Group forming to sue NH over education funding.

[lildog]

On other bit of information I was able to find?

http://www.nhes.state.nh.us/elmi/htmlprofiles/merrimack.html

Based on the 2000 census numbers Merrimack has 6110 kids between the ages of 5 to 19.  Saying every single one of those kids was enrolled in public schools (remember Merrimack has a budget of over 55 million) that?s a little over $9,000 per child.

Scrolling down even further on the above link we learn Merrimack has only 4773 kids enrolled in its public education system? now we?re up to over $11,500 per kid per year.

So what?s the damage in other towns?

[GT]

Londonderry approximately 5600 student and 53 million budget = 9,464 per student.

For the extreme end Waterville Valley 21,328.30 per student

More State herehttp://www.ed.state.nh.us/education/data/ReportsandStatistics/FinancialReports/CostPerPupil/CostPerPupil2003-2004/CostPerPupil2003-2004Frameset.htm

As I understand it the state calculation for per student cost are somehow biased to the low end. I think the don't count transportation or something.

[CNHT]

Yes it's always too low, $7K is more like $12K etc

[cathleeninnh]

Often, they exclude debt service on school construction bonds.

Cathleen

[GT]

A few Quotes on Public Education I stumbled on Today:

Elwood Cubberly, 1905 future Dean of Education at Stanford:
"Schools should be factories ?in which raw products, children, are to be shaped and formed into finished products?manufactured like nails, and the specifications for manufacturing will come from government and industry.?



Rockefeller Education Board?which funded the creation of numerous public schools?issued a statement in 1906 which read in part:
In our dreams?people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present educational conventions [intellectual and character education] fade from our minds, and unhampered by tradition we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or men of science. We have not to raise up from among them authors, educators, poets or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we have ample supply. The task we set before ourselves is very simple?we will organize children?and teach them to do in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way.


William Torrey Harris, US Commissioner of Education from 1889 to 1906, wrote:
?Ninety-nine [students] out of a hundred are automata, careful to walk in prescribed paths, careful to follow the prescribed custom. This is not an accident but the result of substantial education, which, scientifically defined, is the subsumption of the individual.?

?The great purpose of school can be realized better in dark, airless, ugly places?. It is to master the physical self, to transcend the beauty of nature. School should develop the power to withdraw from the external world.?



President Woodrow Wilson would echo these sentiments in a speech to businessmen:
?We want one class to have a liberal education. We want another class, a very much larger class of necessity, to forego the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks.?

[AlanM]

A few Quotes on Public Education I stumbled on Today:

Elwood Cubberly, 1905 future Dean of Education at Stanford:
"Schools should be factories ?in which raw products, children, are to be shaped and formed into finished products?manufactured like nails, and the specifications for manufacturing will come from government and industry.?



Rockefeller Education Board?which funded the creation of numerous public schools?issued a statement in 1906 which read in part:
In our dreams?people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present educational conventions [intellectual and character education] fade from our minds, and unhampered by tradition we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or men of science. We have not to raise up from among them authors, educators, poets or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we have ample supply. The task we set before ourselves is very simple?we will organize children?and teach them to do in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way.


William Torrey Harris, US Commissioner of Education from 1889 to 1906, wrote:
?Ninety-nine [students] out of a hundred are automata, careful to walk in prescribed paths, careful to follow the prescribed custom. This is not an accident but the result of substantial education, which, scientifically defined, is the subsumption of the individual.?

?The great purpose of school can be realized better in dark, airless, ugly places?. It is to master the physical self, to transcend the beauty of nature. School should develop the power to withdraw from the external world.?



President Woodrow Wilson would echo these sentiments in a speech to businessmen:
?We want one class to have a liberal education. We want another class, a very much larger class of necessity, to forego the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks.?

Does anyone still think public schools can be "fixed"?

[GT]

Does anyone still think public schools can be "fixed"?

What is there to fix. It seems to be working as designed

Having two kids in public school it is painfully obvious that the socialist mindset is spreading like wildfire.

If the NHCafe people get their way. NH will soon be paying 100 percent of education costs in the state. Upwards of 6-500 - 8,000 per student. Every town will be "entilted" to their own elementary, middle and high schools. Property or whatever tax they get to fund it will be out of sight.

[Pat McCotter]

Rockefeller Education Board?which funded the creation of numerous public schools?issued a statement in 1906 which read in part:
In our dreams?people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present educational conventions [intellectual and character education] fade from our minds, and unhampered by tradition we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or men of science. We have not to raise up from among them authors, educators, poets or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we have ample supply. The task we set before ourselves is very simple?we will organize children?and teach them to do in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way.

What were the "present educational conventions" of the time? How do we learn what they were so we can return to them?
They sure have "faded" from my mind. Of course, being a product of public education they were probably never there to begin with.

President Woodrow Wilson would echo these sentiments in a speech to businessmen:
?We want one class to have a liberal education. We want another class, a very much larger class of necessity, to forego the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks.?

Makes me want to be an anarchist if I didn't already not vote for national politicians - too far away from the electorate. We have to put these people back into their Constitutional cage!

Frustrated! 
Pat

[lildog]

I had an interesting conversation with a coworker this morning regarding the state of NH education.  She made an interesting point I thought I?d share and would love to hear feedback on?

In her view the problem with the NH education system is there are no standards? in fact that?s what she sees as the problem with the education system in all of New England.

Each town is left to their own to develop a program as to what kids should learn.

In her opinion there should be a set state or even national curriculum stating which classes kids should be required to take to graduate.

But when I started asking her about a ?one size fits all? approach to education she agreed that wouldn?t work.  I pointed out to her that I had a hard time learning languages but I had a very easy time with technical subjects and math.  She agreed that people are wired differently so they need to be taught differently but she believes that the over all subjects that people learn in public schools should be a set curriculum from a set of state or federally approved books.

Any thoughts on this?

[GT]

The problem with education is the state and federal governments are involved. Local control period. What does some twit beuracrat in DC know about education in NH?

[AlanM]

The problem with education is the state and federal governments are involved. Local control period. What does some twit beuracrat in DC know about education in NH?

Yeah! What GT said! 

[mikefam]

I had an interesting conversation with a coworker this morning regarding the state of NH education.? She made an interesting point I thought I?d share and would love to hear feedback on?

In her view the problem with the NH education system is there are no standards? in fact that?s what she sees as the problem with the education system in all of New England.

Each town is left to their own to develop a program as to what kids should learn.

In her opinion there should be a set state or even national curriculum stating which classes kids should be required to take to graduate.

But when I started asking her about a ?one size fits all? approach to education she agreed that wouldn?t work.? I pointed out to her that I had a hard time learning languages but I had a very easy time with technical subjects and math.? She agreed that people are wired differently so they need to be taught differently but she believes that the over all subjects that people learn in public schools should be a set curriculum from a set of state or federally approved books.

Any thoughts on this?

sounds like that coworker has a public school education herself, ask her if she thinks it would have been a good idea for the slave master to educate slaves in the old south.

[Ron Helwig]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20050804/cm_usatoday/howschoolsaredestroyingthejoyofreading

The fact is that for all the anxiety schools have about state exams, with the exception of science and math, those exams have turned into nothing more than minimum competency tests that any average student can pass with little preparation. And no decent teacher needs a 1,500-page text to prepare below-average students for these dumbed-down tests.

No Children Learning Better is just one more political play that will only add bureacratic overhead to an already bogged down system that shouldn't exist in the first place.

[Kat Kanning]

Thanks for the article!  I added it to my 'what's wrong with the public schools page'.

http://www.soulawakenings.com/underground/tikiwiki/tiki-index.php?page=Public+Schools

[lildog]

The problem with education is the state and federal governments are involved. Local control period. What does some twit beuracrat in DC know about education in NH?

GT, what makes you think local government?s control is any better?  What does ANY politician who won a popularity contest (i.e. an election) know about education?

Case in point, look at Merrimack.  For close to the last decade Rosemarie Rung and Ken Coleman have been in control of the school board.  They stepped in because prior to them there were extremists from the right in power who were trying to bring religion into the schools, discriminate against homosexuals etc (I only know bits and pieces since I moved to town in 2001 so if you want to know more I?d suggest you look it up as there are many articles about what happened).  The town so appalled by what was going on voted in Ken and Rosemarie (who I see as extreme leftists).  So now our schools are happy places with everyone focused on education but mean while they spend like drunken sailors in a whore house.  The budget has closed to doubled in the last 5 years alone.  But because only until recently now that the budget is so far out of control most can?t even afford to live in town any longer there were no major problems people just sat back content while they spiraled spending out of control.  Do you think those two are doing better then someone at the state level would be doing?

Personally when it comes to public schools I see no difference in who controls them whether it?s local, state or federal.