Mr. Neil Bleicken, a five-year member of the Exeter School Board, wrote an opinion piece titled, “Keep partisan politics out of our excellent Exeter schools.” Susan Shanelaris and Anne Sorber, co-founders of the grass-roots ExeterPACT, using state data as their source, responded with a letter-to-the-editor titled “SAU16—The Numbers Don’t Lie.”
Mr. Bleicken writes in auto-hagiographic style with a plethora of superlative adjectives and adverbs. It is a style frowned upon by scholars but favored by politicians (ironic, considering the title of his piece).
He has an annoying tendency, common to politicians, to present facts without attribution and conclusions without backup data. For example, he attributes the decline to student inequalities as in these two quotes:
[T]he most significant factor affecting the slight decline in our test scores was the increasing number of students in our schools who experienced inequality.
It’s important to remember that … inequality is a major problem here in Exeter … a good estimate is that at least 40% of our kids come from such a circumstance.
There is no backup provided for these statements other than the author’s unsupported word. I searched the state data referenced above and found that the Stratham Memorial School’s disadvantaged population was less than 10%. The Exeter District elementary schools were shown with disadvantaged ratios of 18% (2018), 18% (2019), 16% (2020), and 11% (2021). These numbers are considerably lower than the quoted 40% and have been decreasing rather than increasing as stated in the above quote.
Whenever we discuss assessing academic achievement using standardized tests, there is an outcry that such tests are not an accurate measure of academic achievement. That is perhaps, probably, so — but they are standardized and therefore provide reliable measures of relative performance, one year to the next, one town to another, or one town to the state average.
SAU16 rankings have been slipping for some time now. Does this imply that the SAU16 students are less capable of learning now than they once were? Does it imply, as asserted in the opinion piece, that the demographics of Exeter students have changed significantly? Or does it imply that the SAU16 curriculum has been diverging from the rest of the state?
The chart of achievement scores below has been constructed from the previously referenced state data. It is the relative comparisons that are of significance. It is clear that Covid has negatively impacted achievement. What is not clear are instances where the Covid may be masking other negative impacts.
Consider the pre and post-Covid English Language and Arts (ELA) scores. Exeter decreased from 71% to 56%, a 15% drop. Stratham dropped 12%. The state dropped only 4%. Similarly, for Math, Exeter dropped 22%, Stratham dropped 28%, and the state dropped only 10%. For Science, Exeter dropped 9%, Stratham dropped 8%, and the state dropped only 2%.
There is a clear difference between the SAU16 results and the state results. If we assume that Covid had a similar impact on the SAU16 schools as state-wide, then there is an undefined “other problem” in play.
Coincidentally, this was the period of increased SAU16 emphasis on wokeness and social justice.
The August 2021 DEI-J presentation panel’s evangelical faith in equity and the equality of outcome is directly antithetical to our founding.
Incidents such as the punishment of an Exeter High student for voicing his belief that there are only two genders may be portents of the coming of authoritarianism.
In conclusion, let us look at another quote from the opinion piece: The decline in our test scores wasn’t – and isn’t – anyone’s “fault” …
Exeter, we have a problem! And we are told it’s nobody’s fault. Thanks for nothing.
We are not interested in fixing the blame, we want to fix the problem. Mr. Bleicken implies it is not possible for us to fix the problem while further implying that there is no problem to fix. Sir, the problem can’t be fixed unless we acknowledge a problem exists and the SAU16 administration, in their practiced opaque manner, seems to be in denial.
Grass-roots voters, see the ExeterPACT Voter’s Guide. Vote the incumbents out, replace them with those candidates that are pledged to stop the indoctrination and to return the SAU16 mission to education.
Please – VOTE on 8 March 2022.
Mike Johnson is a small-government conservative, a live-free-or-die resident of NH, and the author of the e-book John Kerry & PCF-44. E-mail mnosnhoj@comcast.net
