Newtown Support Groups
Friday, November 4Â Â Â Â Â Â Â
AA, Newtown United Methodist Church, 92 Church Hill Road, 8 pm, beginners meeting, open discussion...
Utility Committed To 99 Percent Power Restoration By Saturday Midnight
By John Voket
Newtown’s CL&P liaison Jacqui Borges-King told town officials a...
Change Of Plans: Town Players To Open Production Of
Pulitzer Prize-Winning ‘Buried Child’ November 11
On November 11, Town Players of N...
Finding A Retreat At The Library
By Kendra Bobowick
Seated at a long table awash with daylight from the floor-to-ceiling windows in the C.H. Booth Libraryâ€...
Snowstorm Spawns Huge Volume of Fire Calls
By Andrew Gorosko
The October 29 storm that dumped a heavy, wet snow on the area caused countless trees and tree limb...
It’s been an unusual week of bending and flexing, so along those lines let’s bend and flex once more, with a bonus at the end.
This phot...
Aulos Ensemble, Sunday At Edmond Town Hall
Over the past three decades, The Aulos Ensemble has established a reputation as a pioneering period-instruments group...
Mother Nature Strikes Again: Tournament Games Were On Hold
By Andy Hutchison
Newtown High School’s fall sports teams started the season with weathe...
Henson-Conant Rescheduled To February—
Flagpole Radio Cafe ‘Best Of’ Show Will Be Saturday
By Shannon Hicks
Flagpole Radio...
It’s A Dog’s Life—
Winterizing Tips For Your Dog
By Mary Jane Anderson
Now is the time of the year for you to think about th...
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!