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Education

Common Core architect & advisor to the NH DOE: ELIMINATE LOCAL CONTROL

This is the plan to eliminate Local School Boards….just released today – by Marc Tucker at the Center for American Progress (THE Progressive think tank frequented by Clintonistas and Obama-ites which is totally in favor of “fundamentally transforming” America); the important part:  …If Americans are going to decide which level of government we want to … Read more

April 20th GrokTALK! Snippets – Segment Four: Guest – NH Business Owner Josh Youssef

In Segment four we talk with Josh Youssef, local small business owner and former candidate for the New Hampshire State Senate,  about HB 370 (repealing education choice),  State Senator Andrew Hosmer, education in general, what the Teachers Unions are actually after, and more.  (With Dr. Julianne Cooper who sticks around to add to the conversation.) … Read more

NH State Senator Peggy Gilmour – I demand who should control education dollars

And that would not be parents – From today’s Concord Patch: ‘Sen. Peggy Gilmour, D-Hollis, had urged her colleagues to overturn a committee recommendation and then pass the repeal bill. In a statement, she said, “The program has no accountability of public money. It allows private, non-profit corporations to determine where public education dollars are … Read more

State Senate Votes 13-11 to Table HB 370 – The Education Scholarship Credit Lives!!!

HB 370, the government-school monopoly, anti-education-choice-bill from the union-owned Democrat House, that would have repealed the education scholarship tax credit that passed last year, has been tabled by the New Hampshire State Senate.    Tabling a bill is not legislative death but it is not unlike locking a prisoner up in a dungeon and forgetting they are there.  Someone might wander down to take a peek, but more likely  than not no one will ever visit it again.

Snidely whiplash - NEA loses as HB370 is tabled in NH Senate

There are several reasons for doing it, but more than likely this was to give cover for folks who would rather leave things as they are.  As a way to end the repeal effort without actually having to vote pass or fail..   Or maybe we got lucky.  I don’t much care what or why, just that it’s done, at least until Fred Lynn the ACLU, and the out of state wing-nuts who are planning to file suit at the bench of left-wing Judge John “I redefined domicile in time for the November Elections” Lewis….who will be asked to block the program on the grounds that it violates the separation of church and state.

Today we are victorious.  Tomorrow is another day.

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NH State Senate To Vote On Education Choice Tomorrow

HB 370, the New Hampshire Democrats effort to punish the children of poor and lower income families, to keep them out of private schools by denying them an opportunity to get a scholarship, will be voted on tomorrow by the New Hampshire State Senate. Back in April of 2012 we reported on how 71% of New Hampshire’s public schools … Read more

A List of 54 Anti Common Core Facebook Pages – By State

Laura Rambeau Lee from Right Reason.com has done us all a great service.  She has compiled a list of all the anti-common core facebook pages by state. There are 54 links (so far), three in New Hampshire, so feel free to check a few of them out.  And by all means, like these groups and … Read more

State Senate Committee Votes to End NH Democrat Efforts at Repealing Education Equality

From Facebook:

Senator Andy Sanborn reports fabulous news!! –> the Senate Health, Education, and Human Services Committee voted to kill HB370, so that’s a win for parents and school choice!!!

The Senate will still have to vote on the recommendation to kill the repeal effort but this is a very positive signal.   And I I get to say ‘…Democrats attempt to repeal education equality.‘  That’ll have the leftocrats foaming at the mouth and spraying spittle on their keyboards as they attempt to translate their outrage into smears and slurs.

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EDUCATION: Common Core (National Standards): Follow Them Or Expect Better?

As public schools in New Hampshire begin the process of aligning curriculum to the new Common Core (National) Standards, parents should take the time to know what this means for their children.

The National Governors Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) together formed the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI) to develop a set of academic standards.  The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) is a set of learning standards in English language arts (ELA) and mathematics.  These standards replaced existing state standards in these subject areas.

To be fair, the old New Hampshire state education standards were some of the poorest academic standards in the country.  Unfortunately, under the new CCSS, we will not see much academic improvement, while at the same time we are embracing some truly troubling “reforms.”

Contrary to the claims of the CCSS public relations machine, experts have uncovered the following about Common Core:

  • The Common Core only allows States to make changes to the standards by a factor of up to 15 percent. Therefore, if a parent or state official identifies a problem with the CCS, to whom do they appeal? It is unclear who governs these standards, and it seems as though the people of New Hampshire now have to lobby the NGA and CCSSO in Washington, DC in order to make changes necessary to respond to the needs of New Hampshire children.

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“Defending NH’s Public Education” Monopoly

So what it is about Christianity that Mr. Duncan dislikes so much? For starters, let’s look at that old bugaboo ‘The 10 Commandments”: Does he oppose the one that says we shouldn’t kill? How about the one that says we shouldn’t lie? Or how about the one that says we shouldn’t steal? Or maybe it’s … Read more

“I despise bullies……wealthy officials who exercise school choice for their own families while denying it to others less financially fortunate”

This column came to my attention from Ann Marie Bannfield who as become one of the most knowledgeable and articulate defenders of the need for Educational Freedom, for local control,  and an ardent foe of lowered educational/academic standards that have swept our country.  Thus, when she emailed out a link to this Op-Ed, I read it.  After doing so, it became clear that this is one of the best pieces I have read that simply and plainly call out the real bullies in the educational field.  No, not other students but the adults on the other side of the desk in the form of the teachers unions.

The political bullying of NH school children continues  BY RICHARD EVANS

I despise bullies.

One of the most profound impressions ever made on me was when, as a young man in the 1980s, I travelled along the border between China and Hong Kong. I vividly remember watching the people on the Chinese side laboring in the rice fields, literally in the shadow of the gun towers which sprouted from the barbed wire at frequent intervals. At the end of the day, my wife and I crossed back to the other side of the wire beyond which lay freedom and prosperity.

For our Chinese guide and the folks in the fields, however, that was a forbidden land. How unimaginably galling it must have been for them to peer through that barrier every day of their lives, and see Nirvana so close and yet so unattainable.

Years later I realized that the most telling feature of any wall is the posture of the guards. The Chinese guards on the border, like their counterparts who once manned the equally dismal Berlin Wall, were not defending their fellow citizens against outside attack. They were facing inwards, preventing escape. Arch bullies, one and all.

Not all walls are physical structures. The wall that has been erected around our public schools is purely economic, yet it traps those it surrounds equally as effectively as any barbed wire. Escape is theoretically feasible, but it comes with a price tag that is beyond the means of most families. To leave is to forgo, for some completely unfathomable reason, all access to a share of the substantial funding that society allocates to education. All of the money must stay behind.

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Picks 4 Meredith Selectman and ILS Board

On Tuesday we can elect a smart, capable, and friendly businesswoman as a Meredith Selectman.  Jayne Greemore’s daily customer contact informs her of local opinions, needed services, and the economic stresses affecting our citizens.  Jayne’s business experience has taught the importance of providing superior services in a cost effective way.  Jayne Greemore will bring fresh thinking to our town board, she will make a great Selectman. 

Two talented and dedicated people are running for Inter-Lakes School Board.  However, Mark Billings can perform all school board member functions without the conflict of interest resulting from Chris Mega’s wife’s employment in the school district. 

In addition, Mr. Mega’s priorities are wrong.  The purpose of education tax dollars is to provide each child with a good education, not to fund the educational establishment.     

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The Value Proposition of K-12 Education: a failing proposition. New York City shows why

Recent news: “Officials: Most NYC High School Grads Need Remedial Help Before Entering CUNY Community Colleges” (reformatted, emphasis mine)

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — It’s an education bombshell.

Nearly 80 percent of New York City high school graduates need to relearn basic skills before they can enter the City University’s community college system. The number of kids behind the 8-ball is the highest in years, CBS 2?s Marcia Kramer reported Thursday. When they graduated from city high schools, students in a special remedial program at the Borough of Manhattan Community College couldn’t make the grade.

They had to re-learn basic skills — reading, writing and math — first before they could begin college courses.  They are part of a disturbing statistic.

Officials told CBS 2?s Kramer that nearly 80 percent of those who graduate from city high schools arrived at City University’s community college system without having mastered the skills to do college-level work.

Hmm – not much value there, is there?  More like Public Education has a “dereliction of duty problem” on the order of “Do they even know what they are doing”?  And those of us that went through primary school through high school before the mid-70s (when the hippie / draft dodging / New Left schooled radical” teachers gave us limitless opportunities to make sport of cashiers that can’t make change in their heads or cannot string three complex sentences to save their lives.  Grokster Steve’s recent post on how homeschooling is illegal in Germany and how NH Dems have worked hard to do the same here too (either de jure or de facto): Do NH Democrats Want To Pass A Law Like This One In Germany?  It has accumulated a fair number of comments.  Hunter Dan – a government teacher that comments here (and to whom, we have been trying to better educate) – left us a comment here in response to a comment by Susan on a monopolistic stranglehold on “public education” by the teachers unions:

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The War on Poor Children by Religious Bigots in New Hampshire

There is an excellent article over at Math Wizards, on the effort by some in New Hampshire to repeal a scholarship program for poor kids titled “HB370: A WAR ON POOR CHILDREN IN NEW HAMPSHIRE by RELIGIOUS BIGOTS?” The article observes that opponents are pointing to the NH State constitution as a reason for repeal, but … Read more

What Ever Happened to The Inductive Method?

Another great video on education destined to make the public school union folks bleed out their eyes.  Here’s the blurb from PJTV and Next Generation TV. Victor Davis Hanson joins Col. Allen B. West to discuss our modern system of education. In the zero sum game of educating our children, Dr. Hanson asks, who is … Read more

About That Charter Schools Funding

From the Daily Caller. A charter schools advocacy organization in New Hampshire has captured video showing (New Hampshire) Democrat Mary Stuart Gile, who chairs the education committee in the state’s House of Representatives, apparently changing her position on charter schools in a four-minute flash.   Opponents of the bill want to see the bill fail because … Read more

Yes, we MUST be critical of their thinking (or what passes for it)

Political correctness, CYA, a lack of blame-shifting / “not my fault and not my responsibility” and a total lack of “critical judgment” – what a combination we see.  And the Educational-Industrial at work (School Board Associations, Administrator Associations, and Public Teachers Unions at these Government schools purport to be all about “public education” and how DARE you criticize us? (emphasis mine)

This incident is the latest in a growing line of extraordinarily strong reactions by school officials to things students have brought to school — or talked about bringing to school — that are not anything like real guns.

At D. Newlin Fell School in Philadelphia, school officials reportedly yelled at a student and then searched her in front of her class after she was found with a paper gun her grandfather had made for her. (RELATED: Paper gun causes panic)

In rural Pennsylvania, a kindergarten girl was suspended for making a “terroristic threat” after she told another girl that she planned to shoot her with a pink Hello Kitty toy gun that bombards targets with soapy bubbles.

At Roscoe R. Nix Elementary School in Maryland, a six-year-old boy was suspended for making the universal kid sign for a gun, pointing at another student and saying “pow.” That boy’s suspension was later lifted and his name cleared. (RELATED: Pow! You’re suspended, kid)

In Sumter, South Carolina, a six-year-old girl was expelled for bringing a clear plastic Airsoft gun that shoots plastic pellet to class for show-and-tell. The expulsion was later revoked.

Remember, these are the people who claim that they teach critical thinking.

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