Jody Underwood

Jody served on the Croydon School Board from 2010-2023. During this time, she shepherded a bill through the legislature that clarifies the law to allow private schools to be included in town tuitioning agreements, completed the withdrawal from an AREA agreement, and oversaw the separation of Croydon from SAU43 (with Newport) and started their own, very small, SAU99. Jody has written research papers about how New Hampshire uses tax dollars for private schools and on how town tuitioning works in New Hampshire and New England. She has delivered presentations about town tuitioning and school choice around the state. Recently retired from her profession as a learning scientist, Dr. Underwood conducted design, development, and research around the use of technology for learning and assessment. She and her husband moved to New Hampshire in 2007, where they live on a large off-the-grid property with their dog.
Cash money bills

EFAs: The Pot Calling the Kettle Black?

Jody Underwood

The Josiah Bartlett Center’s recent post by Drew Cline rightfully points out that reduced increases in school budgets are being called cuts, which is misleading. At the same time, Cline reports that increases in spending that come from Education Freedom Accounts (EFAs) are actually savings, which is similarly misleading. In an emailed article I received … Read more

Education Options Expo in Weare March 24!

Jody Underwood

EdOpt’s first school choice expo of 2025 will take place in Weare on March 24. Explore all your education options, including private schools, micro schools, charter schools, learning centers, home education groups, and more! Whether you’re a family wanting to meet a varied set of education providers, a provider who wants a table, or a state rep or … Read more

🎉 EdOpt’s Successful First Year

Jody Underwood

Thanks to all of you who supported EdOpt during our inaugural year! We started Education Options in April. In July our website was ready and we got 501c3 status. We hosted or co-hosted 5 expos around the state in August and December. We have a rich set of education choices in New Hampshire, and that … Read more

🎁 Psst! Check out the Bootleg Video of XIV

Jody Underwood

Ian gave his presentation of his first book at PorcFest 2022. We got a bootleg video of that talk, and we’re making it available on the XIV book page. XIV was Bare Minimum Book’s first book, and it continues to be our best seller. Consider getting a copy as a gift for a like-minded friend! If … Read more

Is Sal Khan Going In the Right Direction for Education?

Jody Underwood

The following video features Sal Khan, creator of Kahn Academy, talking about his vision for the future of education. It’s six minutes long and worth watching.  As mentioned in the video, Khan started an organization called SchoolHouse.world that has free online tutoring and supports group learning.   His vision is to support the kind of interactive online teaching that … Read more

andru volinsky edelblut Education

Santayana Warned Us About Volinsky

Jody Underwood

A few sentences into his recent piece in InDepthNH (and other places), Andru Volinsky demonstrates that he has no idea how the statewide education tax actually works, let alone how it should work.   First, no one gets excused from paying anything. Every district collects the full SWEPT tax, spends it on adequacy, and applies … Read more

EdOpt Expos were a success!

Jody Underwood

Education Options held our first two EdOpt Expos at the Richards Free Library in Newport in August. While there are many things for us to learn, we’re off to a good start. The best part was that all the attendees could point to something that they learned there. I know I was part of a … Read more

1st EdOpt Expo in Newport Aug 10 !

Jody Underwood

The first Education Options (EdOpt) expo is just over a week away, on Saturday Aug 10, from 10:30am to 12:30pm at the Richards Free Library in Newport. There will be a number of tables where you can have one-on-one conversations with experts about different options for educating your children. Statewide resources will include: Regional resources … Read more

NEW DATES! EdOpt Expos in Newport

Jody Underwood

We are setting up expos to kick off a new effort to provide information, support, and connections to families who are not happy with their current schools, and want to explore the many other education options they may not know about. Our first set of expos will be in Newport NH to serve the Upper … Read more

Announcing Education Options Inc. and Our First Expo!

Jody Underwood

We are kicking off a new effort to provide information, support, and connections to families who want to explore education options outside of the traditional public school. Our main population is conservative families who are not happy with public schools but who aren’t aware of all their options. Our non-profit organization and website have just … Read more

A Tale of Two EFAs

Jody Underwood

It was the best of lies; it was the worst of lies. 

Richburg and Poortown both have K-12 schools with 100 students, and school budgets of $2 million.  

Pat lives in Richburg. He decides to leave the local school to accept an Education Freedom Account (EFA) with $5,255 in it. 

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statehouse

State Rep Accidentally Outs Herself

Jody Underwood

There is a classic tale in which one man lends money to another. When the time comes to repay the loan, the debtor claims that no loan was ever made. They go to trial, and the lender says that the money was counted out on a large stone, which should be brought to court as a witness. The debtor says, ‘The stone will never be found, because I broke it into many pieces, which I dispersed to many places.’

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How the Shutdown Affected Student Performance: Conclusion (part 8 of 8)

Jody Underwood

This is the final article in the How the Shutdown Affected Student Performance series. This series was inspired by two recent statements made by Croydon Village School Principal Nicole Lackie to the Croydon School Board. First, she claimed the pandemic shutdowns caused poor student performance. Then, she stated that teachers don’t really know how to … Read more

Studen laptop online learning Photo by Compare Fibre on Unsplash

Shutdown & Student Performance: Grantham (part 7 of 8)

Jody Underwood

In prior installments of this series, state and national standardized test scores in New Hampshire and Vermont contradict the current narrative that the COVID pandemic shutdown caused children to suffer “learning loss.” Instead, the data reveals that the test scores have been deplorable for more than two decades and that they were in decline well in advance of the pandemic shutdown.

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school room classroom Photo by Jeffrey Hamilton on Unsplash

How the Shutdown Affected Student Performance: Washington NH Elementary (part 5 of 8)

Jody Underwood

As prior installments of this series have shown, state and national standardized test scores in New Hampshire and Vermont don’t appear to support the current narrative that the COVID pandemic shutdown caused children to suffer “learning loss.” Instead, the data revealed two things: First, that the test scores have been dismal for more than two decades, and second, they were in decline well in advance of the pandemic shutdown.

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Indoctrination cartoon

Why Johnny Shouldn’t Read

Jody Underwood

Many people who testified at the Sept 14 meeting of the state Board of Education against using the PragerU Cash Course as a Learn Everywhere option argued that it would provide a camel’s nose under the tent to conservative ideas that will indoctrinate students.

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