New Hampshire Commissioner of Education Virginia Barry spoke to a meeting of the South Central Region of the New Hampshire School Administrators Association. Thanks to a Manchester area school board member, we got tipped off to the meeting and forced it to be opened to the public.The public, however, wasn’t allowed to question or comment, including State Senator David Boutin, R-Hooksett. His attempt to be recognized for that purpose was an interesting beginning to what was, at times, an obfuscated presentation.
Questions and comments began with Manchester Mayor Ted Gatsas rising (about 1:06:00) to directly question Commissioner Barry, despite participants being told to submit their questions in writing, and ended with an upset school board member from Alton, NH who rose to ask why his written questions had not been asked and challenged the veracity of statements made by Barry.
Barry ducked a number of questions and mischaracterized a number of criticisms during her presentation. That’s probably a “good thing” given her inappropriate statements about kids “not being shot” for doing poorly on standardized tests and equating the new tests to “Body Mass Index” measurements. Our live blog of the meeting is here. Feel free to follow along as you watch the video. Our thanks to Bill Wynne of www.GoffstownToday.com for making this available.
