Education

The Sunday Telegraph is heralding their governors signing of HB 1495, a bill that authorizes more Charter Schools in New Hampshire. It's a glowing report about a state executive committed to educational opportunities until you get to paragraph six where the governors true motivations are revealed.

From the Things we missed File 

Monday-Tuesday - June 28-29, 2010
HSCC will host its annual spring Teacher Workshop on The Progressive Era & World War I in the Monadnock Region from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. for any educator who wishes to expand their understanding of the Progressive Era and World War I. For further information and registration form, please visit our Teacher Workshop web page or contact Tom Haynes by email or at 352-1895.

Episode 120: School for the Gifted

Denis and Lydia interview Kate Baker Richards, founder and executive vice-chair of the nonprofit Scholars' Academy NH, a private school for gifted children. Topics include identifying gifted children, the special needs of gifted children, and differing education methodologies.
Also: NH Constitution, Art. I, Part 38: your right to hold government to Constitutional and moral principles.

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One of my prevailing issues with public education is its evolution away from critical thinking.  Agenda driving curricula and the pervasive left wing university bias that churns out public school teachers has created generations of educators who are just as biased (if not more so) than their counter-parts from the media and journalism schools.

Case in point: Global Warming.

The Home School Legal Defense Association has declared New Hampshire Hostile to Home schoolers. 

Currently only six states have “earned” the distinction of being considered “red” states. These are Vermont, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New York and North Dakota. HSLDA will be adding New Hampshire to this list not because its law is inherently unfriendly, but because its legislative climate has been persistently hostile to homeschoolers for the last four years.

Episode 112: NH Families for Education

Denis and Lydia interview Michelle Levell, spokesperson for NH Families for Education. Discussion centers on SB503, a bill which would require that personal information about children in kindergarten be recorded in a centralized database. Your NH State Representatives will vote on the bill on May 12th.

When the NEA and NEA-NH push hard for a bill, I get suspicious.  HB 1411 is just such a bill.  It came up on my radar when an NEA email appeared in my wife's in box with all those "hey we really need to you to read this email" attention getters.  "VOTE ON TUESDAY," is the subject line and I'm thinking, vote on Tuesday?  What vote is on Tuesday?

HB1411 is described by the NEA like this...

Episode 109: School Sucks

Denis and Lydia interview Brett Veinotte, host of the School Sucks Podcast and creator of SchoolSucksProject.com -- a project concerning, in his words, "the END of public education"
Scott is a professional educator who has come to realize that the basic design of public school "sucks" the creative capacity out of children, and also "sucks" wealth away from more productive uses.

The federal college-loan money-grab was crammed into the Health Insurance boondoggle like the last blue frosted donut testing the frontiers of elasticity on our now calorically challenged, spandex wearing constitution.  And unlike the obvious fascism of the bank takeovers and auto industry takeovers--and of course the health industry takeover, this one was not over advertised.

Not long ago the Merrimack School board made an unprecedented move.  In the shrinking shadow of declining enrollment, they decided to cut staff.  That’s right teachers.  But in the intervening weeks since the plan was submitted there has been a change of heart.  Call it “Budget Cutter’s Remorse.”  Or more likely, the union and the towns’ grow government first lobby applied enough local pressure to convince the weak links on the school board to put the teachers back in the budget. 

The default response by the Liberty-deniers on the left to the suggestion that we need to cut taxes is that education and public safety will be hurt by any effort to return the peoples money to the people.  It is chapter and verse for liberals to pry at the soft edges of the electorate with words of warning about how Republican efforts to shrink government will hurt their children, the elderly, or the disadvantaged.  And if you happen to disagree, they treat you like idiots for failing to be as smart as they think they are.  Just look at Chairman Buckley's response to the public beating taken by Jeff Goley yesterday.

In one of those eponymous political moments we all cherish, the NH House Education subcommittee, charged with reviewing legislation to retool the states Bullying Laws, says it was bullied itself.

Rep Judith Reever (D-Laconia) Vice Chair on the Education Committee does not disagree with the idea that the subcommittee bowed to prejudice, this quoted from the Sunday Union leader. 

Rep Rachel Burke (D-Strafford Dist # 3) also on the committee, is reported by the UL to have been crying during a phone interview as she claimed to have been intimidated by the idea that opponents would defeat the bill if controversial language was not removed.

Episode 93: Strong Foundations NH

Lydia chats with Beth McLaure, co-founder of Strong Foundations NH. The Foundation's purpose is to create elementary public charter schools so that children can receive the instruction they need, without experiencing frustration and failure first.

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