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.

Is Sal Khan Going In the Right Direction for Education?

December 2, 2024 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

Santayana Warned Us About Volinsky

September 9, 2024 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!

September 6, 2024 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 !

August 3, 2024 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

July 21, 2024July 21, 2024 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!

July 15, 2024July 15, 2024 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

kaboompics_Math - calculator - geometry - homeschooling - laptop

Homeschooling Survey: They Use Many Different Methods to Learn to Read

May 2, 2024 Jody Underwood

Homeschooled students typically score 15 to 25 percentile points above public-school students on standardized academic achievement tests, according to The National Home Education Research Institute.

A Tale of Two EFAs

May 2, 2024 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.

State Rep Accidentally Outs Herself

March 6, 2024 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.’

Homeschool Double Standard

November 8, 2023 Jody Underwood

I recently read this Reason article about how homeschooling as increased since the pandemic. Some quotes from people who are apparently against homeschooling blew my mind. I had the need to share some comments about them.

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

September 26, 2023 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)

September 25, 2023 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.

classroom empty desks original Image by WOKANDAPIX from Pixabay

Social-Emotional Learning Replaces Academics as Focus (Pandemic Shutdown & Reading, part 6 of 8)

September 23, 2023 Jody Underwood

Prior installments of this series have demonstrated that state and national standardized test scores in New Hampshire and Vermont were poor and declining before the COVID pandemic school shutdown.

school room classroom Photo by Jeffrey Hamilton on Unsplash

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

September 20, 2023 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.

Why Johnny Shouldn’t Read

September 19, 2023 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.

How the Shutdown Affected Student Performance: Killington VT Improved (part 4 of 8)

September 17, 2023 Jody Underwood

As presented in earlier installments, student performance in reading all over the United States, including New Hampshire and Vermont, has been poor for decades, with over half of students reading below grade level.

open book window reading original Photo by Ioann-Mark Kuznietsov on Unsplash

How the Pandemic Shutdown Affected Student Performance: Vermont (part 3 of 8)

July 16, 2024September 17, 2023 Jody Underwood

The prevailing narrative is that the pandemic shutdowns affected student performance in public schools. As seen in our prior two articles, data from the Croydon, NH Village School, and statewide data from the New Hampshire Student Assessment System (NHSAS), the National Assessment of Educational Progress test do not support this narrative.

Did the Pandemic Shutdown Affect Student Performance in NH? Part 2 of 8

September 14, 2023 Jody Underwood

The opening article of this series, published in the September 9 edition of the Eagle Times and in Granite Grok, examined test results from the Croydon Village School in light of comments made by its principal, Nicole Lackie, who also shared her belief that schools do not know how to teach reading.

Did the Pandemic Shutdown Affect Student Performance? Part 1 of 8

September 11, 2023 Jody Underwood

At the June 6 meeting of the Croydon School Board, Associate Principal Nicole Lackie presented the results of Croydon Village School’s (CVS) end-of-year diagnostic assessment.

The Right to Read

August 6, 2023August 5, 2023 Jody Underwood

There’s a new idea that’s being thrown around these days — the science of reading. I cringe at the phrase because it sounds like just another gimmick to fix things in schools, but the research actually seems to be pretty good.