Philip Hugny from the NH Council for Better Schools, and he was recruited as the first headmaster of Derryfield.

The school opened in September 1965 with 108 students and 11 faculty members. Classes were initially held in space rented from the Manchester Institute of Arts and Science and the nearby Boys Club. The school then bought 10 acre of land on River Road and moved to newly built facilities on this land in 1967.

As of 2019, Derryfield had grown to serve nearly 400 students from grades 6-12 with a student/faculty ration of 8/1 and an average class size of 15. The school campus has grown to 84 acre.

Awards and citations

 * Freedman was included in Notables in NH, a book published by the New Hampshire Historical Society, as one of 422 people who "helped shape the character of the state."
 * In 1990, she was awarded the Granite State Award for Outstanding Public Service from the University of New Hampshire, in recognition of her substantial contributions to the quality of education in New Hampshire during the last 40 years.