SB 219, The Students First Act—introduced by Senator Keith Murphy—will be heard by the Senate Education Committee on Tuesday 2/14/23. This important bill will crack down on sprawling, expensive school administration in New Hampshire and ensure that education spending prioritizes students first. New Hampshire schools often point to low-paid teachers as an example of why schools need more funding. In reality, while school taxes and spending have increased for decades, almost none of that money has ever gone to teacher salaries. Instead, our public school system has created giant, highly-paid bureaucracies of administrators and full-time diversity professionals—any one of whom can expect to rake in the salaries of three or more low-paid teachers combined. Conservatives have long fought a losing battle on this issue by casting themselves as anti-teacher, arguing that teachers who make less than starting salaries at McDonalds are “actually overpaid.” This unpopular argument misses the point and plays into a trap created by school administrations. Teacher pay is not the reason school taxes are increasing: NH teacher pay has increased by only 1% in 20 years, while our number of non-teaching staff has increased by 80%. To finally stop endlessly-increasing school costs, conservatives must reframe the debate. As NH Board of Education member Ryan Terrell has argued, NH teacher pay is not low because schools are underfunded, but because education spending is being systematically abused across the state. Local school boards, who cannot see the forest through the trees, have failed to perceive and correct this problem. The legislature must step in and ensure that, if a school district wants to hire six-figure diversity professionals and other high-paid administrators, they must pay teachers first. SB 219 will neither mandate increases nor decreases in your local school spending. What it will mandate is a difference in how your school district and SAU prioritizes its spending of your money: unless teachers are paid first, large administrations may no longer be hired. It’s time to put students first. WHEN: There will be a public hearing on SB 219 before the Senate Education Committee on Tuesday, February 14, at 9:30 AM in the Legislative Office Building, Room 101. CORNERSTONE POSITION: Cornerstone SUPPORTS an amendment to this bill introduced by NH Senator Keith Murphy which corrects various typos and errors contained in the original bill. Cornerstone advocates that the bill be passed with the amendment. As New Hampshire State Board of Education member Ryan Terrell explains in his recent Union Leader op-ed published January 2nd, over the past two decades, New Hampshire’s cost-per-pupil has increased by 77%, adjusted for inflation, while our teacher salaries have increased by only 1%. New Hampshire’s systemic misuse of education spending is a vicious cycle. Seeing that teachers are often borderline impoverished, communities respond by increasing school taxes and spending. Schools then use that money to pay bureaucrats and the cycle repeats. SB 219 would break this cycle by playing more value and emphasis on teachers and students, rather than allowing more and more of our educational dollars to be pocketed by bureaucratic administrations. WHAT YOU CAN DO: 1. Register your support for SB 219 by signing in in support of the bill here. You can find step-by-step instructions on how to sign in here. 2. Submit written testimony. You can do this when you sign in. Simply hit “choose file” under step number four to upload a document with your testimony, or type your testimony into the provided box. If you are submitting written testimony, we ask that you specify that you support the amendment introduced by Keith Murphy, not the original bill. The amendment proposed by Senator Murphy simply fixes some typos and errors in the original bill. 3. We urge you to come testify in person, especially if you have observed and are concerned about specific examples of top-heavy, large school administration in your community. We have step-by-step instructions on how to testify here. You can also reach out to us at cornerstone@nhcornerstone.org if you have any questions about the testifying process. Important Note: A number of people have had issues with the Senate remote sign-in page. If you are encountering problems, you can also email the committee directly registering your support for the bill and/or submitting written testimony. You can find their contact info here. If you are emailing the committee, we ask that you specify that you support the amendment introduced by Keith Murphy, not the original bill. The amendment proposed by Senator Murphy simply fixes some typos and errors in the original bill. |
ABNER DOUBLEDAY invented baseball, and is “the father of baseball.” Walter Camp created football while James Naismith invented basketball. All are honored for their accomplishments. The Scandinavians introduced skiing to the world while Greece created the original Olympic games. Both are so honored.
Honoring “firsts” seems to be a worldwide custom as well it should be. Why is it that Joe Biden forgot this practice?
We honor George Washington as “the father of our country” because he is the first president of the United States.
So, too, with Neil Armstrong as “the first man on the moon.” The Wright Brothers, history tells us, are the first men to invent, build, and fly the first successful motorized airplane. Henry Ford is forever remembered for inventing the automobile assembly line, and thus creating millions of affordable automobiles. Let’s not forget Thomas Edison who invented early versions of the electric light bulb, phonograph, and motion picture camera. These individuals are forever honored for their unique accomplishments “bettering the world.” Where would we be without Alexander Graham Bell’s important invention of the telephone? The list goes on. We honor Jackie Robinson for the courage he demonstrated in becoming the first African-American to break the baseball color line. Tom Brady is honored as the G.O.A.T. for his accomplishments in football.
What about a group of voters of a particular state who voted in a timely manner to create a constitutional, republican government for the people of the 13 independent states? These voters, by voting when they did, allowed the creation of one, united country, namely, the “United States of America,” from the 13 separate, individual entities, or 13 “independent states” that they had become after the War for Independence from Great Britain on April 15, 1783.
According to those rules of governance (unification/agreement) that our Founders created, nine (2/3) of those independent states had to consent to join together to form one union under a new constitution (agreement) in order to dissolve the old, weak agreement known as “The Articles of Confederation.” So, nine out of 13 were needed to dissolve the old agreement, and create this new agreement of unification (the U.S. Constitution).
The independent state of New Hampshire was that ninth vote, which thus allowed creation of this new country. Due to this vote by the New Hampshire delegation, the idea of the United States of America was born!
The new country adopted the new name the United States of America. This important and timely vote occurred on Sept. 21, 1788. Under Article VII of the 1787 U.S. Constitution stated that once nine states had ratified (voted in favor of), it would become “sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution” between the 13 states so ratifying the same. “Ultimately, New Hampshire achieved the honor on June 21, 1788, putting the U.S .Constitution into effect. A new nation was born!
All Americans and both political parties should honor New Hampshire for this “first,” of ratifying this new constitution, and thus, creating a new country. Granting New Hampshire the privilege of holding the “First-in-the-Nation-Primary’”(FITN) every four years is an honor rightfully deserved!
James McKim, president of the Manchester, NH-NAACP agrees. Speaking on WMUR’s “Close Up” (Sunday, Jan. 22, 2023), he stated “…FITN shouldn’t be on race. Other factors need to be included.”
In a commendable show of bipartisanship, state Democrat leader in Concord, Donna Soucy of Manchester, supports the Granite State’s FITN position.
New Hampshire’s two U.S. Democrat senators, Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan, slammed President Biden’s proposal to put South Carolina ahead of the Granite State on the Democrat Party’s presidential primary calendar “misguided” and “short-sighted.” Further, Shaheen quipped, “It’s tremendously disappointing that the President failed to understand the unique role that New Hampshire plays in our candidate selection process as the first Primary state.” (New York Post, Dec. 2, 2022).
I think President Biden, due to his discernable, cognitive disabilities, has forgotten U.S. history with this ludicrous presidential proposal to end New Hampshire’s 104-year status as the state to lead off the nation’s electoral process.
In the words of Governor Chris Sununu, “But I have a message for them (DNC Primary Committee) and President Biden – you can try to come and take it – but that is never going to happen. It’s just not in our DNA to take orders from Washington. We will not be blackmailed. We will not be threatened, and we will not give up. You see the New Hampshire Primary has stood the test of time, giving everyone a fair shot.”
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Nick De Mayo lives in Sugar Hill and is Northern Grafton County Republican Committee chairman.
On January 19 the NH State “Office of Planning and Development”, another of Sununu’s new bureaucracies, will hold a session to “educate” state reps about upcoming housing legislation. The OPD is nothing more than a taxpayer-funded lobbying group which, like the Housing Appeals Board, should be illegal. They are pushing for passage of bills that give more of your tax dollars to favored developers to flood your little towns with ugly, unwanted stack’n’pack housing.
The Housing Appeals Board — which by the way for you libertarians who love to run crying to the state for your “rights” — has heard few, if any, appeals from ordinary homeowners about the free use of their property. Instead, this 3-person group of appointees has sided 95% of the time with developers against voters of towns in which those developers appealed planning and zoning decisions that were not favorable to them. Put plainly, those town meeting votes were nullified.
Governor Sununu pays much lip service to local control but in truth, continues to defy it by pushing state takeover of local zoning and planning decisions. Every time one of his Bolshevik-style bills gets defeated he creates another bureaucracy to effect an end run around the legislature.
Zoning and planning decisions belong to the towns and not some unelected, accountable state agency made up of industry hacks. Every town office should be challenging the HAB and taxpayer funded lobbying in court. Every voter should complain to their legislators and governor.
For more information, please visit bedfordresidents.com
Jane Aitken
cnht.org
bedfordresidents.com
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NGCRC Meeting
by Alex Foryan, Landaff, NH
We are into winter and people are struggling financially to heat their homes. Due to Biden’s policies, oil prices are high, our strategic oil reserves are low and are being depleted and we have inflation and job layoffs. Biden’s administration has stifled drilling and stated that all coal plants will be shut down. As our fuel prices soared, he then begged OPEC for oil and recently Venezuela. Now think about this. Venezuela has a ruthless dictator and Biden wants to give him money for oil instead of putting it into our own country? He can open up drilling, create jobs (and bring back the ones that were cut), and make us energy independent (just like Trump was doing!). Fuel prices would drop which would help businesses and consumers alike. This in turn would bring down prices of goods and services, thus helping our economy. Instead Biden and his administration are more focused on getting rid of fossil fuels. Their UNREALISTIC radical green energy agenda is more important to them than the welfare of American citizens who cannot afford to heat their homes. Meanwhile we have sent over 18.2 BILLION to Ukraine! This is so ludicrous! What is all of this money going to exactly? How about using some of that money here to help our own citizens during these tough times? Additionally, our southern border is wide open thus allowing illegals to pour into our country daily. Guess who will be supporting them? The American taxpayer, of course. Biden’s actions are crippling our country and directly affecting the lives of American citizens. One would think that the President of the United States would do things to help his own people. Apparently those things are nowhere to be found on Biden’s agenda.
NOTE: Email address correction for Calvin Beaulier is: Calvin@calvinbeaulier.com
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Letter to the Editor
by Nick De Mayo, Chairman NGCRC
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Letter to the Editor
Our new sign is ready. Please pick one up.
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New Ad in Trendy Times
This is the new ad that will appear in the October 18, 2022 and November 1, 2022 editions of the Trendy Times:
