By Dave Anderson:
I grew up ten miles from the New Hampshire border in Massachusetts. Even at 2:00 in the morning on backroads, we always knew when we crossed state lines becasue of the sudden appearance of potholes. New Hampshire has always been a free riding oddity, taking advantage of its proximity to the Boston Metro area and Boston metro economy while trying to be a low tax/low service state. Many friends have moved to New Hampshire because it has no income tax, but then discover that the state makes up for it by having much worse schools than most Massachusetts schools and much higher property taxes.
New Hampshire is at it again with a propsoal to allow school districts to not offer kindergarten despite the evidence that effective early childhood intervention is one of the most effective long term public policies in terms of decreasing future outlays on social services because kids won't need them when they grow up:
New Hampshire's House is scheduled to vote this week whether to repeal a law requiring public schools to offer kindergarten. The House Education Committee is recommending keeping the requirement, but a minority on the committee is fighting to repeal the law. State Rep. J.R. Hoell, a Dunbarton Republican, argued the bill isn't about eliminating kindergarten but about giving local voters the control over whether to offer programs.
"Local voters"= old peopl= tea baggers=base Republicans=automatic votes against expanded educational funding despite the fact that this type of educational funding is extremely cost effective and efficient at achieving its goals.
What will happen if this bill passes is that the poorer districts with high needs for effective early educational interventions will cut back on kindergartern while the richer districts will continue kindergarten, further advantaging their kids and decreasing the already minimal long term social mobility and increasing the GINI coefficient by a tiny margin.
All in the name of "freedom" and saving a couple of bucks off property taxes for another year or two until the death bet pays off.
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