Apr

21

FYI Plainfield Taxpayers!

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Apr

21

Continuing Education for Adults

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Courtesy of Gerry Hawkes; Woodstock, VT who wrote:

I was in Plainfield yesterday and stopped by the McNellis’s to look at some work for them. We had a nice visit and the topic of how we might improve local education came up.

My wife is a middle & high school teacher in Woodstock, so I have had many years of involvement with teachers and students. I have great respect for most teachers and am impressed by the character and ability of many of the students, but have concerns about the inefficiencies and irrelevance that can often be found in our traditional system of education, in particular the many bureaucratic regulations and mandates that drive up costs and often frustrate good teachers. This said, our two children received wonderful educations in the public school system coming from a home environment which encouraged them to learn.

I have often thought that it would be most beneficial if our secondary school system could become a community school system, open to residents of all ages who wished to update their skills or just stimulate their intellectual curiosity, not just to teenage students. I can see many advantages to this, such as:

  • Adults with updated skills should be able to boost their income thus improving the economic and social base of the community
  • Senior citizens who attended classes would have intellectual stimulation as well as increased social contacts and would be better able to be happy, contributing members of the community
  • Adults coming back into the school system for skill upgrades would illustrate to the teenage students the importance of obtaining a good education
  • Having adult students from the community (there probably never would be a lot) would give community members an inside look at how the education system works or doesn’t work. This would be much better than relying on second hand and inaccurate accounts
  • Older, adult students (particularly senior citizens) could contribute many valuable life experiences and lessons to the younger students
  • Teachers could find older students an educational asset to help them make what they teach more relevant
  • In lieu of paying for classes, some of the adult students could exchange class time for services such as study hall or lunch room supervision, thus relieving teachers of these duties so that the taxpayers would get more teaching time for their $ rather than using teachers for these non teaching duties
  • If our secondary schools could become true community educational resources, I believe it would help uplift community spirit and the local economy
  • Intergenerational understanding and cooperation should improve.
  • Learning in an intergenerational setting should help lower substance abuse and crime rates among our youth and a provide our older citizens with a greater sense of purpose and belonging
  • With community involvement, learning should become more relevant and broader in scope while, costly, inappropriate educational practices would be more likely to fall out of favor

These are just a few ideas to help us think about making positive changes in our educational system. I have never vetted these ideas in any forum other than a few casual conversations, so they have never been critiqued. I am sure there are practical reasons some of these ideas would not work, but I am also sure there are many that would, if the system can be changed. What I hope this does is to get people thinking outside the box, for ways we can make our educational system far better while reducing costs and/or uplifting communities so that they can afford the education they would like to have.

Apr

16

NH Advantage Coalition

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April 16, 2008
How bad will it get?

New Department Head Revenue Projections Show NH Deficit is closing in on $300 Million

Manchester NH - Despite raking in revenues at a higher pace than last year, testimony by department heads before the House Ways and Means Committee on April 9, 2008, painted a very bleak picture of the state of our state. This new revenue outlook, showing shortfall closing in on $300 Million dollars, has many state officials asking: just how bad will it get?

Despite repeated warnings that last year’s inflated revenue projections would lead New Hampshire exactly to the place we are today. Governor John Lynch, Democrat leaders in both the house and senate, knowingly passed an unbalanced budget to fuel their insatiable need to spend. That astronomical jump in spending according to the National Governors Association and the National Association of State Budget Officers December 2007 survey, puts New Hampshire squarely in the top ten of overspending offenders nationwide.

“Only seven states experienced a higher percentage growth in state spending in FY08. New Hampshire taxpayers are increasingly frustrated by the overspending, posturing, and false rhetoric of our current state leadership. It has become trendy to say you’re for low taxes, even against a sales or income tax. The problem is, once elected, too many officials act like a teenager with a fist full of credit cards,” said Mike Biundo, NHAC Chairman.

“New Hampshire’s leaders need to start managing our tax dollars like they do their own households. When the cost of gas and milk go up, most taxpayers look for ways to cut spending. Perhaps they don’t eat out, or stop going to movies, but they definitely look for ways to cut out the discretionary spending, and that is something this legislature and our governor need to quickly learn how to do,”

For more information please contact: Roger Wilkins, the New Hampshire Advantage Coalition (603)-289-8931 (cell), or write: rwilkins@yourmeridian.com

Source: NH Advantage Coalition

Also the NH Advantage Coalition is seeking to institute tax caps in various towns and cities. If you are interested, give them a call.

Apr

9

Why SB2 Ballot System is Good

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On March 11, 2008 voters cast their ballots for or against SB2. There results were YES: 240 and NO: 254.

That means c.49% 0f voters wanted SB2 all day voting system. Remarkable for our first try.

In Plainfield, money warrants succeed when voter numbers are minimal. Ideally, School Boards want to encourage a maximum # of voters to come and vote for the budget it has constructed. Ideally! Reality? Having honestly struggled for months to compose a budget, a board wants acceptance.

Around the State voter turnout for School budgets is about 25% more or less. And the voters who do come often have a vested interest in passage, v.g. salary increases. So the temptation for a Board is to stack the deck; stay with a system that produces low turnout and acceptance. Minimal looks good!

But why such low turnouts? The faithful 25% who do meet and vote say to the other 75%“Tough if you don’t like it. You didn’t bother to come! It’s your fault.”

But we don’t know why 75% fail to come. Many of the no-shows are our friends, solid citizens; so we can’t attribute carelessness or sloth for failing to meet and vote. Maybe the traditional 200 year old method doesn’t satisfy the modern family and society. And they can inform themselves about warrant articles through other modern means: newspapers, pamphlets, radio, computers, discussions with friends, bulletin boards.

Rather than blaming, let’s support an alternate way to vote. All-day voting sessions on non-meeting days tends to produce 40-50% more voters. The old system doesn’t meet today’s needs. Senate Bill 2 (SB 2) does provide a solution. And today 30-40% of our towns use SB2 successfully. . Board members and teachers openly discourage voting for SB 2. They claim they want to preserve the charming traditional citizens’ meeting and discussion But what about the voters?

The Board’s obligation to citizens (who voted for them) is to provide an accommodating voting opportunity. “The more people who vote, the better. Isn’t that what Town Meeting is all about?”, as Jim Kenyon asks in his Valley News column, p.A2, 02-27-08.

And the beauty of the SB2 system is that it does not eliminate the traditional New England citizens’ discussions on town issues.

Please watch for an upcoming poll on why only 75% of all eligible voters fail to come to vote.