News – Politics – Opinion – Podcasts
The Commission on the Future of Public Education in VT’s subcommittee on Finance Reform met on September 4th (going back a bit, but the Commission has not been too punctual about posting its meeting recordings). It was their first meeting so, in fairness, expectations for any real substance were low. Still, some initial observations are worth … Read more
Well folks, primary season is over, and our candidates for NH General Court, Executive Council, and Governor are in. I voted in the primary, as I do in every election in Rochester. Many of my candidates did not win their primaries. I am still voting in the election, as boycotting any vote is against my … Read more
One of the few areas where liberty made gains in the COVID lockdown era was the increase in homeschooling. Many parents started homeschooling out of frustration with the failure of “virtual learning” to provide children with a quality education. Other parents withdrew their children from government schools when virtual learning allowed them to discover how … Read more
There’s more that can be done to make New Hampshire a freer state for education entrepreneurs looking to start small, decentralized, and unconventional educational environments, but so far the state is doing better than most. That’s according to the Education Entrepreneur Freedom Index released by the yes. every kid. foundation. Of 10 possible points that a … Read more
A few sentences into his recent piece in InDepthNH (and other places), Andru Volinsky demonstrates that he has no idea how the statewide education tax actually works, let alone how it should work. First, no one gets excused from paying anything. Every district collects the full SWEPT tax, spends it on adequacy, and applies … Read more
Education Options held our first two EdOpt Expos at the Richards Free Library in Newport in August. While there are many things for us to learn, we’re off to a good start. The best part was that all the attendees could point to something that they learned there. I know I was part of a … Read more
The Supreme Court Case between Jane Doe Vs Manchester School District was decided last week. In this case, a parent (Jane Doe) sued the Manchester Schools by challenging the district’s transgender policy. Within the policy, school officials were unable to share information with the parent after the parent questioned them about her child’s name change … Read more
In the landscape of political philosophy, the concept of the social contract plays a pivotal role in understanding the relationship between individuals and the state. Central to this theory are the ideas of positive and negative rights, each representing fundamentally different obligations of the individual, government, and society. While positive rights require the state to provide specific benefits … Read more
As mentioned in [Part 1], the most straightforward (and least Marxist) way to fund schools would be to use a uniform (per capita) tax. You take the budget, divide it by the number of taxpayers, and that’s the tax each one pays. But even that ends up implementing a sort of reverse Marxism, taking money … Read more
After looking at [Part 1] and [Part 2], we can consider a third case, where the kid who takes the EFA comes from a district that would be tuitioning him to a school outside the district, because the district doesn’t offer the grade that he’s in. For example, suppose each district pays $15,000 to tuition … Read more
As a parental rights advocate focused on education, I hear many parents say, “Why don’t teachers speak out more?” I tell them, it’s because if they do, they will be punished one way or another. That’s exactly what happened to Martia Holloway. She explained in one of her online videos that the district administrators were … Read more
Okay, so given what we saw in Part 1, let’s consider what happens when a student leaves each of the two districts to open an Education Freedom Account (EFA). In District 1, what changes? Things that change are highlighted below: Before After Taxpayers 1000 1000 Students 100 99 Budget $2M $2M Adequacy $400,000 $396,000 … Read more
One of the things that allows so much nonsense to be bandied about when discussing school funding is that almost no one — including legislators, judges, and DoE officials — seems to understand how SWEPT (Statewide education property taxes) and adequacy grants are related. In what follows, I’ll use nice round numbers that approximate but … Read more
From the cooler evening weather to the jam-packed “Back to School” section at Walmart, we all understandably feel the pressure to consider Fall plans for our children. There are options aplenty, and the Educational Freedom Account pathway promotion is in full, political, high gear. The EFA is a fourth educational pathway to satisfy compulsory attendance … Read more
There is a movement afoot to keep the distraction of cell phones out of classrooms, and it is rare these days of division. People and politicians on both sides are lining up to take action on a shared goal. Make Cell phone use in the classroom a thing of the past. Last year, Florida passed … Read more
There is a perfect opportunity presenting itself at the Paris Olympics right now. Men are beating up women in the boxing events. At least some of the women are bowing out of their fights, correctly fearing for their lives. Why don’t the women organize an alternate boxing tournament (Herlympic Boxing?), featuring the women who qualified … Read more
The first Education Options (EdOpt) expo is just over a week away, on Saturday Aug 10, from 10:30am to 12:30pm at the Richards Free Library in Newport. There will be a number of tables where you can have one-on-one conversations with experts about different options for educating your children. Statewide resources will include: Regional resources … Read more
All the Woke Folk have this oxymoronic phrase on their lips. They practically shout it at anyone they believe must be punished for the heresy of shutting down any conversation they are losing. Sad little people. And given the socialist push to the Left in our school systems, this, too, is probably well beyond most … Read more
The Democrat/Progressive supermajorities that voted to override Governor Scott’s vetoes of laws that resulted in the massive property tax bills most Vermonters are receiving this month are now spinning the line that they did the responsible – nay courageous — thing by kicking the can down the road and appointing yet another panel of (mostly) … Read more
We are setting up expos to kick off a new effort to provide information, support, and connections to families who are not happy with their current schools, and want to explore the many other education options they may not know about. Our first set of expos will be in Newport NH to serve the Upper … Read more