When Should Children Start School

Starting school early can be damaging students, countries that start students later in schooling often out perform American students in comparison studies.  Croydon voters were correct in rejecting full-day kindergarten.  We should take it one step further and eliminate kindergarten all together.  Kindergarten has socialist origins.

Cathy Peschke
Grammatical errors are left as an exercise to my readers.

“Children learn what they live. Put kids in a class and they will live out their lives in an invisible cage, isolated from their chance at community; interrupt kids with bells and horns all the time and they will learn that nothing is important or worth finishing; ridicule them and they will retreat from human association; shame them and they will find a hundred ways to get even. The habits taught in large-scale organizations are deadly.” - John Taylor Gatto

Stop Common Core In New Hampshire

If you are a parent who actually cares about what goes into your child's brain please take five minutes and two seconds to watch this video.

Thanks,

Cathy

Grammatical errors are left as a learning exercise for my readers. 

“The whole educational and professional training system is a very elaborate filter, which just weeds out people who are too independent, and who think for themselves, and who don't know how to be submissive, and so on -- because they're dysfunctional to the institutions.” -Noam Chomsky

Common Core is nothing more than ObamaCare but for Education

Common Core is socialized education.  There are a plethora of resources on the internet listed below and plenty of other resources you can Google yourself.

• Stop Common Core in New Hampshire
• Parents and Educators Against Common Core
• The Homeschool Resource Roadmap
  
  

Parents are Responsible for their Children's Education

     After eleven years of fighting against excessive taxes and fighting for education reform,  I have found Jim and I are often misquoted in the press.   The Valley News misquoted me, yet again.  The only time I said kids was when I was quoting the person who said kids.  I rarely if ever refer to children or my children as kids.  The only other time you will hear me use the word kids is if I am referring to baby goats or if I am repeating the platitude, "It's for the kids."  I also put an s at the end of the community because without it, it totally changes the meaning of what I said.

     I asked some of my friend's, "Ultimately who is responsible for a child's education?"  Unlike town hall meeting where my reply of parents got a chuckle and a snide remark from the moderator of, "I guess we don't need schools," my friends overwhelming replied, "parents".   In fact fourteen replied "parents," three jokingly replied with varying answers.   The fact that it got a chuckle makes me feel really sad for some of the children of Croydon and some of those in Croydon.

     Parents are ultimately responsible for the education of their children. The public school system aka government school system aka socialized education system as it is now was not meant to educate children.  It is scary how few know that.  The current system is meant to school children not educate them, achieve a progressive utopia, and to destroy the Republic.  I would say public schools are successful in that manner, but not educating children. 


Cathy Peschke

Grammatical errors are left as an exercise to my readers.

You Really Don't know Where the Money is Going

You don't know where the money is going, you are a fool if you think you do.

Jim was not the sitting board member when Newport reneged on their deal.  Jody , Emily and Angie were the board members.  Emily could not get Newport to stick to their deal.  Newport has not been good neighbors in my opinion.    When you get an increased tax bill this summer keep that in mind.  I did not vote to increase your taxes.

Cathy

Low turnout costs Croydon taxpayers.

High turnout at Tuesday’s town/school officer elections gave hope that perhaps school issues had triggered the attention of Croydon taxpayers.

Saturday’s school board meeting dashed these hopes.  Despite the high stakes of the warrant articles (over $2/$1,000 or 20%+ increase in the school tax rate), the meeting drew only 40 to 50 residents.

One of the most astonishing aspects of the meeting was the administration’s complete lack of preparation.  Article 3 requested ~$138k to pay for last year’s Newport tuition that was under-budgeted^*.  One should expect voters to ask for the numbers behind this request – the administration had none.  At best, the front table ventured crude guesses as to the source of the disparity.

While the funding request may have been perfectly valid, the lack of even basic support was troubling.  Worse, a majority of voters passed this large warrant article without this information.

In Special Education, lack of transparency is the norm.  Accordingly, the board requested a 74% increase in Special Ed spending for 2013-2014.  Calls for openness and restraint were drowned out by veiled threats of horrific consequences should all spending not be approved at once.  Board chair Jody Underwood read an impassioned speech calling for a board member to be seated on the IEP committee to represent the taxpayers.

This is a great step forward, though it fails to provide transparency to the other two board members.  It is also inappropriate to phrase this idea as a request or a suggestion; this should be a demand.  The administration works for the board, a fact that seems to be routinely ignored.  It is past time to reestablish the board as the leader of the district, second only to the taxpayers.

Two large warrant articles passed with virtually no information available to the board or the public.  Votes of such cavalier ignorance are not characteristic of the people of Croydon; they arise from a self-interested minority willing to spend their neighbor’s money with reckless abandon.  Democracy works best when voting represents a cross section of the electorate.  Clearly this was not the case.

I personally have great faith in the people of Croydon.  History shows that at times of heightened public interest, fiscal restraint, public good, and self-determination dominate Croydon politics.  When the public becomes disengaged, irresponsible spending, cronyism, and subordination to special interests gain strength.

At Town Hall, the rubber stamp crowd won the day, and we can expect to pay a hefty price.  Families in Croydon will now pay hundreds of dollars more in property taxes with no discernible benefit.

*Amusingly, one of the usual suspects blamed me personally for this budget issue, even though I wasn’t on the board when Newport changed the tuition rates.


Jim Peschke

School Choice

Remember When...

 

At one time the only employee in our one room school house was the teacher.... Oh so long ago when children in Croydon were all learning to read, write and perform math at grade appropriate level.  Now we have upwards of 10 different employees and all of our children can not read, write or perform math at grade appropriate level.