NYS Honors November Job Bank Member Of The Month
Nick Moser, 17, is the November Job Bank Member of the Month at Newtown Youth Services. Nick has been an ac...
Grief Seminar At St Vincent’s
BRIDGEPORT — St Vincent’s Pastoral Care Department is presenting a “Healing Grief ...
A Holiday Exhibition At Potter & Slack
MARBLEDALE — Through December 31, Potter & Sack Fine Art is presenting a holiday exhibition in small format....
Newtown Singles Mingle Event
Newtown Singles has scheduled its next “Meet & Mingle” event.
The group will meet at Newtown Meeting House ...
Studies Support The Value Of Recess
To the Editor:
I am writing in response to the letter to the editor “Bring Back Recess” by Lynda Web...
WCSU Holiday
Jazz Concert
DANBURY — Western CT State University will host The WCSU Holiday Jazz Concert, featuring timeless holiday classics, on Sun...
Police Seek To Replace Pistols With New SidearmsÂ
By Andrew Gorosko
As part of the police department’s proposed budget for the 2005-06 fiscal year...
Council Seeks Members For
Charter Revision Panel
By John Voket
Almost three years ago to this day, members of the Newtown Legislative Council acted like they ne...
NHS Interim Principal Takes The Reins
By Larissa Lytwyn
Newtown High School Principal Bill Manfredonia’s departure on November 30 marked the end of ...
Singers Preparing A Venetian Christmas
KENT — The Kent Singers, under the direction of Marquerite Muller, will perform “A Venetian Chris...
Newtown schools have degraded over the 3+ decades I've lived here as the concentrated social experiment curricula driven by the state and small but loud groups. Yet we continue to dig into our pockets while we witness the downward spiral.
Unfortunately as voter turnout continues to decline the chances of it increasing also decline. The LC and BOF already know that the budget will be approved by virtue of the low turnout so why try to make smart decisions? The so-called referendum is essentially just a rubber stamp. They will continue to increase the budget by 2-5% every year because it's low enough to not cause a pushback under the cover of "inflation" and "maintaining the schools." Sending the budget to vote with 9% turnout is meaningless and a waste of resources on April 23rd.
I have seen Mr. Pisani repeatedly assert in the pages of the Bee that Newtown schools are "testing at a failing 64.9%". I'd be curious if he could elaborate on this statistic, as I have been unable to verify it independently. Which test exactly is our school system failing? How do our schools compare to other towns? How does our score compare to historical measures? It's very hard to draw conclusions from a single data point, so here are a few more data points to think about for context: Newtown is consistently ranked among the top 20 school districts in CT by the US News and World Report and Niche, which consider a range of performance metrics in their rankings; on average, Newtown students perform similar to, if not better than, students in neighboring school districts on standardized math and reading tests; the only data point on the CT Department of Education District Report Card where Newtown "fails" -- that is, falls behind the state average -- is access to art instruction. I'm glad the council member has acknowledged in this letter what taxpayers in high-performing (and high-spending) school districts like Darien, New Canaan, and Westport already know: "School funding does impact student achievement." Please keep that in mind when you vote this week!