Parents showed up to the recent budget meeting in Merrimack to ask the committee to reconsider what the school administrators are proposing. The school budget and spending has climbed by an alarming rate over the last few years –$5M per year since 2021. This is in addition to all of the ESSER (federal) funds Merrimack received during COVID.
Parents spoke about the poor quality of education their children have been receiving, to the point where they felt they had to remove their children from the public school. In addition, those parents are reporting that their children are doing better in those alternative schools.
After reviewing some of the curriculum used in the Merrimack school district, I’m not surprised parents and taxpayers are fed up with the inflated budgets, and the poor quality of education students receive. The Budget Committee was told by Superintendent Olsen to give it another five years, and we’ll see how the students are doing. That sounds like more experimenting on children. By then who will take responsibility, and who will be on to another district to implement the latest fads?
There was a great deal of administrator talk on aligning the curriculum to the state standards. Merrimack even has an Assistant Superintendent on staff that does that for them. You’d think that this would guarantee you quality programs for your school. And while no program may be perfect, there can be big differences between a poor quality science program ,and a good one.
SCIENCE
To start, Merrimack parents sent me this screen shot from the OpenSciEd Science program they are using in Merrimack. As you can see, your child will get a dose of Critical Race Theory propaganda with their science:
The school administrators were asked about this during the budget meeting, and the Budget Committee members were assured that this science program was very good, and that they weren’t looking to incorporate any political viewpoints such as CRT. So what did they pay for?
This science program (OpenSciEd) is aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards. The Superintendent kept mentioning how the curriculum should be aligned to the state standards, but he didn’t mention how the state standards (NGSS) are some of the worst in the country.
State officials will tell you that it’s up to the schools to improve their curriculum, and that the standards are considered to be “the bottom.” So why is Amy, the Assistant Superintendent in Merrimack aligning the science curriculum with “the bottom” for their students? Why are they not aligning the science program with the best academic standards? How much are they paying Amy to align curriculum to the bottom? How much are they paying the Superintendent to sell this to the Budget Committee, and community?
You can see who had the best science standards here. I guess that’s not a priority in Merrimack, in spite of what the Superintendent was selling, I mean telling the Budget Committee.
New Hampshire continues to use the dummed-down Common Core Standards for Math and English. They made things worse when they decided on the Next Generation Science Standards. (NGSS) The NGSS are actually worse than Common Core. You can read about how bad the NGSS are here. Included in that article is testimony I presented to the State Board of Education on the NGSS. I detail for you all of the problems with the science standards, and how some of them have a political bias. This is what Merrimack top administrators are saying will improve the quality of education for their students.
In this video (or marketing scheme) the Science Vendor is trying to sell the viewer on a different way of teaching students science using this science program. You will hear how the teacher describes how they moved away from the traditional classroom. (FIRST MISTAKE) Then she explains how the classroom is now “chaotic.” (SECOND MISTAKE) What she doesn’t tell you is that this idea that kids should be taken away from teacher-centered instruction, and put in a chaotic classroom has been debunked. Science Daily explains why a more structured environment leads to better academic outcomes. The same is true for learning mathematics. They will sell you on chaos, but never tell you how structured, teacher led instruction leads to better academic outcomes.
If you watch the video, they make it sound like this new way of learning will transform public education, but where’s the proof? I know this, it forces a lot of families out of the public schools in search of a school where the teacher teaches the students.
Teachers certainly want to engage students in learning, but when the classroom becomes chaotic, students end up earning from each other. When this occurs day after day, there is a loss of learning that takes place among other problems that arise.
The chaotic classroom also leads to additional behavior problems from students who use this time to socialize or misbehave. Remember, after COVID, teachers began reporting an increase in behavior problems among the student population. They used those behavior issues to usher in Social and Emotional Learning. They created a problem in the class, and are now spending more money on SEL to try to deal with these problems. No wonder their budget is out of control, SEL vendors are making huge profits off of SEL vendors.
Consider what this does to a student with ADD or ADHD. Consider what this does to a student who wants to learn the content but now must collaborate with their peers to meet some competency. Imagine the misinformation that will be shared among their peer group that could confuse students when it’s time to test them. What will they remember the correct information or the misinformation floating around the group? I have tutored children in math, and I don’t present any information that is not correct. I know that this could be confusing to children, even if I mix in the correct way to complete a math problem.
This is a way to marginalize the role of the teacher in the classroom. It’s all explained here in Education Reimagined. Turn to page 10 where the role of the teacher is eliminated, and replaced by a facilitator. If the students are teaching each other, why is there a need for a teacher? Replace the teacher by sitting students in front of a computer, and you don’t need a teacher to deliver any of the content. They can watch someone on screen, or AI can deliver the content, then they can work with their peers. A facilitator will be the babysitter in the room, and teachers become obsolete. Only those teaching special ed students will get the benefit of a teacher. Go to the last page to see who signed off on all of this.
But during the meeting in Merrimack, one of the parents brought up how this isn’t working well for her children. She wants a teacher teaching her children instead of watching presentations on the 1:1 digital device. Of course she does, a highly qualified teacher in the classroom can never be replaced with this nonsense. This is why schools also hire Interventionists. The poor quality of the curriculum, and the poor teaching methods now used in the classrooms require schools to hire more staff to try to deal with the problems they created. On the flip side, Ed Tech Vendors and Tech Companies are making a killing in profits off of the taxpayers.
There isn’t a lot of learning going on. Students go off topic when they are “collaborating”, the smart students end up teaching the content to their peers, and the students become angry that the teachers aren’t teaching them . Students who have behavior problems thrive on this because they can fool around during class. Test scores suffer, and now they have to spend more money to fix the problems they created when Amy thought all of this was good for Merrimack. (At this point, I’d be calling for some resignations at the SAU level)
Remember, it was Amy the Assistant Superintendent who chose this science program for the students. A program aligned to poor quality science standards that also pushes faulty teaching methods in the school district.
Part 2 coming up next. We will look how Merrimack bought three expensive English Language Arts Programs. One of which is being challenged in court by parents in Tennessee.
