Borough Approves Village District Zoning, Seeking Aesthetic Harmony
By Andrew Gorosko
The Borough Zoning Commission has unanimously approved Village District zo...
Scholarship Golf
Bob Gleason, John Martocci, Jim Morley and Mark Korotash are ready to kick off the Newtown Scholarship Association golf tournament –...
Cornerstone Rehab Center Property Purchased
By Dottie Evans
According to property transfer records filed with the town clerk, the Lutheran General Behavioral He...
Love And Knishes
At Southbury Jewish Center
SOUTHBURY — The Love and Knishes Senior Lunch Program of the Federation-Jewish Communities of Western C...
At Reed School And NMS––
Rotary Names Students Of The Month
Newtown Middle School students Dan Murtha (cluster 8-D), Lauren Busser (clus...
Police Expect Arrest In Route 302
Hit-And-Run Accident
By Andrew Gorosko
Police this week collected physical evidence from a red Ford pickup truck, which they ...
BAHA’I FAITH OF NEWTOWN
Contact Michael or Susan Dutton
364-1738; MDutton@bestweb.net
Devotional meetings; spiritual discussion meetings; discussion...
Moving Violations
Police said they received a report of erratic driving on South Main Street late on the night of June 1. On investigating, police said the...
Letter Made Erroneous Assertions
To the Editor:
We, the members of the Board of Selectmen, voted at our meeting on Monday, June 2, to take the unusual but neces...
What Can Be Learned From Plants And Dinosaur Fossils
REDDING — Travel the world and span the ages with a series of lectures and walks at Highstead 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!