Dear Farmington Voters and Taxpayers,
My name is Stan Freeda and I am running for School Board on March 10. I
am an active member of our community, a long time educator, former high
school science teacher, currenlty the State Educational Technology
Director at the NH Department of Education. I want to serve on the
school board because I feel that we can only grow and prosper as a
community if we strengthen our support for our schools, students, and
teachers.
Our education system in this country has been continuously slammed over
the past 50 years. There is a constant pressure in today's society to
reduce our taxes and privatize everything. It's natural for folks to
want lower taxes. No one wants to pay higher taxes than they have to
pay. However, the real root to the problem is not that we have taxes,
but is our share fair? Our capitalist system has fostered greed and
avarice among corporations who consistently do everything they can to
avoid paying taxes. Since they won't pay for the services our public
society needs to be civilized, the burden falls on us.
That's just the way it is, good or bad. Everyone may have their own
opinion, and it really doesn't change the situation. The real questions
we have to ask ourselves is what can we do about it? And most
importantly, should we do something about it?
For me, the answer is obvious. Yes, I want to do something about it. I
want to look to the future, not the past. So naturally, the future is
our children, and it is our responsibility to raise them and educate
them so they can be successful in the society that we have helped to
create, and we have helped to maintain through our lifetime. So I chose
education as my profession. Believe me, teachers do not go into the
profession for the money. We do it for the love of children and for our
realization that our children deserve much better than we normally give
them. In this town, it is definitely true. For years, the school board
has been populated by folks who have one agenda, keep taxes low. And
that's not a bad goal. However, it is a terrible place to start the
conversation. The entire Middleton mess could have been avoided by a
more thoughtful board who considered the education of children to be
paramount, not focus on drawing lines between the two districts and
making everything about money. Now I know that there are and have been
board members who rally care about education and work towards those
ends. But there are and have been members whose only purpose has been to
keep their own taxes lower. That's the beauty and the curse of a
democratic society. Voters have to remember that people elected to board
positions can't accomplish anything on their own. Board members do not
have autonomy to do accomplish their own personal goals. They have to
work with others. And the majority rules, and sometimes, that majority
may be in favor of things that are wrong for education and for our
children. While I would only be a single person on a 5 person board, I
would hope to be able to remind the board members of their
responsibilities and keep the focus on the children and the quality of
the education our schools can provide. I would diligently work towards
trying to find the most cost effective ways to accomplish the important
task of educating our children. Building a quality school is the most
effective way to attract families to our community. And when more
families move to Farmington so their children can go to school in
Farmington schools, we increase our tax base and lower our tax rates.
Budgets are built from the ground up. What programs do our children need
to be successful? What are the optimum amount of faculty and staff that
are needed to support the achievement and development of the children we
service? What administrative staff are needed to support them? What
supplies and equipment are needed to effectively educate those children
and make them successful? And you add it all up and you have your
budget, built for success!
What we have in our school board, and unfortunately our town as well,
are folks that start with their preferred tax rate. And work backwards
to fill in amounts in those lines, and if it isn't adequate, well, then
our children will ave to make due. This is morally wrong, in my opinion,
and is evidence of a severe lack of understanding not only of education,
but of children and their developmental needs.
If Farmington had a wealthy tax base, these kinds of loaded
“tax”questions wouldn't even be asked of potential candidates. Questions
like “What do you feel our children need to improve?” would outweigh
questions like “What do you think of state test scores?” because the
focus is on the children. But educating them costs money, and when
education works, test scores are high. When education doesn't work, test
scores are low. There is no other way to frame it than that, because
that is the only possible answer. Test scores are only as important as
the content being tested. Personally, I am not in favor of standardized
testing at all. There isn't a teacher in a classroom in this country who
can't tell you exactly what their kids know and don't know, just by
working with them everyday. If we would trust and support them, we would
have our accountability system built in. Just as the teachers. But we
don't have that trust built into our system. No Child Left Behind has
determined that all kids must be tested in grades 3-8 and once in high
school. Period. No argument. If you don't want to follow the law, then
you can't get any federal funding. It's no different than the state not
giving you a driver's license if you refuse to pay the fee to get one.
Testing is a reality. It's not our fault that we have to test. But it is
our responsibility to prepare our children for their adult life, in
terms of both their profession and their civic responsibility. And
currently, our ability to do that is judged by the performance on
standardized tests.
Farmington has low test scores, most likely because either our kids
don't have enough opportunities to learn the standards that they will be
tested on or our focus is not on teaching what the kids need to learn.
Kids need support from teachers. Teachers need support form
administration. Administration needs support from the school board. The
school board needs support from the town. It really does take a village
to raise a child.
And the problem with our village is that our focus is not on educating
our children it is saving our tax base. Sure we have to stretch every
penny. I am all for tight budgets and trimming down of waste. But I am
not for cutting out vital parts of our education system. The suggestion
that somehow school board members are put into a situation where they
are between taxpayers and the education of students is a short sighted
and narrow minded. The only way that situation plays out is if the
taxpayers don't care about the education of students. Otherwise, the
correct analogy should be that school board members are a bridge between
the taxpayers and the education of students. School board members work
to ensure the taxpayers that their community's children are getting a
quality education. The should work with the community to help folks
better understand what is at stake and where their tax dollars are
going. Setting up the question as an adversarial one, only assumes that
folks aren't interested in education, but merely a low tax rate. Low tax
rates at “any cost” or by “any means” have a severe cost. And the cost
is our children's future. I personally am not willing to pay that price.
I want my tax dollars to go to those children. I want them to be spent
efficiently and effectively. And I don't mind paying a few extra dollars
to get the quality I believe our children deserve.
People are the heart and soul of education. Kids have different learning
styles and preferences. Some are internally motivated, but most learn
because they love and respect their teachers. If we don't give those
children a stable, educated, happy and supported faculty, they will not
succeed. If we don't like testing, then our reaction should be to blame
our representatives in Congress, who have consistently refused to update
the failed No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, but to blame and punish our
teachers and students. But regardless, testing is a demonstration of
knowledge. And it is necessary for schools to use them, in some form, so
that teachers can assess the learning of their students and the
effectiveness of their own teaching. Properly designed tests that
measure learning of properly designed standards are a good thing. Kids
are only afraid of tests because tests are often designed to catch
students who are not learning. A student can hit any target they can
see. So we have to show them those targets, give them the experience and
practice they need to be successful, then allow them to demonstrate that
success back to us. Luckily for us NH has adopted a wonderful set of
performance standards that allow teachers the flexibility to design
their own lessons and curriculum to meet the needs of their students.
And our adaptive computer based testing choice, is also designed to
measure success rather than focus on failures. Adaptive testing means
that students will get to answer more questions correctly than
incorrectly. What a wonderful way to build confidence and self esteem,
two things our students desperately need.
In New Hampshire, we are also lucky because we got a waiver from the
accountability weights of the standardized testing, although we do still
have to test. No one got a waiver from testing. But we can report the
results of our schools through multiple measures, rather than just a
single test. So our school districts have the opportunity to design
accountability programs which take many factors into account and report
the successes we can accomplish.
Farmington is at a cross roads. Once a thriving community with many
successful businesses and factories where hard working folks lived,
worked, and raised their children. Many of those children are still
here. But the businesses have all gone. And while we have a larger
population, our tax base growth has not been equal to the cost of
administering and governing a thriving community. Boards of Selectmen
have come and gone, and like our school boards they have been populated
with folks who care greatly about restoring Farmington to the thriving
community it once was. And there are others who just fight to keep their
own taxes low. We can't do both. If we want to attract businesses and
families to our town, we need a plan, and we need to stick together and
support the town. And that means that until we get a larger revenue
stream in from businesses and higher wage working families, we will have
to pay to support our public institutions. It's no fun fun facing that,
but that's the way it is. If we keep strangling our public services and
making cuts to save money, more people will move away, no new people
will move here, and the spiral continues downward. But if we make the
sacrifices we need now, and stick together, build good schools, that are
recognized throughout New Hampshire for their quality, then young
families will move here to educate their children in our schools. And
businesses will move here because we have good schools and town
services. And every one that we attract is a return on our investments.
I challenge those asking the questions, to answer them for yourself.
What are your goals for our community? What will you do to improve our
schools and our town? Who will you support for our town officials? Do
you want the status quo? Or do you have a vision of a better future?
A vision of a better future. That's what being a community is all about.
Thanks for listening, Farmington! I would appreciate your vote on March 10.
Go to Stan's School Board Candidate Page
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