Two articles in the Jan. 17 Valley News reinforced my opposition to SB 193, the New Hampshire bill establishing education savings accounts for students.
In Concord Monitor reporter Lola Duffort’s article on the Finance Committee hearing on the bill (“Half of N.H. Students Would Qualify for Vouchers”), she noted that at least 84,500 New Hampshire students — about half of the state’s public school population — would be eligible for the vouchers issued as a result of the passage of SB 193. This far exceeded the numbers forecasted by advocates for this bill.
The article goes on to report that, “To sway certain moderate Republicans who worried about the bill’s potential impact on local school districts, the bill was amended to include so-called ‘stabilization grants’ to partially reimburse districts for losses tied to the program.”
I do not understand how legislators who claim there is no money available to address the lawsuits dealing with inequitable funding of public education in New Hampshire can find funds for “stabilization grants” to underwrite vouchers for homeschoolers and private schools.
The Associated Press story about the horrific case of the enslavement of 13 children in California also raised serious concerns (“Police: Calif. Couple’s Home Held ‘Torture Chamber’ ”). The article noted that mistreatment of these children was made possible because the parents used the cover of a “private day school” to avoid the monitoring of their abuse by any government agency except the state and local fire departments. This incident raises a question for any legislator who is contemplating an affirmative vote on SB 193: What safeguards will be put in place to ensure that parents receiving homeschooling grants or vouchers for private schools are providing a bona fide education in a safe and appropriate setting?
I trust that advocates for SB 193 can explain where the additional funding for “stabilization grants” will come from and why that additional funding isn’t being used to help those public schools that have been shortchanged for years. I also trust they can explain how this legislation will ensure the safety of all school-aged children, including those who are not attending “government schools.”
Wayne Gersen
Etna
In reference to the Page One story “Hawaii Issues Mistaken Missile Alert” (Jan. 14):
As a schoolchild during the Cold War, I was taught to “duck and cover” to survive an atomic bomb. Now, Hawaii has reactivated its alert system, triggered by mistake a few days ago, to warn of an incoming missile. Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is developing new guidelines for surviving a nuclear attack.
These measures are all based on a dangerous lie. In almost any imaginable nuclear exchange, most Americans, perhaps all of us, would die. But the suggestion that we might survive makes nuclear war more acceptable and therefore more likely.
We’ve just been lucky so far that a mechanical glitch or human error, like the false alarm in Hawaii, has not yet gotten us all killed. Instead of rehearsing pointless survival tactics while we “modernize” the U.S. nuclear arsenal, we should be leading the world to find ways to eliminate the existential risk posed by these weapons.
Stephen Dycus
Strafford
One can laugh at the Trump Derangement Syndrome exhibited by many of your Forum writers. They, after all, are mainly bent on signaling their virtue to all their friends. But when your editorial displays the same derangement it’s time to get worried (Playing to His Base: Racism Is No Sideshow,” Jan. 17). You should all get together somewhere and have a good “Hate Trump” session and reach some kind of a catharsis. You would all enjoy that and it might spare the rest of us your fulminations.
The thrust of your editorial — Donald Trump is a racist, Donald Trump is Hitler — is the usual childish claptrap one expects from those who have lost their senses. The main problem for you is that Trump is president and tens of millions of Americans support the many things that he ran on to get elected. If you are calling all these people “Deplorables” from the dark fringe, well we’ve heard that one before.
I can understand your frustration: You and your politically correct friends control the mainstream media, the schools and colleges — even the culture. But you don’t control Trump.
Get over it. You’ve had a year now having a good rant. It’s time to start offering some viable alternatives for the things that need to be done to make America great again.
J. Barrie Sellers
Hanover
Oh, the irony! Donald Trump supporter Terri Macomber (“Stop Whining and Look at Results,” Jan. 20) berates us for not supporting a lying, racist, hateful bully. A loathsome pig who brags about sexually assaulting women. A man we constantly must apologize for to the rest of the world, an utterly despicable and ultimately dangerous person.
She tells us the children are watching us. No, Terri Macomber, you’ve got it exactly wrong. They’re watching you.
Andrea Sand
Woodstock
An otherwise excellent letter from P. LaPlante (“Trump Is a Sexual Predator,” Jan. 17), opined, “had it not been for wealth passed down from his father, he would be a fat bald guy driving a cab in Brooklyn.”
This is extremely insulting — to all the fat, bald guys driving cabs in Brooklyn.
Sheila Kaplow
Bradford, Vt.