Reading education sunset Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Letter to the Times

This is in response to the article about Croydon’s budget battle, which appeared on the front page of the New York Times a couple of weeks ago. I don’t think they’ll be printing it, though.  So I thought I’d reproduce it here.

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Argument cartoon Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

Why We Can’t Have Substantive Public Discussions

At the most recent meeting of the Croydon school board, I was talking to a well-educated journalist — at least, given who she works for, I assume she’s well-educated — who seemed to be unable to grasp the difference between taking something from someone and not giving something to someone.

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House as an ATM Original images by Phil Hearing and Jake Allen - Unsplash

Your House is My ATM

An interesting thing happened in Croydon on Saturday. At a special school district meeting, 377 people decided that the voters who attended the annual meeting in March hadn’t offered enough charity ($800,000) to parents of school-aged children, so they gathered to extort more (an extra $900,000) through the threat of force (give us the money, or we’ll take your house).

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Girls book reading study education

Heartbroken in Croydon

At most of the school board meetings that have followed the recent right-sizing of Croydon’s school budget, at least one parent has expressed a thought that simply breaks my heart:

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district meeting cato

Budget or Ransom?

I printed these up to hand out at our annual district meeting tomorrow.  I thought I’d post it here in case anyone else wants to try something similar in another district.

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New Hampshire Judges Must Have Skipped the 5th Grade

There is an outstanding editorial by Ian Underwood in the Manchester Union Leader. Here’s a taste. The state constitution says only four things about schooling. First, that: “it shall be the duty of the legislators and magistrates, (…) to cherish the interest of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries and public schools.” Second, that … Read more

Kill This ‘School Choice’ Bill

Jody and Ian Underwood join us to talk about HB 1637, a school choice bill introduced to make the law clearer. We talk about what happened to it in the legislature and why we now want to see it killed.  

School Choice Fight

Small town fights state boards and the AG’s office so parents can send their kids to a school of their choice. While that town (Croydon) battles in court, legislators work to make existing law–which supports school choice already –even clearer. Education advocate Michelle Levell joins us as we talk about Croydon, the legislation, costs per … Read more

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