Discussions of charter schools and school choice often end up focusing on money: Relative costs of the various alternatives, competition for scarce resources, and so on.
Ian Underwood
The permanent tourniquet
A tourniquet can be a lifesaver when serious bleeding is occurring. But when the bleeding has stopped — when the source of the problem has been identified, and fixed — you remove the tourniquet. Otherwise, you risk developing gangrene in the limb that needs the blood supply that you’ve just cut off. At least, that’s how it works in medicine. In politics, we just leave the tourniquet in place indefinitely.
Charter schools will reverse global warming
Apparently, the NH Department of Education has issued a report claiming to show that accepting a grant of $46 million from the federal government, to be used to create and expand charter schools, will end up saving taxpayers $178 million over time. That sounds exciting, so I thought I’d take a look.
Turns out, there’s so much hand-waving in the report that I was able to dry off after a shower just by standing next to it…
HB1659: Begging for dignity
The Death with Dignity Act (HB1659) starts by saying: The state of New Hampshire recognizes that persons have a right, founded in the autonomy of the person, to control the decisions relating to the rendering of their own medical care. So, right away, it’s lying. Because this were true, you wouldn’t have to get prescriptions to take medicine, whether to cure or kill yourself.
The New Green Deal
I recently saw an article that asked this question: What if students were able to invest their student loan payments towards retirement, instead of paying off the loans with that money?
But a college loan is supposed to be an investment.
The Idiocy-Prevention Tax
The First Law of Holes is: If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. Don’t change shovels, or set a new schedule, or try a new digging technique. Just stop.
Should government schools teach civics?
Now and then, I hear conservatives calling for ‘more civics classes in schools’. And my first thought is always the same: How can these people seriously think that government-controlled schools are the right places to be teaching civics?
No Due Process, No Assumption of Innocence
In Mid Coast Maine there is a district where there is no due process, no assumption of innocence. Maine is adjacent to New Hampshire to our east. It is down east, don’t ya know? Ashe Schow has written an article for the “DailyWire.com” about a Maine prosecutor.
Stupidity is not hypocrisy
I don’t know why it bugs me so much, but it does bug me when people try to make a big deal about the fact that Elizabeth Warren sent one of her children to private schools, claiming that this somehow makes her a hypocrite.
Giving Rule 67 the respect it deserves
You have to take your fun where you can find it. Right now, there’s some fun to be had by some members of the House, regarding Rule 67, which is so full of loopholes that it just begs to be mocked.
Biff Burt is onto something
Some of you have seen ads like the one above, for presidential candidate Biff Burt. In this one, he promises free ammunition to all Americans if they elect him president. In a different ad, he promises to give away money.
One man, one proxy
Imagine that you come across someone committing a rape. You start to intervene, but the perpetrator holds up an official-looking insignia, and says that you have to let him ‘finish his term’ before you can make him stop, so you should come back in a couple of hours.
I imagine there are a lot of voters in Virginia just now — and in New Hampshire, too, for that matter — who are feeling like they’re in a similar situation. Do they really have to wait until the next election for relief?
Avoiding the A-word
There is currently an effort in Concord to add this to the New Hampshire constitution: “The right to make personal reproductive medical decisions is inviolate and fundamental to the human condition. Neither the State nor any political subdivision shall infringe upon or unduly inconvenience this right.” Regardless of how you feel about abortion, this is just an awful piece of legislation.
The Ginger Principle
Currently, we’re seeing lots of calls to action regarding anti-gun bills. ‘You have to get out and do something!’ is the rallying cry. But the people making these cries might want to think a little more about how campaigns work.
Rope-a-Dope Politics
Back in 1974, Muhummad Ali managed to defeat a younger, stronger, heavily favored George Foreman using a strategy now known as Rope-a-Dope. Basically, Ali leaned back on the ropes, using them to absorb the force of Foreman’s blows, until Foreman got tired. Then Ali came off the ropes and knocked Foreman out.
School funding: Luck is unconstitutional!
Oh, boy! It looks like we’re going to have a new education funding commission, to look at the question of how schools should be funded in New Hampshire. We can safely make two predictions about how this will work out. First, school spending will go up significantly. Second, student achievement will not go up at … Read more
School funding… Look, over there!
In their recent column ‘Our Turn: A painful exercise in education funding’, John Tobin and Doug Hall attempt some feats of misdirection worthy of the magicians Penn & Teller.
Learn Everywhere is really Teach Everywhere
The problem with Learn Everywhere is that it’s not really about learning. It is, instead, about earning credit towards graduation, something that has very little to do with learning. (It’s not hard to find students who have ‘credit’ in algebra, but who can’t tell you what a variable is,
What courts need to learn from sports
A short time ago, a football player from Buffalo forgot to follow the rule for getting a touchback in response to a kickoff. (You’re supposed to put your knee to the ground after catching the ball.) A lot of people have focused on what the officials did next. But what almost no one seems to be noticing is what the officials didn’t do, and in fact, couldn’t do.
Lowering the voting age to zero
Andrew Yang was in Concord recently, pushing to lower the minimum voting age to 16. His reasoning? If 16-year-olds can earn income and pay taxes, they should have a say in how that money is spent.