Saying that quote “the political insiders need to know that the gun vote is an important vote in N H and it would be wise for them not to overlook this crowd,” State Rep. Jr Hoell, Republican of Dunbarton proclaimed the success of last Thursday night’s gun owner rally outside of the sold out G O P fundraiser headlining former Bay State Senator Scott Brown. Protecting and expanding gun rights has been a signature cause of Hoell’s for years, including during his time as a state rep. He wonders if their show of force at that rally in Nashua, where some three hundred people showed up, will cause Democrats to quietly scuttle many of the anti-gun bills filed for the coming session of the legislature. More importantly, he questioned whether state G O P leaders will learn from the event and start supporting gun owners. If they don’t, he warns, they will lose again in November. Senator Brown, who recently sold his home in Wrentham, MA and declared his vacation home in Rye his primary residence, has travelled around the state much like a presumptive candidate for office in recent months, but has declined to say whether or not he’ll be a candidate for the US Senate. Gun owners are just one of many conservative groups trying to convince party leaders that if he runs and becomes the nominee, he will lose without their support. Meanwhile, declared senate candidate Jim Rubens has taken the opportunity to put the A rating he earned from the NRA while a state senator in front of the protestors in a bid to earn their support in the primary. Given his moderate to liberal positions on other social issues, such as gay marriage and abortion, it is one of the few areas Rubens can galvanize social conservative support in the primary.
Hooksett School Board Vice Chair David Pearl has welcomed another member to that rogue board, Union Leader reporter Ben Klein. Pearl sent an email Friday afternoon stating the board had a new member after reading an article posted by Klein to the Hooksett Banner Web site, to which he linked. Pearl took issue with the unchallenged and uncorrected statement made by Board Chair Trisha Korkosz declaring the ONLY reason the board didn’t address establishing opt out criterion for those who didn’t want to go to Pinkerton Academy and determine who would be assigned to go there if the minimum student guarantee of seventy five was not met was because of the snowstorm. Quote “There was no other reason, I just wanted to get people out as quickly as possible.” Well, those of us who stayed for the entire meeting, unlike Klein, didn’t need the video link that Pearl included as incontrovertible proof to the contrary. In fact, Korkosz voted against multiple motions to establish that criterion, never once mentioning the weather. She also did nothing to put any distance between herself and Board Member Cherly Akstin who said the board didn’t need to develop a policy because more than seventy five kids would sign up for Pinkerton, an assertion that Board Member Phil Denbow also seemed to agree with. We’ve posted links to the article Klein wrote, our Live Blog Forum within Oh My BLOG! which identifies exactly when he left and a link to the more than eleven minutes of discussion on the matter we published on the nineteenth so you can decide who’s reporting what happened and who’s letting the people who make their job easy slide.
News from our own backyard continues after this.
An article published in Sunday’s Concord Monitor stands as testimony as to why Girard at Large has continually requested the list of teachers who were paid to develop the forsaken curriculum guides aligned to the Common Core national standards. The article, written by liberal education activist and Common Core apologist Bill Duncan, quotes Hillside Middle School teacher and a member of the team developing The Manchester Academic Standards Sue Hannan saying quote “In the past . . . (we were) fearful of raising expectations. But . . . we need to set that higher standard. The Common Core does that.” End quote. The article written by Duncan was submitted in response to a Monitor news article about a grandparent form Warner who’d filed paperwork to form the Grandparents and Parents Opposed to Common Core political action committee. Joseph Mendola was quoted as saying ““(Parents) just have no idea what Common Core is about, and the teachers have just a glimpse of what they think it’s about.” Girard at Large believes that releasing those names is critical to ensure the high level of transparency needed to develop public trust in the development of the new standards. The reason we have continued to ask the district to release the names of those who were paid to develop the Common Core aligned curriculum guides and those involved in the decision to bring the Everyday Math curriculum to city schools is very simple: We believed that the fresh eyes of new people who were truly interested in the best standards, not defending their prior work was critical to the success of this endeavor. Until and unless the district releases the names of the people in those past efforts, we won’t know whether or not Hannan or any other participant has a history with these other efforts. However, we do believe there is cause to question whether or not she should continue with the project in light of her statements which clearly show a bias toward the rejected standards. You can bet we’ll have more to say on this during today’s show. Here’s the link to the list of teachers we published participating in T-MAS.
BREAKING: Here are blog posts discovered by a listener after hearing this news read: http://anhpe.org/2013/11/01/ccsscost/ http://anhpe.org/2013/11/25/sue-hannan-6th-and-7th-grade-teacher-at-manchesters-hillside-middle-school-we-need-to-set-that-higher-standard-the-common-core-does-that/
AFTER SHOW FOLLOW UP: During this morning’s show, David Ryan finally released the information on teachers involved in prior efforts we’ve long sought. Here are the teachers involved in aligning the district’s curriculum guides to the Common Core national standards. Here are the teachers involved with bringing the ill advised Everyday Math curriculum into the schools. Compare them to those working on T-MAS and be enlightened.
SECOND AFTER SHOW FOLLOW UP: David Ryan finally provides the “final list” of those involved with the T-MAS development process. If he responds to our request asking it be put in the same format as the original list, we’ll publish it.
That’s news from our own backyard, Girard at Large hour ___ is straight ahead!
