Articles tagged as

school funding

save our schools

MACDONALD: Want a Refund On Your School Property Taxes?

New Hampshire’s public schools have problems. No matter how much money we pour into them, the results get worse. Money, therefore, mathematically, economically, academically, and scientifically, is not the answer. Money, practically speaking, leads to worse outcomes. This fact aligns two problems in a common solution. Schools are the reason why property taxes are so … Read more

Taxes crushing vermont original Photo by Chris Andrawes on Unsplash

ROPER: Vermont’s School Funding/Property Tax Catastrophe

The committee tasked under Act 73 with coming up with a menu of consolidated school district maps for the legislature to consider in 2026… just didn’t do it. It was their whole job under the law, and after six months of hearings and consultants and cashing those taxpayer-funded per-diem checks and blowing through their $170,000 … Read more

andru volinsky edelblut Education

UNDERWOOD: Schools – What Could be Fairer than This?

Andru Volinsky is asking people to think about what is fair in the context of raising money to pay for schools. Here’s the answer I gave him. We can think about that by considering the following story. One day, Pat and Chris came to do some shopping at Mr. Volinsky’s Grocery Store.  Each of them … Read more

money cash hundred dollar bills original Photo by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash

OPINION: “RINO-Russ Barry” (a/k/a State Rep Ross Berry) Is Gaslighting You About “Local Control” And Property Taxes

RINO-Russ Barry, who prefers to be referred to as State Rep Ross Berry, wants you to believe that property taxes in New Hampshire are out of control because of “local control” of public school budgets: First, there is no real “local control” of public education in New Hampshire. From an NHPR article: State law RSA 193-E:3-b … Read more

Cash money bills

Underwood: Do EFAs Actually Save Money?

I’ve recently had questions from quite a few people about how Education Freedom Accounts (EFAs) work. During the conversations, they often mention that “the money follows the child” and “EFAs are saving money”. EFAs are one of many solutions for families for whom the default district school isn’t working. But families will be in a … Read more

andru volinsky edelblut Education

Tyson: Vouchers and the Vision of the Un-Anointed – A Rebuttal to Andru Volinsky

Introduction In his polemical essay against school vouchers, Andru Volinsky trades on well-worn tropes: that public education is a pillar of democracy, that vouchers threaten social equity, and that the Civil Rights Movement should be invoked to shield the status quo. Yet this rhetorical sleight-of-hand obscures deeper truths. Public education in America was not built … Read more

AIER Files Amicus Briefs in NH School Finance Cases (ConVal and Rand)

Almost everyone in New Hampshire knows about The Claremont Decisions. The courts decided they were legislators and could determine what adequate school funding was about. More recently, they’ve been at it again. The ConVal ruling (Contoocook Valley School District v. State of New Hampshire) tells the legislature to amp up school funding despite the absence … Read more

The Fair Share Surcharge

I recently saw a receipt from a restaurant in Los Angeles, which included a 4% surcharge labeled ‘Healthy LA’.  Presumably, it is supposed to pay for health care and other benefits for restaurant workers.

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Equity Requires a Ceiling, Not a Floor

The Democrat-controlled Commission to Study School Funding has issued its final report.  There’s no chance that a Republican-controlled government is going to implement the recommendations of this report.  (At least, one hopes that’s the case, but as  Winnie-the-Pooh would say, you never can tell with Republicans.)

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Charter schools: Red herrings

In a recent editorial about how school choice and charter schools ‘put public school funding at risk’, Donald Cohen waves three red herrings, hoping to distract you from the real issues at hand.  They come up a lot, so they’re worth looking at more closely.

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School funding: How much is enough?

There is a question that should be asked of anyone who wants to make a case for increasing the amount that we spend on public schools.  Usually, they just say that the amount needed is ‘more than it is now’.

But how much more? 

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Two Parent Family

School funding alone won’t help children out of poverty

To The Daily Sun, Haley Thomas’s 1/29/20 letter makes valid points about childhood and generational poverty, and their negative effects on peoples’ lives. But Thomas’s apparent solution, increased school funding, is simply inadequate, and, based on decades of history, unlikely to improve educational results or reduce poverty. Calling for school funding increases may make people … Read more

School funding: Luck is unconstitutional!

Oh, boy!  It looks like we’re going to have a new education funding commission, to look at the question of how schools should be funded in New Hampshire. We can safely make two predictions about how this will work out.  First, school spending will go up significantly.  Second, student achievement will not go up at … Read more

The $46 Million Free Lunch

The first thing to understand about charter schools is that reasonable people disagree about whether the outcomes from charter schools are significantly better than those from regular public schools.  (And by ‘outcomes’, I don’t mean just final scores.  I mean improvements.  Schools that have students who would do well under any circumstances don’t deserve any credit when those kids do well.)

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Groundhog Day

In the film Groundhog Day, Phil keeps waking up to the same day, over and over, already knowing what’s going to happen, and powerless to stop it.

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