For the sake of honesty and full disclosure, I should first point out my lack of qualifications to fancy myself a book critic, but when I have something to say that’s worth shouting from the rooftops, why hold back?
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As a lazy student, I had a pattern of slapping together book reports the night before they were due and hoping for a grade that didn’t bring down my GPA.
Obsession with school spending is in my blood. Being called a chip off the old block long before even knowing what that meant, I should point out that my father, an accountant and former local school committee member, has been complaining about the teachers’ union and their anti-Proposition 2 1/2 messaging since I started asking questions as a kid. So, of course, I always want to read Grokster Ian Underwood’s contributions.
We all know about Croydon. If you don’t, you can get up to speed by finding Ian’s articles on GraniteGrok.com at the link or in the home page search engine. I’ll just put out a quick refresher to the readers that Croydon voted to cut its school budget significantly, and it made widespread news and water cooler talk. Knowing school is the biggest black hole in any local budget, I was thrilled to death for the Croydonites. And when Melanie Levesque made derogatory tweets about it, I knew that Croydon had earned its badge of honor. Or as Rep Kelley Potenza would say, “That mean’s you’re right over the target” when you get attacked for doing something good. Ian’s wife is a school board member and does double duty as a sales associate for his book collection, which can be viewed at Bare Minimum Books, all one word, dot com.
When The School Funding Shell Game was introduced by Granite Grok a while ago, I was instantly interested and reached out via the “contact us” feature of the website. Months of email tag followed, and I had almost forgotten to follow up. Not eager to make a pilgrimage to Croydon or pay for postage, I found out that the nearest brick-and-mortar opportunity to purchase the book was last Saturday, which coincidentally was Melanie’s birthday! I should have treated her to a copy.
I had another event to attend in Manchester later that afternoon, but I made my first visit to the Free State clubhouse in Manchester’s Little Canada and met Jody, Ian’s wife, as she was holding down the fort at a Free State business fair. Ian’s other books were also available, and I took advantage of the special price when three are purchased.
I took home the education trilogy of The School Funding Shell Game, Rethinking Fairness in Education, and The Libertarian Case for Public Schools and just finished reading them. As a slow reader, hence my lack of zeal for writing book reports as a student, I have to say that this kind of reading is fast, entertaining, and right to the point. All three of them are short and easy on the eyes. Each talking point starts off with an anecdote, meme, joke, or cartoon on a single page. Then the page facing it has the argument to consider. Some of the author’s favorites are about a wife who cuts off part of a roast because her mother always did, a police officer helping a guy look for his lost car keys under a light post in a ball field and an umbrella parable. They deal with the issues of flawed thinking and roles and expectations of schools by generationally misguided members of their communities. Solutions and prognostications are offered in the closing talking points.
With Con Val currently doing a “Claremont 2.0” attempt and city elections being this year, it’s a perfect time to read these masterpieces. In fact, I told one of my local peeps that it should be required reading for ANY city candidate.
And in closing, I am happy to have the skill of keeping a paperback in mint condition while reading it, so it’s still gift-worthy. Father’s Day is less than a month from now.
