Viewpoint: A defeat for public schools

In Rindge and Jaffrey, March 11 was a sad day for supporters of public education. Voters approved a $3 million cut to the school district budget and refused a $16 million grant to build a Career and Technical Education (CTE) center at Conant Middle High School.

The Jaffrey-Rindge Cooperative School District operates on a philosophy and practice of serving all of our students, keeping them safe from bullying, providing opportunities for all learners to participate in sports, clubs and after-school activities, while leaving no learners behind, no matter where they start out academically and no matter what their needs. Our district’s philosophy is that all students can learn if they are given the right support and encouragement.

For more than a decade this has been the goal of the excellent teachers and administrators that have been assembled in our district. Unfortunately, we live in an age of misinformation, where citizens are free to disseminate falsehoods and apparently feel no responsibility to acknowledge their errors when they learn the truth. The week before the March 11 vote, a local fringe group mailed out a clever propaganda piece, claiming the district’s proposed budget and the CTE building would cost each homeowner many hundreds of dollars more than the true cost. Their false information likely scared many homeowners into voting against our schools and their own interests.

This hit piece referred to our school district as having failed schools, when the evidence is completely the opposite. Misinformation like this is difficult to combat, because many of us no longer know what to believe. Each year the state Department of Education produces data showing the cost per student in New Hampshire public schools. As in other years, the cost per student in the Jaffrey-Rindge District is among the lowest in the state. But this information made next to no impression on those who oppose public education, and for most voters this message was swamped by the skeins of misinformation that were being shouted out on social media and through propaganda hit pieces like the one mentioned above.

It is easy to feel badly for the voters in our two towns, including in a special way for those who voted against Career and Technical Education, and in favor of slashing the budget. For one thing, they were tricked and victimized by misinformation. But even worse, they now have to live with the consequences of the vote, which is the loss of $16 million in state funding, and potentially, the decimation of a staff of educators widely recognized to be among the finest in the state. This seems like a sad time for Rindge and Jaffrey, which could have made a move forward, enriching our towns and becoming more welcoming places to live.

John McCarthy is a Jaffrey-Rindge School Board member from Jaffrey. His opinions are his own.