News – Politics – Opinion – Podcasts
This: That’s a great mustache you are sporting Stevie: Befitting of a petty, vindictive, drunk-on-power, tin-pot tyrant who would ban scarves because they symbolize the underprivileged youth you want to prevent from attending schools they love and are thriving in. Because you and your fellow Democrats believe in the Stalinist model of education, where schools … Read more
Discipline and accountability Some years ago Thomas Sowell wrote an article about the utility of discipline and accountability. Come, let’s try to channel a bit of Thomas Sowell. Giving black students in the 1960’s inflated grades when they were admitted with low academic qualifications avoided lots of time wasting hassles for the instructor. Those hassles … Read more
The New Hampshire House has table HB632. The Democrat-sponsored repeal of the Education tax credit scholarship program. A bill that helps hundreds of low-income students afford tuition at private schools around the state. But the Bill is still very much alive and we need your help.
So ConVal School District has sued over education funding. A copy of the lawsuit can be found in this New Hampshire Public Radio article. Essentially, ConVal urges the State Supreme Court to reprise its ongoing role as State Supreme School Board and order that the State has to use ConVal’s formula to determine the “cost … Read more
The House Ways and Means Committee voted on the Education Tax Credit (ETC) repeal bill, HB 632, earlier today. We blogged their discussion on our Facebook page; you can see a series of posts dated March 13th to follow along. The motion to pass the bill was made by Rep. Thomas Southworth, seconded by Rep. Lisa Bunker. Immediately, … Read more
Confucius said that the first step towards wisdom is to call things by their right names. It’s a good rule to live by. If you misname something, you won’t really be able to think about it correctly, because you’ll be thinking about what it’s called, rather than about what it is. On the other hand, if you name something very accurately and precisely, many of the straw man arguments against it can’t gain any traction.
Let’s apply this reasoning to ESAs, or Education Savings Accounts, and see where it takes us.
The proposed budget for the Merrimack School system is 77.6 million dollars. That’s the entire cost to run the district for one year. An endeavor that exists, at least in theory, with one purpose. Educate children. But not very many of them. Which begs the question? Why so much for so little?
Despite a complete disconnect between funding and results, Democrats want more money for New Hampshire schools. Bigger budgets have produced no return on investment. None. But as I’ve noted previously, Democrats don’t care about learning. Public Schools are a vehicle for redistributing wealth to a favored constituency.
Merrimack, New Hampshire Democrat Wendy Thomas recently showed her support for a form of religious bigotry by liking a tweet responding to a local news piece about New Hampshire’s Education Scholarship Tax Credit. The tweeter wrote, “repeal this abomination of a “scholarship” and keep public school money where it belongs.”
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
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
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
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
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety -Benjamin Franklin Consider this post, as a good example of how the Left despises your Right to keep and bear arms and what and how they will frame their arguments in order to legislative do to make … Read more
This is the final episode of the interview that I had with Frank Edelblut this past Friday at the NH Department of Education in Concord. The topic? Learning Everywhere – the newest idea on the idea that kids can and will learn from everywhere and in doing a lot of things (pay attention to his … Read more
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
Portsmouth is loaded with progressives. The mayor and town council are frequently invoked on our pages over the latest left-wing knee-jerk policy or some perceived outrage against humankind or the planet. Portsmouth is powered by Democrat rhetoric. So, are you surprised that property-rich Portsmouth doesn’t want to pay its fair share in statewide taxes?
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
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
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