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Reply to State Rep that Opposes the Education Tax Credit Scholarship

School Choice for NH received an email from Rep. Paul Dargie (D), of Milford stating that he is opposed to the “diversion of taxpayer funds to religious and other schools through the use of vouchers or voucher workarounds.” He is referring to the Education Tax Credit program that is facing a repeal effort in House Bill 632. Below is … Read more

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SDGANH: Achieving Transparency: How the Best Districts Do It – The End: Parts 11, 12, and 13

The School District Governance Association of NH (“SDGANH”) held a seminar this past Saturday on some best practices in how to make your School District more transparent in all of its procedures.  This morning long session was a self-directed panel discussion consisting of Rich Girard from the Manchester School District, Tom Murray formerly of the … Read more

SDGANH: Achieving Transparency: How the Best Districts Do It – Parts 9 & 10

The School District Governance Association of NH (“SDGANH”) held a seminar this past Saturday on some best practices in how to make your School District more transparent in all of its procedures.  This morning long session was a self-directed panel discussion consisting of Rich Girard from the Manchester School District, Tom Murray formerly of the … Read more

Cackling Rosie Insults New Hampshire Parents

This: What Rosie is really claiming is that parents who avail themselves of school-choice and send their children to private schools are destroying the futures of their own children. Of course, Rosie would deny that’s what she’s saying, so let’s start with the predictable, “defunding public schools” argument. The program in issue involves PRIVATE scholarships. … Read more

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GrokInterview: Frank Edelblut, NH Commissioner of Education – Part 6

Why, Skip, is GraniteGrok (especially you) spending so much time on education lately?  Is there nothing better to be talking about?  The short answer, the plain answer, is no.  It IS one of our culture’s “High Ramparts” that the Left decided to target and they were willing to spend decades in influencing, capturing, taking over, … Read more

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GrokInterview: Frank Edelblut, NH Commissioner of Education – Part 4

The next “micro-topic” that Frenk Edelblut and I discussed is one of my most favorite parts of the NH Constitution: Article 28-A in combination with the incorrect idea that education in NH is all about local control by one’s School Board.  Thus, we talk about unfunded mandates, the “Statification” of local control and the “Federalization” … Read more

GrokInterview: Frank Edelblut, NH Commissioner of Education – Part 3

Is Education meant to educate a Citizen of our State and Republic?  Or is the major thrust of Education simply to prepare someone to enter the workforce in some capacity?  It is a question, as NH is wrestling with Town Meetings and First/Second Deliberative Sessions (the latter if you are in an SB2 style town), … Read more

Frank Edelblut

GrokInterview: Frank Edelblut, NH Commissioner of Education – Part 2

With Part 2, I broach the subject that comes up here and again at GraniteGrok: “Curriculum and political bias in the classroom”.  Given that in Part 1 we discussed the appeal process, I was curious as to how often this happens here in NH: It does happen – the teacher in Gilford showing her class … Read more

GrokInterview: Frank Edelblut, NH Commissioner of Education – Part 1

This afternoon I sat down with Frank Edelblut, the current NH Commissioner of Education, for an hour long interview.  Having video’d him several times in the past along with his announcement of the NH Dept of Ed’s Learning Everywhere, I thought it was time to sit down and have a conversation about the state of … Read more

Rat Like Cunning Beats High IQ Every Time

Polarization Our country has become pretty polarized. Some see the split between the folks who are in the entertainment sphere, the journalism sphere; the sort of “high IQ” is sphere, and the people who are actually working the jobs that are actually getting things done across the country, the deplorables. The deplorables voice seems to … Read more

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Those Looking to Repeal New Hampshire’s Education Tax Credit Are Ill Informed

Yesterday, the House Ways and Means Committee held a public hearing on HB 632, a bill that would repeal the Education Tax Credit scholarship program. Over 400 low-income children utilized the program this school year. The committee room was at maximum capacity with people standing along the walls and in the hallway. It was wonderful to … Read more

Stop the insanity

If there’s anything that we should have learned over the last half century, it’s that spending more money on schools does nothing to improve student achievement, and that there is no correlation between the amount spent and the results obtained.

And if there’s anything that we should have learned during the two decades since the Claremont decision, it’s that even making every district into a ‘rich district’ does nothing to improve student performance.

These results shouldn’t come as a complete surprise.  We’ve been focusing all our attention on money, and very little on what we’re doing with the money.  It’s almost as if we think that something will work better if we pay more for it, or if we take the money out of a different pocket.

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NH GOP Convention – GrokInterviews: Michelle Levell

At the 2019 Annual NH GOP Convention, I caught up with educational activist, current Chair of the Womens’ Defense League of NH, and NH GOP Committee Member (and Grokster!) Michelle Levell. The single question, as I promised to be short, was “what do you expect to see as the end results?” Oh, as you can … Read more

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