A cop sees a guy crawling around under a lamppost, looking for something. The cop asks what he’s looking for. He says he’s looking for his keys. The cop offers to help him look.
After a while, the cop asks: “Are you sure you lost them here?” The guy says, “No, I lost them over in the park.” And the cop says, “Then why are you looking for them here?” And the guy says, “Because the light is better here.”
Money is the lamppost of education. As long as we’re focused on money, we’re not going to find what we’re looking for — an education for our kids. To do that requires leaving the lamppost and heading over to the park
According to the New Hampshire Department of Education, in 2022 less than 20% of kids in Newport were proficient in reading and math. This puts Newport in the bottom three districts (out of 162) in the entire state.
But Newport’s per-student cost is more than $20,000, which puts it solidly in the middle of the pack. Over the course of a K-12 education, this approaches the cost of a house.
Spending has increased by 30% since 2018. Proficiency has not increased. This raises an important question: If the district could get more money, what would it do with it?
Maybe Newport should be focusing a little less on how to squeeze more money out of taxpayers and a little more on how to make better use of the money it already raises. For example, it could spend less on things like radio stations and new bleachers for the football field, and more on things like remedial reading and math instruction. It could require students to reach proficiency in the basics before allowing them to pursue electives. It could eliminate social promotion and graduation based on seat time. And so on.
As for concerns about what might be ‘fair’ to taxpayers in Newport, adding 2-3 students per grade requires zero changes to what the school is already doing, so the marginal cost of each Croydon student is zero dollars. (Any extra costs for special education are paid by Croydon.)
Newport could charge Croydon students $1,000 for tuition, and it would still be making money on the deal. Although given the quality of education those students would be getting, $1,000 might be too much.
But here’s an idea: What if Newport charged Croydon for achievement, rather than for attendance? What if the more the students learn, the more the district gets paid? What could be fairer than that?
Ian Underwood
Croydon NH
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