News – Politics – Opinion – Podcasts
A reader took issue with a recent post featuring a CATO report that ranked New Hampshire number 2 for Personal and Economic Freedom.
Maybe the Cato should ask these people for some help with their numbers www.statedatalab.org. I am a NH resident. NH has high property taxes along with high vehicle registration and electricity all of these are quality of life bills.
A phrase we heard a lot the other night at Andru Volinsky’s traveling show was ‘fix it’, as in: ‘Some states have fixed it’, ‘The legislature doesn’t have the political will to fix it’, and so on.
Which raises the question: Does something actually need to be fixed?
This needs to be asked, because whenever there is a conversation about reducing spending on government schools, we hear this argument: ‘New Hampshire’s schools are among the best in the nation’, the implication being that this is a result of our willingness to spend so much on them (about $15,300 per pupil, well above the national average of $11,800).
That doesn’t sound like something that needs to be fixed, does it?
by Jon DiPietro
In an August 12 opinion piece on SeacostOnline, Bill Duncan retread some heavily worn ground in the latest sequel to Swamp Things: The Educreaucity Fights Back. Current DoE Commissioner Frank Edelblut has been in the crosshairs of the education bureaucrats (to whom I refer as “educrats”) since day one because he dares to challenge the status quo.
Mr. Duncan has courageously seized the colors of the Educrat Army to storm that hill once more asking, “Do we have the education leadership we need in NH?”
Hello, fellow Goffstown residents,
Exciting news! I’ve decided to run for state representative. By way of introduction, I am Jeff Day, and I am vying for one of the 5 seats in the NH House representing the town of Goffstown. I am a Goffstown native. I am your neighbor, your friend, your classmate. My kids have gone to school with your kids and grandchildren.
Note: emphasis mine -Skip
This is the 46th of my letters as your Representative. Everyone has an opinion regarding schools and education in Franklin. I spoke at a City Council meeting last week and attended a meeting on the schools but I want to talk about how some people prepare to serve as a legislator and what you can do to be an informed NH citizen.
My wife interviewed a young, former State Representative who gave his story about his preparation. He began his study with the founding documents, the US Constitution, the New Hampshire Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence. He realized there were many references to other documents so he read Bible and then he went to the Federalists Papers and Anti-Federalist Papers, Black’s Law Dictionary, Bastiat’s The Law, and de Toqueville’s Democracy in America. Now this seems like overkill. But upon reflection perhaps it was because he was serious about his role and probably because he was home schooled.
Not a lot of votes on this one but the overall consensus of those who took the time is that they would “support an effort to get the courts out of the educational funding morass.”
Brave souls, knowing as they do that Constitutional amendments – heck, Constitutions – are not what they once were.
To that end, there were a few comments added in the ‘other’ field which I’ve shared on the jump.
SeacoastOnline reports that New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu would support an effort to get the courts out of the educational funding morass.
“The only way to undo (the current system) is a constitutional amendment, which I would fight for any day of the week – as soon as we get a Legislature that will actually pass one,” said Sununu. “I’m all for it. And even just amending to just ‘the Legislature decides.’ Your representatives, the most representative body on the planet… decide amongst themselves what the formula is, how the funds get dispersed and ensure there is an adequate education.”
Mr. Trump has some changes he’d like to make in Washington, and the Left is losing their mind.
The White House on Thursday announced its plan to merge the Departments of Labor and Education into a single Cabinet agency in order to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy and streamline overlapping regulations and department functions.
The two departments would merge into the Department of Education and the Workforce (DEW), aimed at “meeting the needs of American students and workers, from education and skill development to workplace protection to retirement security,” according to a White House outline of the plan.
From Michelle Levell
HUGE NEWS — Late last night the Senate tacked on the original ESA bill version to HB 1636, a charter school bill. This is awesome news!! This means it goes to House Education for a recommendation to concur or reject, or Committee of Conference.
Our objective is to get all our YES reps there for when the House votes on that. I’ll get a list to you asap for who we need to target. But this is huge!
The original Senate version is much
better financial structured (easier and a huge savings to the state), has broader eligibility with no income limits, and is the most-liberty ESA bill ever!
We’ll share that list when it becomes available.
Well, I do have to admit, the Concord Monitor does get a large diversity of commenters on posts sometimes. No, not the skin-color-deep-facial-features kind of diversity where only looks count. I mean the only diversity that really counts – intellectual and philosophical differences. Dick Lemiuex riled up frequent Progressive CM and Grok commenter, Bruce Currie who wrote (emphasis mine, reformatted):
Mr. Metzger believes, “(New) Hampshire citizens know at a gut level that a property tax is not an equitable way to tax people.” But somehow, he seems to believe we will accept the notion that a car tax IS an equitable way to spread the cost of schools. If equity is the objective, how about “if towns were freed to set their own” head tax? Then, at least a family of 4, with 2 kids in school, would be paying twice as much as a retired couple without kids. That would create at least some link between costs and benefits. Maybe THAT would have more of a “gut level” appeal. Of course that idea wouldn’t appeal to heads of large families. Similarly, Metzger’s idea wouldn’t appeal to owners of high end cars.
The question is, who’s ox is going to be gored? Every tax creates winners and losers.
And Bruce wrote back:
Kate Baker is the Director of the Children’s Scholarship Fund NH and she took some time at the CNHT Taxpayer Picnic to update attendees on the state of Education Choice and reform in the Granite State, including legislation, the scholarship program private and charter schools, education victories, and how the recent SCOTUS decision in Trinty Luthern v. Comer could affect … Read more
In part two of our conversation with Steve Kenda, State Senate Candidate District 24, we talk about Education, Common core, school choice, the heroin epidemic, and bureaucracies.
Are brick and mortar classrooms obsolete? Jody and Ian Underwood continue the education discussion with the book “The Beautiful Tree,” we touch on the advantages of local control in education, and real-world costs per classroom versus what your school board is charging you.
We continue with School Board candidate Rich Girard on budgets, spending, direct to indirect labor costs, and how most of the tax-dollars in a given school budget are spent on the adults and not on the children.
ICYMI – Part two of our interview with Rich Girard, who is running for the Manchester Board of School committee. We talk about how good education policy only comes from ensuring that parents and school boards are not just involved but informed so they can be educated participants in the process.
The Bullies in the AG’s office are prepared to take a small town to court even though the law is against them. We talk more about the intimidation factor, the press, and the likely costs to go to court to defend School Choice.
We are joined by Canadian Health Care refugee Shona Holmes, talk show host Rich Girard , and Max Abramson gives us a primer on bills up for a veto override vote this week in the NH legislature.
One of our resident NH Education Gurus, Jorge Mesa-Tejada, explains why a lawsuit filed by two towns against their School administrative Unit was doomed from the start; and it had nothing to do with the merit of the case they brought (and the taxpayers still have options…)
Michelle Levell joins us to examine student and parental rights with regard to explicit material in pubic school classrooms, a recent effort to inform parents, and how educarats reacted to the proposed reform.
Education advocate Ann Marie Banfield joins us to talk about the Governor’s veto last week of parental rights regarding objectionable material (HB332) in public school classrooms. We discuss transparency, age appropriate material, parental involvement, and what parents and taxpayers need to do to ensure parental rights are defended and secured.