Newtown Psychologist Gives Athletes A Mental Edge
By Steve Bigham
In professional sports, the thing that separates the best athletes from the rest of the pack i...
Horses
In The Hills
By Steve Bigham
Under clear skies, nearly 100 area riders saddled up their mounts for the Second Annual Horse Show Sunday on the picturesque...
Literacy Volunteers
Issue A Call For Tutors
DANBURY — Literacy Volunteers of America-Danbury, Inc., said this week that the agency has such an extre...
Summer Children’s Programs Hosted By Waldorf School
Housatonic Valley Waldorf School will be offering a number of children’s programs th...
Explorer Tea
By Sam Pribesh and
Bethany Murphy
The fifth grade studied explorers for more than a month. After all our research, we chose our favorite explorer ...
Michelle Lynn Butler To Jason K. Duncan
Mr and Mrs Albert Butler of Mobile, Ala., announce the engagement of their daughter, Michelle Lynn Butler, to Jason Kenn...
Antoinette Bosco To Speak On Healing The Heart
WATERBURY — Author and speaker Antoinette Bosco of Brookfield will deliver the keynote address at â&#...
Storm Saves Its Biggest Blow For Newtown
N
Newtown resident Don Hammalian, Jr, has spent enough time with friends in Oklahoma to know the basic warning signs of...
Quilt Raffle A Success
To the Editor,
On June 1, Sandy Hook School held its drawing for our Quilt Raffle. This year’s quilt, entitled “A...
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!