Felice Bennett-Lundy
Loving Mother And Grandmother
Felice Bennett-Lundy, 70, of Sandy Hook, died January 29, at home, surrounded by her loving family. She ...
Equipment Malfunction Causes Mobile Home Fire
By Andrew Gorosko
Members of all five local volunteer fire companies responded to an accidental fire that occurred...
Girls
Midgets
Cavaliers vs Fireballs: The Cavaliers were led offensively by Ryssa Swanson and Corin Bottom. The defensive players were Madison Hintze a...
Karla Spencer &
Scott Sypek
Darlene and Andy Spencer announce the engagement of their daughter, Karla Marie Spencer of Newtown, to Scott Joseph Sypek...
Frances Ford
Shared Her Joie De Vivre With All
Frances “Fran” Ford, of Heritage Village, Southbury, died January 22. She was born A...
Hockey Wizard On The Ice
Newtown’s Michael McCann, a fourth grader at Middle Gate Elementary School, is a first-year defenseman for the Wonderland W...
The Chinese System Of Energy Cultivation
SOUTHBURY — Qigong (prounounced “chee gung,” and also spelled chi kung) translated ...
No Injuries, No Hazmat Involved In BlueLinx Building Collapse
By John Voket
“The best outcome from a potentially bad situation,” was the...
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!