STEM Sham.

Imagine if during her acceptance speech Governor Hassan proposed some changes to education in New Hampshire and some examples include:

Increase funding for art education statewide by 30%, increase the pay for teachers like art and even English and Social Studies. And create a statewide textbook consortium where the state uses its buying power to purchase textbooks for schools the same way it does for things like gasoline and road salt.

Instead, Hassan plays the political safe route.

STEM.  Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

The mainstream of society and the ingredients for success or so it is perceived.

It isn’t working this way…

STEM is an example of why New Hampshire is failing in education. And the reason(s) are simple: Not every student and learner can fit inside a prescribed, preplanned neat little math based package.

This by the way is where some if not all of these shooters are coming from whether this is in Aurora, Colorado or a small town about 40 miles east of New York. A flawed educational system and flawed policies and priorities.

Bang. Bang. People are now dead.

The inaugural festivities for Gov. Hassan featured a robotics demonstration. This is nice it certainly sets the tone of what is important to New Hampshire. STEM and achieving success.

A question should have been asked of the new governor about the robots. Who exactly is in control of the robots?  Is it us or them or the STEM that creates all this.

I’d imagine the answer to this would be pretty well prepackaged like in a neat little box.

NH Educational Censorship.

Is this positive or negative? Why should the state decide what art is.

One of the candidates for Governor I don't know which one is proposing the scale back or complete dissolution of the NH Department of Education.

This is a quality idea not only because it will save taxpayers millions of dollars, the quality of education in the granite state will actually improve.

Consider this: Let all curriculum planning, teacher licensure and long term instructional requirements happen at the school administrative unit, and the local school level instead of being mandated by Concord and Washington. 

Watch what would happen...

Several years ago I took an art appreciation course taught by an experienced high school art teacher that had also once been employed as a curator at the Met in New York City. In any case it was a survey course from neolithic cave writings to modern digital art of the future and why the dynamics and/or definition of art really is at least to the person that is looking at it.

But the state censors were still in place.

So the instructor got the to 1940s and completely skipped over 'Degenerate Art.' Not even a mention of the countess pieces of art that were looted and stolen, some of which have never been recovered, including the Amber Room from Czar Nicholas I Winter Palace in Leningrad. Never recovered.

Not one mention.

So I asked the question: "Why wasn't this mentioned?" and she replied, "Degenerate Art isn't positive." And this is instantly countered before my mind had even considered what she had just said, "So art has to be positive to be taught? Is this what the state mandates in it's curriculum?", referring to the fact that she teaches high school students.

She didn't answer my question. She simply looked away.

Fun With School Vouchers.

School Vouchers In A State Controlled System. State Selection Of The Fit.Somehow during every election an idea emerges that always enourages the better.

School Vouchers!

That's right make the schools better with good choices, good teachers and a great educational system. But then the election is over and the idea waits for the next election cycle. Every parent wants a good education for their child.

"Today this matter is taken lightly. In general it is the children of high-placed, well-situated parents who are considered worthy of a higher education. Questions of talent play a subordinate role. Taken in itself, talent can only be evaluated relatively. A peasant boy can posess far more talents than a bourgeous child in general knowlege. If the talented peasant boy from his early years had likely grown up in such an environment, his intellectual ability would be quite different. Today, perhaps, there is a single field in which origin is really less decisive than an individuals native talent: the field of art. Here where a man cannot merely 'learn.'

Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, State Selection Of The Fit.

In an economically depressed New Hampshire or even a state controlled educational system art is the first field to be financially reduced and/or eliminated. Many schools are down to part-time Art teachers if they have them at all.

And the candidates want to talk about school vouchers.

This is a UTUBE video featuring candidate Ovide Lamontagne who seems to enjoy explaining everything including how the legislature is going to decide how education is run in New Hampshire. I'm wondering if he could save alot of time and energy by a simple educational policy idea that solves everything he is talking about, especially the local control part.  

Rich Kids Go To College. Poor Kids Go Into Vocational Programs.