News – Politics – Opinion – Podcasts
Last August, the Claremont school district stared into a five-million-dollar hole, and the community did what communities do. People wrote checks. People ran fundraisers. People rallied for the kids. The athletic department, in particular, became a cause celebre. Cut the sports? Unthinkable. Sports build character. Sports keep kids off the streets. One of the loudest … Read more
“Whatever the State identifies as comprising constitutional adequacy it must pay for.” — N.H. Supreme Court, Londonderry School District SAU #12 v. State of New Hampshire, 2006 Since the state lost its first Claremont education funding case in 1993, legislators and governors (including Democratic Gov. John Lynch in 2011-2012) tried to undo the decision with … Read more
A Citizen’s Call to Reclaim the Bill of Rights and Local Control of Schools For thirty-two years, New Hampshire has lived under a judicial decree that most citizens have never heard of, yet it reaches into every wallet and every classroom in the state. In 1993 and 1997, in a pair of rulings known as … Read more
The fiscal disaster that is Claremont School District SAU 6 has been making the news recently, the story of a school board facing the righteous anger of parents and taxpayers who have found their faith, and their tax dollars, sadly misplaced. And while this particular disaster appears to have several contributing factors that are still … Read more
How power quietly shifts when no one’s watching A mafia and a school board seem like total opposites. One rules through fear and secrecy; the other is supposed to represent voters in the open. But look more closely at how decisions are made, and a strange similarity emerges. In both cases, a small, organized group … Read more
TLDR: The people who could be punished have been. Chasing more scalps won’t bring the money back and will burn cash we don’t have. The real failure is structural: the board slid into oligarchy. Everyone who played along shares responsibility, and recovery starts when we admit that, take a moral inventory, and rebuild the machinery … Read more
In case you haven’t heard, Senate Education was supposed to have an executive session and vote on the Ruth Ward amendment with the whole Senate voting on October 23. Interestingly, when the committee returned from a short recess following Tuesday’s hearing, Ruth announced that the executive session would be rescheduled to “sometime before January.” A … Read more
Many years ago, I had a front row seat in observing the dynamics of a father and son that made me cringe on a regular basis. The identity of this toxic duo will not be shared with the readers, but let’s just say that the father regularly made parental decisions that I found appalling. His … Read more
Republicans absolutely should pass Ruth Ward’s proposed “bailout” of the Claremont School District. Why? Because it is not, by any objective or neutral standard, a “bailout.” Rather, it is a commonsense, practical solution to Claremont’s budget deficit that should mitigate “collateral damage” to schoolchildren, such as missing out on sports, extracurricular activities, clubs, etc, with … Read more
Remember Ruth Ward, who helped repeal the only RSA that actually required schools to bring students to proficiency in reading and math? She’s at it again. She has proudly announced a new bill that would allow the Claremont school district to collect its adequacy funds before attendance is confirmed, at the beginning of the year. … Read more
With the financial crisis in Claremont, families need education choices now more than ever. EdOpt is hosting an EdOpt Fair on Monday October 6, from 5-7 pm at the Claremont Savings Bank Community Center, 152 South St, Claremont. At least a dozen providers will be there for families to meet and learn about all the … Read more
Claremont’s fix starts with sunlight, not another check I was born long ago and far away in the East Tremont neighborhood of The Bronx, which, in the early-to-mid 1950s was a dense, modestly priced, prewar landscape of five- and six-story walk-ups organized around a lively Tremont Avenue retail spine; bakeries, kosher butchers, candy stores, and … Read more
This week on Granite State Live, we start with what public schools have become, the education funding disaster in Claremont, and the opportunities it presents for real reform with guests Kevin Tyson, and Jody and Ian Underwood. Then it’s Tyler Grey, Actor and Star of SEAL Team, a former Delta Force Operator, and the Author of Forged in Chaos: A Warrior’s Origin Story, on the … Read more
Last March, I ran for a seat on the Claremont school board and lost. Nowadays, I am thrilled that I did. Besides the relief from not sitting on the business side of the table at school board meetings and facing a large crowd of upset and fearful people, I can engage in “told ya so.” … Read more
Andru Volinsky’s op-ed about Claremont’s financial crisis assumes a premise that is flatly wrong.
Judging by the passion in the room, you might conclude that sports, not literacy, are the real core mission of public education.
As I watch the Claremont school board hold hearings about its current challenges, a few thoughts occur to me over and over again.
As in most previous years, the Claremont school board thought it would be able to fund the coming school year through a ransom. And just like that… the board learned that it will have to rely on a budget
The City of Claremont is in a tough spot. The district’s teaching staff has not been able to produce students educated to an acceptable level of proficiency for quite some time.
Claremont’s School Board School District Meeting Disaster