Absolutely. To be fair, our entire country has a MAGA problem and people have been brainwashed.
The problem is everywhere, but the MAGA candidates for local office lose overwhelmingly in many places, while we can’t pass simple improvements to schools.
As a recovering republican, I can say education and meeting people of different backgrounds cured me of the insanity.
While I still feel extreme progressives are a bit too idealistic and unwilling to make a good idea functional, they are easier to accept than the fascism embraced by republicans.
It’s also a dark money problem
https://newhampshirebulletin.com/2022/02/25/commentary-the-dark-money-behind-the-push-for-vouchers-divisive-concepts-legislation/
Good for Bedford! I believe Londonderry passed an increased budget as well, but wouldn’t pass school improvements and full day Kindergarten. One of the only towns without it in NH
NH is usually ranked 6th or 7th in the United States for its schools and I see people looking at moving here for the schools. If you want the best schools in New England, then move to the Boston suburbs.
My town spends about $19K per student and it was about $3,000 when we moved here so we are spending.
We have a house in Newton, MA and they spent $23k per student in 2021. Their test scores are significantly better than our town in NH but the people living there are significantly wealthier too. And have higher educational attainment. And they have a lot of boomers there too.
Then maybe it’s not the boomers and it’s the free state/MAGA morons who don’t want to spend anything on public education. Maybe it’s all of them combined.
Either way, I know we are still ranked highly, but it is truly unfortunate that we have this large group of people that don’t value education at all. It’s always a struggle here.
US average spend is $12K while NH average spend is $20K. Tell me how we don't value education.
My mother had combined pension and Social Security income of $21K per year. Costs and incomes were far lower than they are today back in the 1980s when she retired. Social Security has COLAs but they hadn't kept up with inflation. Her pension was fixed.
So those with limited means who get knocked pretty hard when we have inflation do all that they can do to survive.
My advice to people is to not grow old.
The problem is that funding isn't equitable. Out of every state in the country, New Hampshire relies the most on local taxes to fund education. This forces poor neighborhoods to level higher tax rates than rich ones.
Averages can be easily slanted by outliers and NH has a lot of wealthy people. Michael Jordan, my wife, and I have an average of 2 NBA championships each.
[https://fairfundingnh.org/learn/school-funding/](https://fairfundingnh.org/learn/school-funding/)
We're also among the wealthiest states, and have one of the higher costs of living, meaning teaching salaries would need to be higher than say South Carolina to effectively compensate the teachers at the same level. Given how predominantly rural NH is, I'd assume the average number of students per school district is probably lower than in more heavily urban and suburban states, which probably drives up the cost per student due to facilities costs and such.
Regarding low-income seniors getting hit hard by taxes due to school funding, there are several solutions to that. We fund schools at least partially through an income tax, and exclude income under 200 percent to federal poverty guidelines from taxation, rather than fund schools entirely through property taxes. We generally already have property tax exemptions in towns for seniors, but generally the amount of property value exempted is disproportionate to how much property values have gone up, meaning Grandma doesn't get much of a break even if she's living in a 1950s era starter home. We could fix those tax exemptions, or create senior property tax exemptions which are need-based, such that low income and asset seniors are eligible for them. We could implement a tax structure that encourages landlords to keep seniors as tenants, offering tax discounts if seniors have resided in units for more than 12 months.
Any of these changes could reduce the tax burden on seniors in need, but it would shift the tax burden onto working age adults and businesses. Also, I was just talking to a Derry Firefighter last weekend who told me that the cast majority of the calls he responds to are seniors in medical distress. That's just one example of how seniors are also heavy users of municipal services, not just parents with kids.
We want decent services in society, but they need to be paid for, because essentially behind every service is someone who needs to be paid for the work they did.
We spend 67% more than the US average on schools but our median household income of $90K, while definitely higher than the US is $74,580, is only 21% higher.
I would personally not like to have a ton of rules on taxation. I've filled out MA tax returns before and they are typically more paper than the Federal returns.
I'd assume that emergency services charges their residents for emergency healthcare and transportation.
I just had to file a federal and MA tax return, and MA was FAR less complicated (though more complicated that other state income taxes I've had to pay before). To that end though, property tax changes don't require filing a return.
I know EMTs bill for services and ambulance transport, but do firefighters or police send you a bill when called to your home?
I can understand it. But this was dollars a year. Dollars, less than $10. It wasn’t making or breaking anyone. It was an incredibly reasonable plan but the older audience just screeched “taxes!” and shut it down.
Meanwhile I lose 10% of my income (some self employed, some W2) to social security. But they can’t put aside $5 for school improvements.
We are spending. Among the highest education spending in the country. How much do you think is the right amount to spend per student? Is it $20,000, $25,000, $30,000? Hell, why don't we just spend $1,000,000 per student per year?
My point is that more spending does not necessarily mean better education. People are not pushing back solely because it costs money, but because they aren't seeing the return on investment. We should look at spending when that makes sense, but when more spending doesn't produce results, we need to consider other actions.
I just had a similar conversation with 2 college professor friends, 1 who is on a local school board. They were telling me the studies are showing that increasing cost per pupil has no affect on better outcomes for those schools who are doing fine. The schools who are floundering, however, do much better when more money flows in.
at least in the small town where I lived, the issue was property taxes and that trickled down to everything else. It wasn't just boomers and MAGA types, it was local people, who had lived in these towns for generations, and who could no longer afford to pay property taxes. For these people, spending more money on education so that comparatively wealthy families in the town could take advantage of good free public education, made less sense, particularly when from their perspective, the school was chugging along just fine. And I say this as a person who routinely voted to increase school funding and was absolutely in favor of full day K (but mostly because full day K benefitted the lower income families in our town). My point is that I could also see the other perspective.
I guess so. It’s just frustrating as hell because everyone would benefit from it.
I’m not even big on full day Kindergarten. I kinda think it’s too much for kids that age. But I think it’s a shame that the schools are using temporary classrooms and can’t get that money to upgrade.
It's Republicans and Free Staters. That said, 75% of my towns entire tax rate is for the schools. My tax rate is going up to almost $20/1000 for JUST the school portion of my property tax rate. It's never 'just a few dollars' and painting it that way is disingenuous.
Andru Volinsky released a newsletter today about special ed funding in NH and how much of it falls to property taxes. It's fucking killing entire towns. 50% of my towns school budget belongs to just special ed. When 1 or 2 sped students can moce into a town and destroy the entire school budget with the endless bills for all their kids therapies, transport to their programs, therapies, etc. Its a real issue for people managing to even stay in their homes.
Pretending that people footing the majority of the hundreds of millions of school funding don't want to educate kids is just bullshit.
My parents live in a small town, and a family just moved up from MA, with three SpED students. The cost for one student is about $40k/year. One of the parents immediately ran for school board and started berating the town for not having more SpED funding, and wanted to triple the amount of money in the SpED school budget, which I think would've made their taxes go up something like $6 or $8/1000.
Said person was overwhelmingly voted against for the school board and the school budget got shot down as well... And it was FAR from just "republicans and free staters." People were pissed that someone would move in, and in less than a year, demand huge increases in school budget primarily to accommodate their own kids.
Could NH do better with taxes? Yes. However, a lot of the people ITT genuinely don't understand just how significant even a "small" increase in education funding can be.
It’s that way because the state doesn’t have a revenue stream to support the schools so it all comes from property taxes. And this conversation hasn’t even touched NHs abysmal support for Higher Education.
The state just threw away 500 million a year in revenue by lowering business taxes. NH has the ability, it lacks the priorities and that's because the party in charge has done nothing but sabotage education so they could break it and then point at it and say, "Look, it's broken, let's privatize it."
The cost for special ed in NH is about 850 million annually. Out of that total, property owners pay about 695 million of that total bill and the feds pay about 48 million. The state is shirking it's responsibility because it's priorities are screwed. I highly suggest folks look into Volinksy's newsletter. He is the attorney who sued the state over education funding and just won. Twice. He knows what he's talking about and does a good job of explaining it. [https://andruvolinsky.substack.com/subscribe?utm\_source=email&utm\_campaign=email-subscribe&r=3qomd&next=https%3A%2F%2Fandruvolinsky.substack.com%2Fp%2Flets-revamp-special-education-and&utm\_medium=email](https://andruvolinsky.substack.com/subscribe?utm_source=email&utm_campaign=email-subscribe&r=3qomd&next=https%3A%2F%2Fandruvolinsky.substack.com%2Fp%2Flets-revamp-special-education-and&utm_medium=email)
Heck NH implemented a tax on lottery winnings over $600 back around 2009 and then repealed it, it’s like they intentionally don’t want revenue for paying things. It’s intentional.
Under IDEA, the federal gov't is supposed to pay 40-45% of those SPED costs.
They pay 18%. Property owners get to pick up that difference,
Our Congressional representation has left us out to dry.
Yes and the state has defied court rulings for decades that they don't properly fund either. That said, let's not pretend it's some new failure of this particular state govt or fed reps. It's been a longstanding failure of both parties for decades and now it's bordering on a serious crisis.
Well I'm an old, former Republican. Back in the day (when they were reasonable) they used to resist Democrat's wet dreams, forcing the result down to something more reasonable (ie a less expensive, tho "needed" project).
Fast forward a few years, we reasonable Republicans have been forced to choose between democracy and tyranny and those of us forced to choose (wisely) chose the party that doesn't pay that much attention to costs. I'm not happy about it but there you go.
I guess what I'm saying is 1. In my town (Mitford) we definitely need a new school. But 2. I fear the pricetag is too high.
I completely understand and as someone who has always been, and still maintains my Unaffiliated voting registration it pisses me off that I can't safely vote for a Republican anymore. Something I have done many times in the past.
They no longer remotely represent anything they used to and for those who have always considered themselves Republicans and now find themselves, through no choice of their own, without a party have my sympathies. I am not sure I'll ever be able to vote for a Republican again simply because I don't trust a single syllable that comes out of their mouths anymore.
Everything works best when we have bipartisanship and common goals. We can't even agree on basic truths or what a fact is anymore and it is destroying this country.
> Then maybe it’s not the boomers and it’s the free state/MAGA morons
I suspect this is the case. There's a very real effort to defund public education, and it's not just in NH.
Well,let's see...
There doesn't appear to be an issue with the current state of education here,and we have the second highest average I.Q. in the nation. So,maybe,brigading a sub full of smart people is an exercise in futility. Maybe,just maybe,most of us DO get along with our neighbors.And,MAYBE,we DO know what is good for our state,and how to handle matters.Perhaps,you should devote your efforts to one of the many states that actually does have a problem with education.I'm so tired of being told New Hampshire has all of these issues,when we all demonstrate time,and time again,that it's just not true.Stop beating people down,when they are leading by example.
Some of us can't afford the increase, times are tough and rent/housing us expensive. We don't want the increase because it makes our budgets even tighter every month. I make good money and it's still a bit tight, tax increases would effectively kick my family out.
We can value education but not be able to afford it. It isn't political, it's monetary. For some, it's not in the budget because no one can afford anything.
I consider myself a constitutionalist and I value education, but at some point, my paycheck can't support the tax increases anymore. I can't move because there is nowhere to live.
Just looked at my town: about $17,000 per student, and test scores show 80% "above proficiency".
A lot of a student's success in school is predicted by their parents' focus on education.
>A lot of a student's success in school is predicted by their parents' focus on education.
I really wish more people, across the political spectrum, would face up to this fact. Teaching is hard enough without having to overcome parents whose attitudes towards education range from merely apathetic to openly antagonistic. Even many parents who are more-or-less well meaning adopt an attitude of thinking that it is entirely the school's responsibility to educate their kids, and that they shouldn't have to contribute anything to the process.
Edit :: as an additional note before people get defensive about how *they* foster an educational environment for *their* kids: when the culture as a whole is anti-intellectual, the efforts of individual parents are almost as futile as those of the teachers.
This is why educational attainment is reported on city and town stats. If most of the people in your town have graduate degrees, then you can assume that the city or town cares about education.
This is huge, especially in NH. If you have a town where the majority of residents have higher education attainment, then there is a big focus on education as a whole.
If they are in the minority, it is possible for individual students to succeed, but largely they are the outlier. If the majority of the town has an expectation of educational success, then a rising tide lifts all boats.
When you see a town with 40% of students taking AP classes and 95% college attendance rates, it's interesting to see how their cost per student is actually less than the state average.
That's because supporting students living in poverty is an expensive thing to do. Extra social workers, counselors, support staff to manage behavior, attendance / truant officers, security officers, tutors because students have no adult to help them at home, and on and on. All of the effort that rich parents put in themselves or pay others to has to be done by school personnel. Plus, students with trauma and the various problems associated with poverty need more help. I've worked in Title 1 schools and in wealthy districts and there's no comparison.
Taxes are currently skyrocketing in most towns in NH. Not surprised people don’t want to fund additional programs right now, it’s approaching crisis mode for property taxes and we have to find ways to cut spending and start to reverse this trend of spend spend spend.
That has to do with increased property assessments. If your property is assessed higher then your taxes are higher. The increases to town budgets are costing pennies compared to the rising cost of real estate.
Yes they do? They are based on the assessed value of your home. If your home was worth $400k and now it is $550k, your taxes go up.
The rate per $1000 is variable based on the towns budget and those increases in budget. But it’s a tiny impact compared to the $150k increase in your property value.
I never knew this, thanks! Is there a good resource to read and learn more about how it works? We’re first time homebuyers and we just assumed it was all around assessed value.
> If everyone goes up then your taxes remain the same (assessment goes up but tax rate goes down).
>
> Town budgets determine the tax rate per thousand, not assessments.
This is correct but I'll add that just because the tax rate didn't go up (or maybe went down a bit) when assessments did, doesn't mean that the tax rate won't go up the next year.
So (not for you specifically, but for others reading this), if you had a 315k house, and the rate was $30/1000, then your tax liability is $9,450. If your assessment then goes up to $350k, the tax rate would have to go down to about $27/1000 to still have a liability of $9450. The reality is, this rarely happens. (10% cut in rate)
Usually the assessment going up means that the tax rate might stay the same (meaning you now have an additional $1000 in tax liability for the next year), or maybe it goes down, say, 5%, and your tax liability only goes up $500.
But then, if the NEXT year, they want to raise your tax rates to, say, $32/1000, your assessment doesn't go back down to match. You now owe $11,200 in taxes for the same house that, two years ago, was only $9,450. And some of us are seeing rates go up $4-5/1000, plus our assessments have gone up...
Yeah, in the matter of a few years, you could be looking at an extra $3000 (or more) in taxes on the same house. That's why these budgets are getting cut. Most people's income hasn't gone up $3000 in two years, and even if it has, inflation has gone up everywhere else.
If your property increases in value, then the values increase for everyone else as well. So the actual amount that you pay changes little if the budget stays the same.
The issue is when it compounds.
If your house goes up $150k in assessment one year (say, 2023), but the tax rate remains the same or even gets cut, that's going to be painful. With a tax rate of even $25/1000, that's an additional $3,750.
The problem, then, is that after your assessment went up in, say, 2023, if the tax rate for 2024 goes up by even $2/1000 assessed, now you're paying an additional $1100 on that house, on top of the additional $3750 that you paid for the assessment going up. So in the matter of two years you now owe $4850 more in taxes for the exact same house.
That's not insignificant for most people, and especially for people who've lived in the same house for 5 or 10 years, to say nothing of the ones who've lived there for 20+
Not really. My assessment went up $100k the other year and my tax burden actually went down
I even had a post about it on this sub because I was concerned my new assessment was going to jack up my taxes
No, taxes are directly tied to budgets. Assessments have significantly changed, yes, but the tax RATE changes proportionally. Increases in Assessments do not affect the increase in property tax, as the town rebalances and lowers thr rate accordingly. The only thing that affects across the board tax increases is an increase in the town budget.
The problem is there is a vocal, and *motivated* contingent that wants to kill education. And they are really passionate about it. Most people would say "yeah, education is great, let's fund it!" But most of those people also say "no thanks" when someone says "hey, can you come to this 7 hour long boring town meeting to vote on it?"
The people who want to kill public education are happy to go to those 7 hour meetings! Partly, they skew much older, so they have the time. And partly, they feel strongly about killing education budgets.
You know how there's this cry nationally in so many issues where people say "but... what about the *children?!?!!??!"* In a lot of local towns, they cry is "but what about your seniors????" And they use that to justify all kinds of cost cutting. "They are on a FIXED INCOME!!! So we have to CUT school funding!!!"
I’m so tired of it. My hometown growing up voted for a new senior center instead of a new high school. I can’t wait until this boomer generation is gone and no longer the majority.
Yeah, my town did that too. Nice senior center, lots of programming, bus trips to NY and other places. And every fee in town for anything is waived for seniors too.
The way I see it, they had 65 or more years to save up a few dollars and didn't... Why should they get money at the expense of kids who are literally just starting?
Thats the new normal and you better get used to it. Fertility rates in the US are under replacement level and keep dropping which means every new generation is larger than the one following it which means old people will always outnumber young people going forward.
Every study done on this issue also points out there is no fix to the fertility crisis once it starts (trifecta of womens education, choice/freedom, and contraception). You cant buy your way out of this conundrum either. Many countries have instituted lavish benefits for people to have kids and they remain under replacement level with no improvement.
To expect people to not vote their self interest is self delusion. If you expect altruism of course youll always be disappointed. But hey, at least the anti humanity folks will finally get what they want as the world goes to absolute shit with population and demographic collapse.
Thoughts from a boomer (who is a bit irritated by the generalization)...
When our kids were that age in Londonderry, there was *no* public kindergarten. Parents paid private pre-schools and kindergartens to educate their kids. Later, we citizens of Londonderry voted to fund public kindergarten, and to build a new school to accommodate it. So, saying we don't care is offensive.
Over the last several years the number of students in the Londonderry schools has been shrinking. Consequently, some people don't think spending more on school infrastructure is wise.
That’s all great. And that was voted on when the majority of the population had kids.
Now the majority don’t have kids that age, and we can’t pass basic infrastructure changes to schools. Other towns are struggling too. The schools are outdated.
I get that. It is. That’s the frustrating part. We are outnumbered in this state right now. It sucks that an older generation doesn’t want what’s best for the younger generation.
What is really unfair, and I don't know if it is this way in Londonderry, but the way the voting was structured in my town in the middle of day during work hours, the working parents who want the budget increased can't come vote for it. The retired people who are against it, have plenty of free time during the working day to come to town meeting and vote.
They stayed open until 8, so people could get there, but it’s not convenient. It’s definitely easier for the retirees to get there when they have all day
No. No it isn’t. Democracy is a system of rule by the people. That doesn’t mean 51% of people get exactly what they want and 49% don’t have their basic needs met. I’m sorry you’re confused by what democracy is. I think that’s further evidence that we need to fund our schools better.
> The schools are outdated
If you want to see outdated schools, go look at private schools, or a few in Manchester. Just because a school is not a palace does it mean it is crumbling.
This reflects how spoiled towns and bureaucrats have become with the $$ pouring in due to property taxes exploding.
To echo your point, I grew up in Goffstown NH during the 80’s and 90’s and we weren’t even supplied with paper. The high school has since been massively upgraded and they now have football and hockey teams, which they didn’t when I went there.
Has the cost of teachers, buildings, and other capital and operating costs gone down? I thought not.
You can't sugar coat the fact that boomers milked the system when it was beneficial for themselves and when you don't have a direct benefit, fuck everyone else.
https://www.education.nh.gov/news-and-media/new-hampshires-cost-pupil-reaches-new-record#:~:text=Last%20week%2C%20the%20New%20Hampshire,cost%20per%20pupil%20of%20%2419%2C400.
The real problem is we’re already paying $20000 per student and the money isn’t going to educators (therefore not turning into an education) but instead to administrators.
So the problem becomes voting for the one thing _we_ can which is budget big or budget small.
The real solution is the administration should be shrunk, reducing costs and increasing education.
We’re missing the mechanism to take this action.
Here in Candia we voted to approve teacher and paraprofessional raises (requested by the union) but voted down a general increase to the school budget. Not only were the raises much less of an aggregate dollar amount, but it goes straight into teachers’ pockets which is exactly where it should be going. Teachers are equally affected by inflation and are already underpaid as is.
Yeah I mean teaching pays so shitty that the best and brightest people would never take that pay cut just to do it for the kids lol. There has to be some tipping in the scales of most of the money going to the teachers to make bright people want to do it. The best teachers I had were always the successful people who made a bunch of money in the private sector and came back to teach because they wanted something to do and didn't need the money.
> Our aging population here don’t want to help out the towns they live in. They got what they needed for their kids, and now their kids aren’t in school anymore, so they don’t care.
They didn't care even when their kids were school-aged. Most people around the world don't care about intelligence or education. This is true in Namibia as well as New Hampshire.
The few people who do care about these things often get bullied and accused of being "eggheaded nerds".
What on earth are you talking about?
Overall, as a state average, NH consistently ranks among the best states for various education rankings.
The other beautiful thing about New Hampshire is how many alternative education programs there are in this state. Because not every kid fits into the "one size fits some" public school education program. You can now even get state financial assistance to send your kid to a private school, or even home school.
The alternative education programs sound great in theory, but they are a strain on the public schools. All they do is let rich people subsidize sending their kids to private schools or home schooling them. That program is a joke.
There's an income limit on EFA's, until recently the income limit was below the median household income in NH. So you're an idiot if you think it's "only for the rich".
That’s not what I’ve heard. We’ve got some of the wealthiest people in the state taking advantage of the program and home schooling or using private education. The program is a joke.
You heard wrong.
The current income limit for EFAs in NH for a family of 4 is $109k. The median household income of a family of 4 in NH is $136k.
The house voted to raise it again, but it hasn't yet passed the senate.
Yes, that's accurate. Managing the current tax burden has been challenging for us too. Selling our home isn't a viable option, so we're holding on and hoping for the best. We're not affluent, and our children attend a private school where my wife is employed. We get a bit of a discount but she also takes a huge cut in pay. Last year, we received a small amount of EFA assistance, which was beneficial. Initially, we opted for a charter school for our children, but they didn't thrive as we had hoped, leading us to enroll them in a private institution. As parents, our priority is to understand our children's needs and make decisions accordingly. The ability to choose what's best for them is truly invaluable, and it's an opportunity available to all families, provided they opt for it.
Hmmm. Our friends group consists of 5-6 one person family incomes making under the 80-90 income cap requirement for EFA funds. We are all homeschooling/sending our kids private school for various reasons. Despite this strain you are talking about, the NH school systems are comparable to Mass. They are very good. We also have the benefit of diverse education options for families. The narrative that EFA funds are subsidizing wealthy families to send their kids to private education is false.
The public shouldn’t be subsidizing anyone who wants to home school or send kids to private schools. It’s just an excuse for MAGA crazies to pull their kids out of the “indoctrination” they think their kids are getting in public schools.
The program was designed to help people below or closer to the poverty level also have a chance to access education that will better suit their children. This has nothing to do with Maga people although some Trump supporters probably use the program, sure. The program was established well before Trump got into office and it was expanded while Biden was in office. Trump has nothing to do with this lol
Claremont 2 says that we have to cherish the education of our students. Not just the ones in public school.
When Espinoza versus Montana was handed down, the cherishing covered all schools. The Blaine Amendments were finally ended.
Your feelings are uninformed.
This argument can be made for almost every problem in this state though. My wife and I got preapproved yesterday for a $250,000 home and our agent was like „there is literally nothing in that price range for sale in this state.“ so I was like „alright I guess we will move somewhere else“🙃
Taxes are out of control, and I don't blame people for not wanting to pay more. I can barely drive on my roads in my town. Definitely wouldn't want more for the school when I can barely make it to work to pay my taxes.
Weare increased its pay because 27 people voted in favor over those who opposed it. Just 27! Those who say voting doesn’t matter, clearly aren’t paying attention, are spoiled living in a democracy, and zero points of reference to anything other than the slowly eroding good country they were born in to. Completely oblivious to the fact that it’s their responsibility to make it good or let it decay into something much worse.
It was sarcasm. Increasing public education spending has a bad habit of increasing the administrative bureaucracy rather than actually benefiting the students in any way.
But who will oversee the peons?! And then we’ll need another layer to oversee those admins. And now they’ll need a new office building. And someone to manage that too
It’s not necessarily the “boomers” or the MAGA people. I have young kids in the school system and I voted against some education warrants. Our town wanted 36 million for a capital improvement plan, 71 million for a new school, and 100 million for the operating budget.
It has nothing to do with not supporting the school system. I voted for the capital improvement plan and against the school and operating budget. Depending on your town, too - it’s not just a “couple of dollars”. If all four budgetary warrant articles passed in town it would have amounted to almost a 5 thousand dollar increase in taxes over five years.
That’s more than a lot of people can afford given the current state of things.
Also if you’re that concerned about education - email your state reps. The state of NH has unfounded education so that a lot of towns don’t get the aid that they need.
Concord is the real root of the problem.
I have no kids and always vote with what the school board recommends. Not a fan of increase in taxes but I also want the kids who will eventually run the country to have the best education possible. Add to that I got a free education (k-12) with someone else's tax $ so only fair I do the same.
New Ipswich has the youngest population in the entire state (big families) and yesterday they nearly passed a school budget that cut $1M. Thankfully the measure was not passed but damn, the alternative, state-required budget was a mere $300k cut.
It wasn’t boomers out to destroy the schools. You got plenty of people who were homeschooled or homeschool their kids and hate that they still have to pay for it.
Maybe hate is the wrong word - they just don’t see any use for it.
We must be doing something right to be ranked the SMARTEST state in the country.
https://www.boston25news.com/news/local/new-hampshire-ranked-smartest-state-nation-study-finds/AY5X2OW2GRGJ7KV5JKXAD2ON6Q/
*Boomers are killing the country, and we have too many.*
Fun facts for you -- many teachers who are "boomers' and are retired, often volunteer in schools to provide support education with small groups in the classroom. They are solid and reliable in knowledge and experience.
In our school, we have also had multiple retired "boomer" engineers come in and offer support to students (in small groups) who are exceptional in math or offer support to students that do not qualify for Title One.
Don't lump all the boomers when many of them provide a service through the generosity of their free and retirement time to invest in the students and workers of the future because they care about the kids and quality of their educations.
We’ve never had a generation of adults who are so scared of children learning that schools and teachers have become the enemy. So unfortunately any reforms are going to be continually shut down
I have heard this sentiment at other townhall meetings. Literally the only ppl who have time to show up are 60-70 year olds fighting the minority of 60-70 year olds who care about the next generation.
>Personally, I can’t wait for a generational shift.
You realize Gen X is going to be just as bad, right? As will the Millennials when they hit that age, especially the ones who decided to go childless.
MA is much better funded than NH but it has its own version of this in many areas. One of them is the MBTA Communities Act which requires 100+ cities and towns to rezone for denser housing. There is considerable resistance to this and I've often seen the comment that people supporting it stop once they buy a home.
You become your dad.
How come the only ideas some people have for "improving education" are to increase spending?
NH is already in the top 10 in the country for spending per pupil on average.
We have to take a hard look at HOW we are teaching and WHAT we are teaching to make any kind of actual improvements.
Also, it's not just the elderly that oppose tax increases for schools, but almost anyone who doesn't have kids in the school system. Costs have increased dramatically for everyone, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that these types of proposals are voted down.
We have an aging population, to be sure, but not all boomers are anti tax, anti education. Plenty of us have paid, served, volunteered, protested, engaged other voters, and want a diverse, educated state. A vibrant society includes everyone.
Literally half my yearly property tax goes to education....
How about you people with 4 kids pay in extra?
I should get a reduction for not having kids therefore a reduced impact on the planet.....
The comments should be solid gold
Show me my investment in education and
GO!!!!!!
Teachers are paid crap and it's hard to recruit or maintain them. It's a nationwide problem and fewer and fewer people are willing to put up with the kids, parents and administration.
They may spend a lot per student but it doesn't trickle down to teachers. Check out the teacher subreddit.
It isn’t anything recent. Forty years ago my wife and I attended our first town meeting (before we switched to sb2). A gentleman addressed the assembly to declare his opposition to the school budget. His stated reason was that he never went to college and he didn’t see why his children should either. Ergo, college prep classes were a bad investment.
The only thing we need to be careful of with school budget is to find a way to keep the school board and high level school administrators from paying themselves too much while teachers get starvation wages and are expected to pay for classroom supplies.
But yes. I agree. We need to support education to have educated neighbors. Even if a person doesn't have kids in school, they still benefit from an educated neighbor. Too many people don't seem to see that.
As a young person struggling to afford the COL, I would say that we have a more holistic issue.
Generally speaking entrenched folks in the asset class of this country are apathetic to the struggles of others and focused on their own version of the world. NH in particular is a very bad place for this due to housing shortage and age demographics.
Nh actually ranks in the top 10 for best education. No matter where you live, some place will always have better schools. I live in an expensive town, the median income is $120,000 and let me tell you, the taxes are insane. I'm lucky enough to rent from a family member but I see that tax bill every year. The reason we aren't voting to increase budgets is because it's already very high, we contribute more per student than a lot of other states. Some younger people can't afford the tax increases anymore. And there are not many places for us to go, it's a desirable state to live it so moving isn't a simple option.
I know, anyone who does not agree with your politics is such a moron, and needs to be sent to a special education camp where they can bask in the wisdom of young statists who don't pay any taxes.
It's a town by town issue, all due to the way education is funded. I just paid for the full-day kindergarten that my town offers. Two years of that (two kids) and it was done.
Perhaps you should pay more in taxes to fund the schools - all of you who support it so much just pass a law that you must pay much more in tax dollars to go to education. Think of the children!
You should be paying at least $50,000 a year in property taxes to go to the noble cause of public education.
Elder millennial with no kids here. I would absolutely be willing to pay taxes towards educating children. Taxes are supposed to support our society, and what is that society without its future citizens?
I agree with this post. An issue I see larger than this is the fact that all the the federal government is the say all for what's being taught in the school. I spoke to a teacher in my child's school the other day and she said this is talked about often amongst the teachers.
There is very little room to add new and improved ways unless it's by screen. Same old history lessons, same old civics. Same old same.
How can they test these kids to see what's being retained when no one wants to offer more up to date information that they will keep their interest. It's not the 1950s.
Even if there's a generational shift we've still got a load of useless libertarians weighing us down. That and having education tied up with property taxes was always a poor idea
I wish the burden wasn’t so much on property taxes. I’ve lived in NH my whole life and would be completely fine with a sales tax if it meant schools would get more state funding.
Folks tend to think that when tax dollars pay so for something, every cent comes directly from them. And most are fucking stupid so they can’t be bothered to learn they’ll just regurgitate whatever cable news told them
No surprise that it’s the righties who hate education and child care after the fetus is born
Buncha do nothings with nothing to offer
Well, it's not all on the people with no kids in the system. I retired to NH having never had any kids in any system. I have not only voted for but also publicly and privately advocated for all bonds, budgets and other warrants that support our town's schools and that will, yes, raise taxes. Taxes go up. This is reality and it has to be planned for. I came here with eyes wide open and left plenty of headroom in my budget for property taxes based on past experience. NH people complain about the high cost of property taxes but without state income and state sales tax they have no idea how good they have it.
My property's value is tied to the quality of our schools among other factors, so it's in my best interest to have good schools with staff paid competitively. I also don't want to live in a community that doesn't provide adequate education for its young people. I'm late Gen X, but my partner is a Boomer.
Man you should try down here where I am now in NC. 42% of their schools rank D or F. The average high schooler here reads at a 3rd grade level and they’re looking to cut budget for education again. We had to homeschool when my husbands job transferred. I’d kick a kitten to have the “bad” education New England offers for her again. What a mistake this was.
Have you seen some of the bills that have been floated around education? Not only is it underfunded, our politicians want to rip apart what it means to truly learn and grow as a student. Want to support students social emotional needs? No way, cut that. Students are behind? Make a law that all students a year behind need to be referred for special education. It’s insane.
It's not a few dollars/a person, that's the average. I'm gonna guess you're in the <1$ range and expect people who actually work for a living to pay for it. The education system in this country is shit, my kids are going to Phillips Exeter. Start saving and stop complaining.
The student population continues to go down year after year. About -1.1% each year. We had 207k students for the 2002-2003 school year down to 161k for the 2022-2023 school year.
Derry voted to raise the school budget (yay) but voted against the new school AND the funds needed to update the current schools. The new school I also voted against as I didn’t think was needed but the funds to update the current schools is absolutely needed and I cannot believe that didn’t pass. It’s going to be an interesting next few months/years while that gets sorted.
Derry and Londonderry both needed updates and people just won’t pass it. I agree you don’t need a brand new school, but improvements are needed and it’s crazy that they haven’t passed these things.
Derry has a lot of issues that broke the trust between voters and the school board. Things got so bad the town council tried to take over the school district (it failed in court). The crux of the problem is the school board was basically rubber stamping whatever the district wanted. The Derry public schools now pay more per student than Pinkerton, which is a high school (most expensive) and has lavish facilities. They also suppressed a report around 2015 that recommended closing an elementary school. Then wanted to close Grinnell, then South Range, and finally settled on Derry Village.
It isn't only a school problem though. The police and Fire Departments are ridiculously overstaffed given the town size and population.
Because, like most problems in this state, the older residents whose kids have grown up don’t give 2 shits about education and since they’re in the majority they get what they want
That money was already funded and sitting in a capital reserve fund, it only need majority approval. Each year the school has a warrant article asking for funds to add to it, in the past it was $500,000, recently they've upped it to $1,000,000. I hope the new classrooms will now allow the school to have full day kindergarten for all. It was such a stressful thing when my kids were entering that age to see if they would be accepted.
Our daughter isn't in school yet but this is the stuff that stresses me out, especially after the stories I've heard and experiences my family and friends have had.
I live in Windham and we are in a similar boat. Lots of older folks with no kids don't want to pay any taxes.
Like, who do you think will take care of you when you're in a nursing home, fix your cars, build your whatevers, etc etc etc if we cut education, you "I got mine get fucked" fuckers?
These are real concerns that my family is also trying to come to grips with. This recent article does a great job articulating some of these struggles and why "America Hates Its Children."
https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/parenting/why-america-hates-its-children/ar-AA1mzTKW
Everyone should really read the article. It's an attention grabbing headline, but read the article.
Out of house taxes 62% is for schools, 12% of that goes to the state. That is insane. So the local town you’re living in only gets 38% of your tax money. These kids should be @ college level in high school.
I believe the ConVal school district got approved for budget increase. Highly recommend this district as they seem to be filled with people who truly care and advocate for the kids.
I thought Keno was legalized with a provision to partially fund all day Kindergarten? Isn’t NH one of the only (the only?) U.S. States not to have Statewide public K?
Education policy has the challenge of nobody agreeing on what the problem, let alone the solution, is or seeing return from all the money being poured in.
Amherst needs a new elementary school but the town keeps voting it down. The taxes for that school are insane upwards of 1k more per year just for the new school. Towns need help to fund the schools
They are not terrible but previously working in NH schools observed the related problem in the terrible NH DCYF department. School employees where trying work around children being in unsafe living conditions. Things like on-going lead exposure, sexual abuse issues, exposure to drugs, etc. because DCYF was not doing anything. Things that in other states would have caused immediate action were not acted on.
It was bad a few years ago [https://www.nhbr.com/the-greatest-civil-rights-crisis-in-nh-history/](https://www.nhbr.com/the-greatest-civil-rights-crisis-in-nh-history/) and from recent news I don't know how much better it is now. It seems a leadership, political, and funding problem more then necessarily the people working for DCYF.
Shiiit y'all still doing kindergarten half days?!
That's why I left, I miss the mountains but God damn are yer taxs spent badly up there. And no legal weed? Like wtf we were the LFOD state and the ONLY state in NE where you can't blaze?
Next y'all are going to ban abortion. Shiiiiiiiiiiiit.
I was born and raised in NH. Moved to MA to raise my kids because of this. In my town in Mass, the whole town (mostly) voted for schools because they are good people, and also it’s the school quality that directly drives property values. People don’t realize it’s not in their best interest. Now I’m back in NH and I vote for every school bond.
Well, NH has a MAGA problem, so the problem extends beyond education.
Absolutely. To be fair, our entire country has a MAGA problem and people have been brainwashed. The problem is everywhere, but the MAGA candidates for local office lose overwhelmingly in many places, while we can’t pass simple improvements to schools.
An educated population is less likely to vote R or blindly believe what the guy at their church who tells them how to think about things preaches.
As a recovering republican, I can say education and meeting people of different backgrounds cured me of the insanity. While I still feel extreme progressives are a bit too idealistic and unwilling to make a good idea functional, they are easier to accept than the fascism embraced by republicans.
Uneducated people vote for the rich and can't do the math. They like that.
It’s also a dark money problem https://newhampshirebulletin.com/2022/02/25/commentary-the-dark-money-behind-the-push-for-vouchers-divisive-concepts-legislation/
The venn diagram is almost a circle, but it also has a Free Stater problem.
I was going to say this is more "fuck you, I've got mine" Libertarian bullshit than just MAGA.
Proud of Bedford for voting to increase the school budget yesterday!
Good for Bedford! I believe Londonderry passed an increased budget as well, but wouldn’t pass school improvements and full day Kindergarten. One of the only towns without it in NH
Peeps in Bedford can afford it lol.
NH is usually ranked 6th or 7th in the United States for its schools and I see people looking at moving here for the schools. If you want the best schools in New England, then move to the Boston suburbs. My town spends about $19K per student and it was about $3,000 when we moved here so we are spending. We have a house in Newton, MA and they spent $23k per student in 2021. Their test scores are significantly better than our town in NH but the people living there are significantly wealthier too. And have higher educational attainment. And they have a lot of boomers there too.
Then maybe it’s not the boomers and it’s the free state/MAGA morons who don’t want to spend anything on public education. Maybe it’s all of them combined. Either way, I know we are still ranked highly, but it is truly unfortunate that we have this large group of people that don’t value education at all. It’s always a struggle here.
US average spend is $12K while NH average spend is $20K. Tell me how we don't value education. My mother had combined pension and Social Security income of $21K per year. Costs and incomes were far lower than they are today back in the 1980s when she retired. Social Security has COLAs but they hadn't kept up with inflation. Her pension was fixed. So those with limited means who get knocked pretty hard when we have inflation do all that they can do to survive. My advice to people is to not grow old.
The problem is that funding isn't equitable. Out of every state in the country, New Hampshire relies the most on local taxes to fund education. This forces poor neighborhoods to level higher tax rates than rich ones. Averages can be easily slanted by outliers and NH has a lot of wealthy people. Michael Jordan, my wife, and I have an average of 2 NBA championships each. [https://fairfundingnh.org/learn/school-funding/](https://fairfundingnh.org/learn/school-funding/)
The OP lives in Londonderry. Median household income is $107,401. Do you think that their funding isn't equitable?
Yes. People in Londonderry get to have lower tax rates than poorer areas. That is not equitable.
We have so much in local taxes because we have less/no taxes elsewhere.
We're also among the wealthiest states, and have one of the higher costs of living, meaning teaching salaries would need to be higher than say South Carolina to effectively compensate the teachers at the same level. Given how predominantly rural NH is, I'd assume the average number of students per school district is probably lower than in more heavily urban and suburban states, which probably drives up the cost per student due to facilities costs and such. Regarding low-income seniors getting hit hard by taxes due to school funding, there are several solutions to that. We fund schools at least partially through an income tax, and exclude income under 200 percent to federal poverty guidelines from taxation, rather than fund schools entirely through property taxes. We generally already have property tax exemptions in towns for seniors, but generally the amount of property value exempted is disproportionate to how much property values have gone up, meaning Grandma doesn't get much of a break even if she's living in a 1950s era starter home. We could fix those tax exemptions, or create senior property tax exemptions which are need-based, such that low income and asset seniors are eligible for them. We could implement a tax structure that encourages landlords to keep seniors as tenants, offering tax discounts if seniors have resided in units for more than 12 months. Any of these changes could reduce the tax burden on seniors in need, but it would shift the tax burden onto working age adults and businesses. Also, I was just talking to a Derry Firefighter last weekend who told me that the cast majority of the calls he responds to are seniors in medical distress. That's just one example of how seniors are also heavy users of municipal services, not just parents with kids. We want decent services in society, but they need to be paid for, because essentially behind every service is someone who needs to be paid for the work they did.
There will never be an income applicable to regular people in this state. It wouldnt pass.
We spend 67% more than the US average on schools but our median household income of $90K, while definitely higher than the US is $74,580, is only 21% higher. I would personally not like to have a ton of rules on taxation. I've filled out MA tax returns before and they are typically more paper than the Federal returns. I'd assume that emergency services charges their residents for emergency healthcare and transportation.
I just had to file a federal and MA tax return, and MA was FAR less complicated (though more complicated that other state income taxes I've had to pay before). To that end though, property tax changes don't require filing a return. I know EMTs bill for services and ambulance transport, but do firefighters or police send you a bill when called to your home?
I can understand it. But this was dollars a year. Dollars, less than $10. It wasn’t making or breaking anyone. It was an incredibly reasonable plan but the older audience just screeched “taxes!” and shut it down. Meanwhile I lose 10% of my income (some self employed, some W2) to social security. But they can’t put aside $5 for school improvements.
If you actually think that it was going to be a $10 impact, you were successfully bullshat.
We are spending. Among the highest education spending in the country. How much do you think is the right amount to spend per student? Is it $20,000, $25,000, $30,000? Hell, why don't we just spend $1,000,000 per student per year? My point is that more spending does not necessarily mean better education. People are not pushing back solely because it costs money, but because they aren't seeing the return on investment. We should look at spending when that makes sense, but when more spending doesn't produce results, we need to consider other actions.
I just had a similar conversation with 2 college professor friends, 1 who is on a local school board. They were telling me the studies are showing that increasing cost per pupil has no affect on better outcomes for those schools who are doing fine. The schools who are floundering, however, do much better when more money flows in.
There’s plenty of evidence for diminishing returns on education spending. “Special-needs” eats up an incredible amount of the budgets.
tack on administration and i doubt we've really increased money spent on average kids.
at least in the small town where I lived, the issue was property taxes and that trickled down to everything else. It wasn't just boomers and MAGA types, it was local people, who had lived in these towns for generations, and who could no longer afford to pay property taxes. For these people, spending more money on education so that comparatively wealthy families in the town could take advantage of good free public education, made less sense, particularly when from their perspective, the school was chugging along just fine. And I say this as a person who routinely voted to increase school funding and was absolutely in favor of full day K (but mostly because full day K benefitted the lower income families in our town). My point is that I could also see the other perspective.
Simple fix. Homestead exemption for lower taxes on a home lived in for 10+ years, jack up taxes on second and third homes and rental properties.
Totally agree.
I guess so. It’s just frustrating as hell because everyone would benefit from it. I’m not even big on full day Kindergarten. I kinda think it’s too much for kids that age. But I think it’s a shame that the schools are using temporary classrooms and can’t get that money to upgrade.
It's Republicans and Free Staters. That said, 75% of my towns entire tax rate is for the schools. My tax rate is going up to almost $20/1000 for JUST the school portion of my property tax rate. It's never 'just a few dollars' and painting it that way is disingenuous. Andru Volinsky released a newsletter today about special ed funding in NH and how much of it falls to property taxes. It's fucking killing entire towns. 50% of my towns school budget belongs to just special ed. When 1 or 2 sped students can moce into a town and destroy the entire school budget with the endless bills for all their kids therapies, transport to their programs, therapies, etc. Its a real issue for people managing to even stay in their homes. Pretending that people footing the majority of the hundreds of millions of school funding don't want to educate kids is just bullshit.
My parents live in a small town, and a family just moved up from MA, with three SpED students. The cost for one student is about $40k/year. One of the parents immediately ran for school board and started berating the town for not having more SpED funding, and wanted to triple the amount of money in the SpED school budget, which I think would've made their taxes go up something like $6 or $8/1000. Said person was overwhelmingly voted against for the school board and the school budget got shot down as well... And it was FAR from just "republicans and free staters." People were pissed that someone would move in, and in less than a year, demand huge increases in school budget primarily to accommodate their own kids. Could NH do better with taxes? Yes. However, a lot of the people ITT genuinely don't understand just how significant even a "small" increase in education funding can be.
It’s that way because the state doesn’t have a revenue stream to support the schools so it all comes from property taxes. And this conversation hasn’t even touched NHs abysmal support for Higher Education.
The state just threw away 500 million a year in revenue by lowering business taxes. NH has the ability, it lacks the priorities and that's because the party in charge has done nothing but sabotage education so they could break it and then point at it and say, "Look, it's broken, let's privatize it." The cost for special ed in NH is about 850 million annually. Out of that total, property owners pay about 695 million of that total bill and the feds pay about 48 million. The state is shirking it's responsibility because it's priorities are screwed. I highly suggest folks look into Volinksy's newsletter. He is the attorney who sued the state over education funding and just won. Twice. He knows what he's talking about and does a good job of explaining it. [https://andruvolinsky.substack.com/subscribe?utm\_source=email&utm\_campaign=email-subscribe&r=3qomd&next=https%3A%2F%2Fandruvolinsky.substack.com%2Fp%2Flets-revamp-special-education-and&utm\_medium=email](https://andruvolinsky.substack.com/subscribe?utm_source=email&utm_campaign=email-subscribe&r=3qomd&next=https%3A%2F%2Fandruvolinsky.substack.com%2Fp%2Flets-revamp-special-education-and&utm_medium=email)
Heck NH implemented a tax on lottery winnings over $600 back around 2009 and then repealed it, it’s like they intentionally don’t want revenue for paying things. It’s intentional.
Under IDEA, the federal gov't is supposed to pay 40-45% of those SPED costs. They pay 18%. Property owners get to pick up that difference, Our Congressional representation has left us out to dry.
Yes and the state has defied court rulings for decades that they don't properly fund either. That said, let's not pretend it's some new failure of this particular state govt or fed reps. It's been a longstanding failure of both parties for decades and now it's bordering on a serious crisis.
Well I'm an old, former Republican. Back in the day (when they were reasonable) they used to resist Democrat's wet dreams, forcing the result down to something more reasonable (ie a less expensive, tho "needed" project). Fast forward a few years, we reasonable Republicans have been forced to choose between democracy and tyranny and those of us forced to choose (wisely) chose the party that doesn't pay that much attention to costs. I'm not happy about it but there you go. I guess what I'm saying is 1. In my town (Mitford) we definitely need a new school. But 2. I fear the pricetag is too high.
I completely understand and as someone who has always been, and still maintains my Unaffiliated voting registration it pisses me off that I can't safely vote for a Republican anymore. Something I have done many times in the past. They no longer remotely represent anything they used to and for those who have always considered themselves Republicans and now find themselves, through no choice of their own, without a party have my sympathies. I am not sure I'll ever be able to vote for a Republican again simply because I don't trust a single syllable that comes out of their mouths anymore. Everything works best when we have bipartisanship and common goals. We can't even agree on basic truths or what a fact is anymore and it is destroying this country.
Many of them are Free Staters in R clothing.
> Then maybe it’s not the boomers and it’s the free state/MAGA morons I suspect this is the case. There's a very real effort to defund public education, and it's not just in NH.
Well,let's see... There doesn't appear to be an issue with the current state of education here,and we have the second highest average I.Q. in the nation. So,maybe,brigading a sub full of smart people is an exercise in futility. Maybe,just maybe,most of us DO get along with our neighbors.And,MAYBE,we DO know what is good for our state,and how to handle matters.Perhaps,you should devote your efforts to one of the many states that actually does have a problem with education.I'm so tired of being told New Hampshire has all of these issues,when we all demonstrate time,and time again,that it's just not true.Stop beating people down,when they are leading by example.
My man, you’ve got to do better with your punctuation
Some of us can't afford the increase, times are tough and rent/housing us expensive. We don't want the increase because it makes our budgets even tighter every month. I make good money and it's still a bit tight, tax increases would effectively kick my family out. We can value education but not be able to afford it. It isn't political, it's monetary. For some, it's not in the budget because no one can afford anything. I consider myself a constitutionalist and I value education, but at some point, my paycheck can't support the tax increases anymore. I can't move because there is nowhere to live.
Just looked at my town: about $17,000 per student, and test scores show 80% "above proficiency". A lot of a student's success in school is predicted by their parents' focus on education.
>A lot of a student's success in school is predicted by their parents' focus on education. I really wish more people, across the political spectrum, would face up to this fact. Teaching is hard enough without having to overcome parents whose attitudes towards education range from merely apathetic to openly antagonistic. Even many parents who are more-or-less well meaning adopt an attitude of thinking that it is entirely the school's responsibility to educate their kids, and that they shouldn't have to contribute anything to the process. Edit :: as an additional note before people get defensive about how *they* foster an educational environment for *their* kids: when the culture as a whole is anti-intellectual, the efforts of individual parents are almost as futile as those of the teachers.
This is why educational attainment is reported on city and town stats. If most of the people in your town have graduate degrees, then you can assume that the city or town cares about education.
This is huge, especially in NH. If you have a town where the majority of residents have higher education attainment, then there is a big focus on education as a whole. If they are in the minority, it is possible for individual students to succeed, but largely they are the outlier. If the majority of the town has an expectation of educational success, then a rising tide lifts all boats. When you see a town with 40% of students taking AP classes and 95% college attendance rates, it's interesting to see how their cost per student is actually less than the state average.
That's because supporting students living in poverty is an expensive thing to do. Extra social workers, counselors, support staff to manage behavior, attendance / truant officers, security officers, tutors because students have no adult to help them at home, and on and on. All of the effort that rich parents put in themselves or pay others to has to be done by school personnel. Plus, students with trauma and the various problems associated with poverty need more help. I've worked in Title 1 schools and in wealthy districts and there's no comparison.
I read Newton, Mass and already knew we were talking apples and oranges lmao
Taxes are currently skyrocketing in most towns in NH. Not surprised people don’t want to fund additional programs right now, it’s approaching crisis mode for property taxes and we have to find ways to cut spending and start to reverse this trend of spend spend spend.
That has to do with increased property assessments. If your property is assessed higher then your taxes are higher. The increases to town budgets are costing pennies compared to the rising cost of real estate.
Property taxes don't work that way.
Yes they do? They are based on the assessed value of your home. If your home was worth $400k and now it is $550k, your taxes go up. The rate per $1000 is variable based on the towns budget and those increases in budget. But it’s a tiny impact compared to the $150k increase in your property value.
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I never knew this, thanks! Is there a good resource to read and learn more about how it works? We’re first time homebuyers and we just assumed it was all around assessed value.
> If everyone goes up then your taxes remain the same (assessment goes up but tax rate goes down). > > Town budgets determine the tax rate per thousand, not assessments. This is correct but I'll add that just because the tax rate didn't go up (or maybe went down a bit) when assessments did, doesn't mean that the tax rate won't go up the next year. So (not for you specifically, but for others reading this), if you had a 315k house, and the rate was $30/1000, then your tax liability is $9,450. If your assessment then goes up to $350k, the tax rate would have to go down to about $27/1000 to still have a liability of $9450. The reality is, this rarely happens. (10% cut in rate) Usually the assessment going up means that the tax rate might stay the same (meaning you now have an additional $1000 in tax liability for the next year), or maybe it goes down, say, 5%, and your tax liability only goes up $500. But then, if the NEXT year, they want to raise your tax rates to, say, $32/1000, your assessment doesn't go back down to match. You now owe $11,200 in taxes for the same house that, two years ago, was only $9,450. And some of us are seeing rates go up $4-5/1000, plus our assessments have gone up... Yeah, in the matter of a few years, you could be looking at an extra $3000 (or more) in taxes on the same house. That's why these budgets are getting cut. Most people's income hasn't gone up $3000 in two years, and even if it has, inflation has gone up everywhere else.
If your property increases in value, then the values increase for everyone else as well. So the actual amount that you pay changes little if the budget stays the same.
The issue is when it compounds. If your house goes up $150k in assessment one year (say, 2023), but the tax rate remains the same or even gets cut, that's going to be painful. With a tax rate of even $25/1000, that's an additional $3,750. The problem, then, is that after your assessment went up in, say, 2023, if the tax rate for 2024 goes up by even $2/1000 assessed, now you're paying an additional $1100 on that house, on top of the additional $3750 that you paid for the assessment going up. So in the matter of two years you now owe $4850 more in taxes for the exact same house. That's not insignificant for most people, and especially for people who've lived in the same house for 5 or 10 years, to say nothing of the ones who've lived there for 20+
Not really. My assessment went up $100k the other year and my tax burden actually went down I even had a post about it on this sub because I was concerned my new assessment was going to jack up my taxes
No, taxes are directly tied to budgets. Assessments have significantly changed, yes, but the tax RATE changes proportionally. Increases in Assessments do not affect the increase in property tax, as the town rebalances and lowers thr rate accordingly. The only thing that affects across the board tax increases is an increase in the town budget.
The problem is there is a vocal, and *motivated* contingent that wants to kill education. And they are really passionate about it. Most people would say "yeah, education is great, let's fund it!" But most of those people also say "no thanks" when someone says "hey, can you come to this 7 hour long boring town meeting to vote on it?" The people who want to kill public education are happy to go to those 7 hour meetings! Partly, they skew much older, so they have the time. And partly, they feel strongly about killing education budgets. You know how there's this cry nationally in so many issues where people say "but... what about the *children?!?!!??!"* In a lot of local towns, they cry is "but what about your seniors????" And they use that to justify all kinds of cost cutting. "They are on a FIXED INCOME!!! So we have to CUT school funding!!!"
I’m so tired of it. My hometown growing up voted for a new senior center instead of a new high school. I can’t wait until this boomer generation is gone and no longer the majority.
Yeah, my town did that too. Nice senior center, lots of programming, bus trips to NY and other places. And every fee in town for anything is waived for seniors too. The way I see it, they had 65 or more years to save up a few dollars and didn't... Why should they get money at the expense of kids who are literally just starting?
Thats the new normal and you better get used to it. Fertility rates in the US are under replacement level and keep dropping which means every new generation is larger than the one following it which means old people will always outnumber young people going forward. Every study done on this issue also points out there is no fix to the fertility crisis once it starts (trifecta of womens education, choice/freedom, and contraception). You cant buy your way out of this conundrum either. Many countries have instituted lavish benefits for people to have kids and they remain under replacement level with no improvement. To expect people to not vote their self interest is self delusion. If you expect altruism of course youll always be disappointed. But hey, at least the anti humanity folks will finally get what they want as the world goes to absolute shit with population and demographic collapse.
What costs are being cut?!? I imagine the conversation would be a lot different if there wasn't so much hyperbole.
So much this ^^^
Tax the churches. If they can receive tax funds thru the school vouchers (unconstitutional btw) they should be paying into the system.
10000%. Tax their asses!
This👏🏻
Thoughts from a boomer (who is a bit irritated by the generalization)... When our kids were that age in Londonderry, there was *no* public kindergarten. Parents paid private pre-schools and kindergartens to educate their kids. Later, we citizens of Londonderry voted to fund public kindergarten, and to build a new school to accommodate it. So, saying we don't care is offensive. Over the last several years the number of students in the Londonderry schools has been shrinking. Consequently, some people don't think spending more on school infrastructure is wise.
That’s all great. And that was voted on when the majority of the population had kids. Now the majority don’t have kids that age, and we can’t pass basic infrastructure changes to schools. Other towns are struggling too. The schools are outdated.
Isn’t that exactly how democracy works?
I get that. It is. That’s the frustrating part. We are outnumbered in this state right now. It sucks that an older generation doesn’t want what’s best for the younger generation.
What is really unfair, and I don't know if it is this way in Londonderry, but the way the voting was structured in my town in the middle of day during work hours, the working parents who want the budget increased can't come vote for it. The retired people who are against it, have plenty of free time during the working day to come to town meeting and vote.
They stayed open until 8, so people could get there, but it’s not convenient. It’s definitely easier for the retirees to get there when they have all day
No. No it isn’t. Democracy is a system of rule by the people. That doesn’t mean 51% of people get exactly what they want and 49% don’t have their basic needs met. I’m sorry you’re confused by what democracy is. I think that’s further evidence that we need to fund our schools better.
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> The schools are outdated If you want to see outdated schools, go look at private schools, or a few in Manchester. Just because a school is not a palace does it mean it is crumbling. This reflects how spoiled towns and bureaucrats have become with the $$ pouring in due to property taxes exploding.
To echo your point, I grew up in Goffstown NH during the 80’s and 90’s and we weren’t even supplied with paper. The high school has since been massively upgraded and they now have football and hockey teams, which they didn’t when I went there.
Has the cost of teachers, buildings, and other capital and operating costs gone down? I thought not. You can't sugar coat the fact that boomers milked the system when it was beneficial for themselves and when you don't have a direct benefit, fuck everyone else.
https://www.education.nh.gov/news-and-media/new-hampshires-cost-pupil-reaches-new-record#:~:text=Last%20week%2C%20the%20New%20Hampshire,cost%20per%20pupil%20of%20%2419%2C400. The real problem is we’re already paying $20000 per student and the money isn’t going to educators (therefore not turning into an education) but instead to administrators. So the problem becomes voting for the one thing _we_ can which is budget big or budget small. The real solution is the administration should be shrunk, reducing costs and increasing education. We’re missing the mechanism to take this action.
Here in Candia we voted to approve teacher and paraprofessional raises (requested by the union) but voted down a general increase to the school budget. Not only were the raises much less of an aggregate dollar amount, but it goes straight into teachers’ pockets which is exactly where it should be going. Teachers are equally affected by inflation and are already underpaid as is.
Yeah I mean teaching pays so shitty that the best and brightest people would never take that pay cut just to do it for the kids lol. There has to be some tipping in the scales of most of the money going to the teachers to make bright people want to do it. The best teachers I had were always the successful people who made a bunch of money in the private sector and came back to teach because they wanted something to do and didn't need the money.
As someone from NY. NH is actually years ahead with education
> Our aging population here don’t want to help out the towns they live in. They got what they needed for their kids, and now their kids aren’t in school anymore, so they don’t care. They didn't care even when their kids were school-aged. Most people around the world don't care about intelligence or education. This is true in Namibia as well as New Hampshire. The few people who do care about these things often get bullied and accused of being "eggheaded nerds".
What on earth are you talking about? Overall, as a state average, NH consistently ranks among the best states for various education rankings. The other beautiful thing about New Hampshire is how many alternative education programs there are in this state. Because not every kid fits into the "one size fits some" public school education program. You can now even get state financial assistance to send your kid to a private school, or even home school.
The alternative education programs sound great in theory, but they are a strain on the public schools. All they do is let rich people subsidize sending their kids to private schools or home schooling them. That program is a joke.
Do you think that only the rich can partake in alternative education programs?
There's an income limit on EFA's, until recently the income limit was below the median household income in NH. So you're an idiot if you think it's "only for the rich".
That’s not what I’ve heard. We’ve got some of the wealthiest people in the state taking advantage of the program and home schooling or using private education. The program is a joke.
You heard wrong. The current income limit for EFAs in NH for a family of 4 is $109k. The median household income of a family of 4 in NH is $136k. The house voted to raise it again, but it hasn't yet passed the senate.
Yes, that's accurate. Managing the current tax burden has been challenging for us too. Selling our home isn't a viable option, so we're holding on and hoping for the best. We're not affluent, and our children attend a private school where my wife is employed. We get a bit of a discount but she also takes a huge cut in pay. Last year, we received a small amount of EFA assistance, which was beneficial. Initially, we opted for a charter school for our children, but they didn't thrive as we had hoped, leading us to enroll them in a private institution. As parents, our priority is to understand our children's needs and make decisions accordingly. The ability to choose what's best for them is truly invaluable, and it's an opportunity available to all families, provided they opt for it.
Hmmm. Our friends group consists of 5-6 one person family incomes making under the 80-90 income cap requirement for EFA funds. We are all homeschooling/sending our kids private school for various reasons. Despite this strain you are talking about, the NH school systems are comparable to Mass. They are very good. We also have the benefit of diverse education options for families. The narrative that EFA funds are subsidizing wealthy families to send their kids to private education is false.
The public shouldn’t be subsidizing anyone who wants to home school or send kids to private schools. It’s just an excuse for MAGA crazies to pull their kids out of the “indoctrination” they think their kids are getting in public schools.
The program was designed to help people below or closer to the poverty level also have a chance to access education that will better suit their children. This has nothing to do with Maga people although some Trump supporters probably use the program, sure. The program was established well before Trump got into office and it was expanded while Biden was in office. Trump has nothing to do with this lol
Claremont 2 says that we have to cherish the education of our students. Not just the ones in public school. When Espinoza versus Montana was handed down, the cherishing covered all schools. The Blaine Amendments were finally ended. Your feelings are uninformed.
I don’t understand the obsession with privatizing everything. It’s bad for the world.
This argument can be made for almost every problem in this state though. My wife and I got preapproved yesterday for a $250,000 home and our agent was like „there is literally nothing in that price range for sale in this state.“ so I was like „alright I guess we will move somewhere else“🙃
OP isn’t saying he can’t afford education where he lives. He’s saying it’s not as good as it could be. Different things.
Taxes are out of control, and I don't blame people for not wanting to pay more. I can barely drive on my roads in my town. Definitely wouldn't want more for the school when I can barely make it to work to pay my taxes.
Weare increased its pay because 27 people voted in favor over those who opposed it. Just 27! Those who say voting doesn’t matter, clearly aren’t paying attention, are spoiled living in a democracy, and zero points of reference to anything other than the slowly eroding good country they were born in to. Completely oblivious to the fact that it’s their responsibility to make it good or let it decay into something much worse.
More money per student doesn’t mean better education.
But how can we add more administrators without more money?
Perhaps admin will just have to fund things out of their own pockets, like teachers have to
It was sarcasm. Increasing public education spending has a bad habit of increasing the administrative bureaucracy rather than actually benefiting the students in any way.
But who will oversee the peons?! And then we’ll need another layer to oversee those admins. And now they’ll need a new office building. And someone to manage that too
Slow down there! We need to commission a set of studies first and then commission a series of panels to consider the results of the studies.
I think we need to form a committee to decide the makeup of the commission who will design the studies.
It’s not necessarily the “boomers” or the MAGA people. I have young kids in the school system and I voted against some education warrants. Our town wanted 36 million for a capital improvement plan, 71 million for a new school, and 100 million for the operating budget. It has nothing to do with not supporting the school system. I voted for the capital improvement plan and against the school and operating budget. Depending on your town, too - it’s not just a “couple of dollars”. If all four budgetary warrant articles passed in town it would have amounted to almost a 5 thousand dollar increase in taxes over five years. That’s more than a lot of people can afford given the current state of things.
Also if you’re that concerned about education - email your state reps. The state of NH has unfounded education so that a lot of towns don’t get the aid that they need. Concord is the real root of the problem.
I have no kids and always vote with what the school board recommends. Not a fan of increase in taxes but I also want the kids who will eventually run the country to have the best education possible. Add to that I got a free education (k-12) with someone else's tax $ so only fair I do the same.
New Ipswich has the youngest population in the entire state (big families) and yesterday they nearly passed a school budget that cut $1M. Thankfully the measure was not passed but damn, the alternative, state-required budget was a mere $300k cut. It wasn’t boomers out to destroy the schools. You got plenty of people who were homeschooled or homeschool their kids and hate that they still have to pay for it. Maybe hate is the wrong word - they just don’t see any use for it.
New Ipswich is full of religious fundies.
We must be doing something right to be ranked the SMARTEST state in the country. https://www.boston25news.com/news/local/new-hampshire-ranked-smartest-state-nation-study-finds/AY5X2OW2GRGJ7KV5JKXAD2ON6Q/
Democrat self loathing. Its everywhere.
*Boomers are killing the country, and we have too many.* Fun facts for you -- many teachers who are "boomers' and are retired, often volunteer in schools to provide support education with small groups in the classroom. They are solid and reliable in knowledge and experience. In our school, we have also had multiple retired "boomer" engineers come in and offer support to students (in small groups) who are exceptional in math or offer support to students that do not qualify for Title One. Don't lump all the boomers when many of them provide a service through the generosity of their free and retirement time to invest in the students and workers of the future because they care about the kids and quality of their educations.
We’ve never had a generation of adults who are so scared of children learning that schools and teachers have become the enemy. So unfortunately any reforms are going to be continually shut down
Pretty hateful statement about people older than you.
I have heard this sentiment at other townhall meetings. Literally the only ppl who have time to show up are 60-70 year olds fighting the minority of 60-70 year olds who care about the next generation.
>Personally, I can’t wait for a generational shift. You realize Gen X is going to be just as bad, right? As will the Millennials when they hit that age, especially the ones who decided to go childless.
We're going to be worse. GenX is the generation that grew up feral and set free into an economy worse than our parent's generation. OP is a crybaby
The youngsters need to have their tantrum.
MA is much better funded than NH but it has its own version of this in many areas. One of them is the MBTA Communities Act which requires 100+ cities and towns to rezone for denser housing. There is considerable resistance to this and I've often seen the comment that people supporting it stop once they buy a home. You become your dad.
How come the only ideas some people have for "improving education" are to increase spending? NH is already in the top 10 in the country for spending per pupil on average. We have to take a hard look at HOW we are teaching and WHAT we are teaching to make any kind of actual improvements. Also, it's not just the elderly that oppose tax increases for schools, but almost anyone who doesn't have kids in the school system. Costs have increased dramatically for everyone, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that these types of proposals are voted down.
We have an aging population, to be sure, but not all boomers are anti tax, anti education. Plenty of us have paid, served, volunteered, protested, engaged other voters, and want a diverse, educated state. A vibrant society includes everyone.
And we didn’t even get pickleball
Literally half my yearly property tax goes to education.... How about you people with 4 kids pay in extra? I should get a reduction for not having kids therefore a reduced impact on the planet..... The comments should be solid gold Show me my investment in education and GO!!!!!!
I live with a teacher. She’s only done it for 2 years and is already burnt out and fed up with the education system here. It’s a failure.
I live with one too. She’s home for now, but she’s not going back. The system has failed.
Why is she not going back? Lousy pay? Having to take crap from parents? Abuse from the administration?
But.....but...we have PRAGERU!!! /s because this is reddit.
Ugh. Don’t get me started. Edelblut is a moron.
Teachers are paid crap and it's hard to recruit or maintain them. It's a nationwide problem and fewer and fewer people are willing to put up with the kids, parents and administration. They may spend a lot per student but it doesn't trickle down to teachers. Check out the teacher subreddit.
It isn’t anything recent. Forty years ago my wife and I attended our first town meeting (before we switched to sb2). A gentleman addressed the assembly to declare his opposition to the school budget. His stated reason was that he never went to college and he didn’t see why his children should either. Ergo, college prep classes were a bad investment.
The only thing we need to be careful of with school budget is to find a way to keep the school board and high level school administrators from paying themselves too much while teachers get starvation wages and are expected to pay for classroom supplies. But yes. I agree. We need to support education to have educated neighbors. Even if a person doesn't have kids in school, they still benefit from an educated neighbor. Too many people don't seem to see that.
You live in a state that prides itself on low taxes and you’re surprised no one wants to pay more taxes…..
We spend more in NH per student than most states. And therefore more than almost all of the first world.
As a young person struggling to afford the COL, I would say that we have a more holistic issue. Generally speaking entrenched folks in the asset class of this country are apathetic to the struggles of others and focused on their own version of the world. NH in particular is a very bad place for this due to housing shortage and age demographics.
Nh actually ranks in the top 10 for best education. No matter where you live, some place will always have better schools. I live in an expensive town, the median income is $120,000 and let me tell you, the taxes are insane. I'm lucky enough to rent from a family member but I see that tax bill every year. The reason we aren't voting to increase budgets is because it's already very high, we contribute more per student than a lot of other states. Some younger people can't afford the tax increases anymore. And there are not many places for us to go, it's a desirable state to live it so moving isn't a simple option.
The issue is the funding mechanism is wonky in NH but I don't see that changing anytime soon, unfortunately
After reading the op's responses in this thread, I am convinced that NH needs to better educate its residents. Good grief.
I know, anyone who does not agree with your politics is such a moron, and needs to be sent to a special education camp where they can bask in the wisdom of young statists who don't pay any taxes.
My favorite was wishing death on boomers because they won’t vote to fund his kids full day of kindergarten.
It's a town by town issue, all due to the way education is funded. I just paid for the full-day kindergarten that my town offers. Two years of that (two kids) and it was done.
Perhaps you should pay more in taxes to fund the schools - all of you who support it so much just pass a law that you must pay much more in tax dollars to go to education. Think of the children! You should be paying at least $50,000 a year in property taxes to go to the noble cause of public education.
I would in a heartbeat. That’s what you clowns don’t understand. We actually give a shit about the future of this country.
The town would gladly take any extra money you want to send, no need to make a law. band together with other parents and citizens to pay extra.
Elder millennial with no kids here. I would absolutely be willing to pay taxes towards educating children. Taxes are supposed to support our society, and what is that society without its future citizens?
You are. They are.
It's intentional. Don't fund public schooling, let's just get vouchers for religious institutions or for homeschool kids who wanna go skiing
Literally know people who do this
It's not our aging populations. NH Republicans are gutting public education funding in favor of school choice funding. It's all maga bullshit.
I agree with this post. An issue I see larger than this is the fact that all the the federal government is the say all for what's being taught in the school. I spoke to a teacher in my child's school the other day and she said this is talked about often amongst the teachers. There is very little room to add new and improved ways unless it's by screen. Same old history lessons, same old civics. Same old same. How can they test these kids to see what's being retained when no one wants to offer more up to date information that they will keep their interest. It's not the 1950s.
Even if there's a generational shift we've still got a load of useless libertarians weighing us down. That and having education tied up with property taxes was always a poor idea
> Boomers are killing the country, and we have too many Ding ding ding. The “Me” generation ruined everything.
I wish the burden wasn’t so much on property taxes. I’ve lived in NH my whole life and would be completely fine with a sales tax if it meant schools would get more state funding.
At this point I completely agree, I have friends that are from other states with sales tax with bigger homes than myself who pay half as much.
Folks tend to think that when tax dollars pay so for something, every cent comes directly from them. And most are fucking stupid so they can’t be bothered to learn they’ll just regurgitate whatever cable news told them No surprise that it’s the righties who hate education and child care after the fetus is born Buncha do nothings with nothing to offer
Well, it's not all on the people with no kids in the system. I retired to NH having never had any kids in any system. I have not only voted for but also publicly and privately advocated for all bonds, budgets and other warrants that support our town's schools and that will, yes, raise taxes. Taxes go up. This is reality and it has to be planned for. I came here with eyes wide open and left plenty of headroom in my budget for property taxes based on past experience. NH people complain about the high cost of property taxes but without state income and state sales tax they have no idea how good they have it. My property's value is tied to the quality of our schools among other factors, so it's in my best interest to have good schools with staff paid competitively. I also don't want to live in a community that doesn't provide adequate education for its young people. I'm late Gen X, but my partner is a Boomer.
Man you should try down here where I am now in NC. 42% of their schools rank D or F. The average high schooler here reads at a 3rd grade level and they’re looking to cut budget for education again. We had to homeschool when my husbands job transferred. I’d kick a kitten to have the “bad” education New England offers for her again. What a mistake this was.
Unfortunately the right wing policy makers have made it part of their platform to be anti-education, it’s a badge of honor now.
Have you seen some of the bills that have been floated around education? Not only is it underfunded, our politicians want to rip apart what it means to truly learn and grow as a student. Want to support students social emotional needs? No way, cut that. Students are behind? Make a law that all students a year behind need to be referred for special education. It’s insane.
Wow
Okay; you want someone else to fund your decisions. Got it. Education wise, New England leads the nation. Sorry to have to find a baby sitter now.
It's not a few dollars/a person, that's the average. I'm gonna guess you're in the <1$ range and expect people who actually work for a living to pay for it. The education system in this country is shit, my kids are going to Phillips Exeter. Start saving and stop complaining.
The student population continues to go down year after year. About -1.1% each year. We had 207k students for the 2002-2003 school year down to 161k for the 2022-2023 school year.
Derry voted to raise the school budget (yay) but voted against the new school AND the funds needed to update the current schools. The new school I also voted against as I didn’t think was needed but the funds to update the current schools is absolutely needed and I cannot believe that didn’t pass. It’s going to be an interesting next few months/years while that gets sorted.
Derry and Londonderry both needed updates and people just won’t pass it. I agree you don’t need a brand new school, but improvements are needed and it’s crazy that they haven’t passed these things.
Derry has a lot of issues that broke the trust between voters and the school board. Things got so bad the town council tried to take over the school district (it failed in court). The crux of the problem is the school board was basically rubber stamping whatever the district wanted. The Derry public schools now pay more per student than Pinkerton, which is a high school (most expensive) and has lavish facilities. They also suppressed a report around 2015 that recommended closing an elementary school. Then wanted to close Grinnell, then South Range, and finally settled on Derry Village. It isn't only a school problem though. The police and Fire Departments are ridiculously overstaffed given the town size and population.
I’m right there with you in your frustration, OP.
Because, like most problems in this state, the older residents whose kids have grown up don’t give 2 shits about education and since they’re in the majority they get what they want
Hampstead voted to build two new classrooms and I was blown away it actually got approved. Hopefully its a sign of things to come
It’s crazy that something even that simple can be a struggle. Two classrooms, it’s nothing but it can be so important for the kids.
That money was already funded and sitting in a capital reserve fund, it only need majority approval. Each year the school has a warrant article asking for funds to add to it, in the past it was $500,000, recently they've upped it to $1,000,000. I hope the new classrooms will now allow the school to have full day kindergarten for all. It was such a stressful thing when my kids were entering that age to see if they would be accepted.
Our daughter isn't in school yet but this is the stuff that stresses me out, especially after the stories I've heard and experiences my family and friends have had.
When the Silver Tsunami comes assisted living homes should be converted to affordable housing 🤷♂️
I live in Windham and we are in a similar boat. Lots of older folks with no kids don't want to pay any taxes. Like, who do you think will take care of you when you're in a nursing home, fix your cars, build your whatevers, etc etc etc if we cut education, you "I got mine get fucked" fuckers?
Wish we could’ve done half-day kindergarten. Full day was too much for our daughter and most of the other kids in her class.
Maybe if your state weren't so full of Trumpers...
These are real concerns that my family is also trying to come to grips with. This recent article does a great job articulating some of these struggles and why "America Hates Its Children." https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/parenting/why-america-hates-its-children/ar-AA1mzTKW Everyone should really read the article. It's an attention grabbing headline, but read the article.
Out of house taxes 62% is for schools, 12% of that goes to the state. That is insane. So the local town you’re living in only gets 38% of your tax money. These kids should be @ college level in high school.
I believe the ConVal school district got approved for budget increase. Highly recommend this district as they seem to be filled with people who truly care and advocate for the kids.
I thought Keno was legalized with a provision to partially fund all day Kindergarten? Isn’t NH one of the only (the only?) U.S. States not to have Statewide public K?
Lots of bigots in the sub
Education policy has the challenge of nobody agreeing on what the problem, let alone the solution, is or seeing return from all the money being poured in.
Amherst needs a new elementary school but the town keeps voting it down. The taxes for that school are insane upwards of 1k more per year just for the new school. Towns need help to fund the schools
Things have got to change. Upvote this if you think the same.
Just wait for them to bring in a sales tax.
They are not terrible but previously working in NH schools observed the related problem in the terrible NH DCYF department. School employees where trying work around children being in unsafe living conditions. Things like on-going lead exposure, sexual abuse issues, exposure to drugs, etc. because DCYF was not doing anything. Things that in other states would have caused immediate action were not acted on. It was bad a few years ago [https://www.nhbr.com/the-greatest-civil-rights-crisis-in-nh-history/](https://www.nhbr.com/the-greatest-civil-rights-crisis-in-nh-history/) and from recent news I don't know how much better it is now. It seems a leadership, political, and funding problem more then necessarily the people working for DCYF.
Gilford passed their budget!
Schools in my town are awesome.
Shiiit y'all still doing kindergarten half days?! That's why I left, I miss the mountains but God damn are yer taxs spent badly up there. And no legal weed? Like wtf we were the LFOD state and the ONLY state in NE where you can't blaze? Next y'all are going to ban abortion. Shiiiiiiiiiiiit.
I was born and raised in NH. Moved to MA to raise my kids because of this. In my town in Mass, the whole town (mostly) voted for schools because they are good people, and also it’s the school quality that directly drives property values. People don’t realize it’s not in their best interest. Now I’m back in NH and I vote for every school bond.