Editorial: Is Vermont primed to overhaul its schools?

All elections have consequences, but some are more consequential than others. Such might be the case with the tax revolt last fall that upended the political order in Montpelier and brought an influx of Republican legislators to the Statehouse. It potentially created the conditions for a major overhaul of K-12 public education in Vermont.

Column: GOP should double down on ‘facts’ and ‘truth’

By BILL HAMLEN

In early January, a friend called to say Happy New Year and discuss the election. He’s a lifelong Democrat, but we never let that get in the way of our friendship. He seemed excited to share the news that James Carville published an op-ed in The New York Times on Jan. 2, explaining that the Democrats lost as the economy was weaker than he had calculated.

Column: Hidden under the Upper Valley’s affluence

By NARAIN BATRA

Last year, Valley News investigative reporter Jim Kenyon wrote a heart-wrenching story about Jennifer Kahn, a 59-year-old school secretary at Mascoma Valley Regional High School who also worked as a restaurant waitress in Lebanon. Working on the dinner shift and depending upon her minimum hourly wage and tips, Kahn worked hard to “pay for everything from utility bills to her kids’ college educations … mostly as a single mom.” It wasn’t a sob story but a wage-tip-sharing legal case with her employer that drew the reporter’s probing attention.

Forum for Jan. 18, 2025: Public school funds

Using public funds to support waivers for private schools, charter schools and home schooling will continue to be a contentious issue in the coming years. I agree with the many New Hampshire taxpayers who have legitimate and practical concerns about the lack of accountability for tuition waiver spending and the associated drain on funding for public schools.

Forum for Jan. 17, 2025: Drinking age

What an interesting piece Steve Taylor wrote about the rather quiet Upper Valley nightlife of today, versus that of decades ago! (“A Look Back: What Happened to Upper Valley Nightlife”; Jan. 13).

Forum for Jan. 16, 2025: NH plates

A recent story (“Protecting the lakes”; Jan. 6) included another example of how the New Hampshire Legislature continues to avoid proven ways to reduce cyanobacteria blooms, and instead ironically, chooses to add to the problem. One representative’s bill proposes a New Hampshire Lakes license plate to raise funds for bloom reduction. This is like having a beerfest to raise funds for alcohol abuse recovery programs. Warming waters are the single biggest driver of blooms, according to the state’s chief aquatic biologist, and private transportation is the single biggest emitter of CO2 in the US. Rather than promoting private vehicles for transportation, we should be promoting alternatives. And even more so, we should be careful not to lead people to believe that they will be saving lakes by driving. Another motor vehicle based environmental protection funding program, the Moose Plate, has done little to save the moose and has coincided with a greater than 50% decline in its population since 2000.

A Yankee Notebook: Routine and memories stave off loneliness

By WILLEM LANGE

Living alone, as I do, and being an extrovert, which I am, I get a little lonesome at times. Not the hand-wringing lament sort of thing, but rather the recognition that it’s been a day or two since I’ve experienced human interaction. Kiki’s great, and a constant companion, but we don’t hold many two-way conversations in either of our native languages. So it’s pretty quiet around here, rather like a hermitage.

Forum for Jan. 15, 2025: Home fires

So far the fires in Los Angeles have destroyed more than 36,000 acres of land and 9,000 structures, driven by high winds and severely dry conditions. Last week in Derry and Windham, N.H. brush fires driven by high winds and severely dry conditions required 60 firefighters from 16 towns to battle flames. These severely dry conditions result from human-caused climate change driven by the use of fossil fuels — oil, gasoline, propane and natural gas.

Forum for Jan. 14, 2025: Reputation inflation

The two brief words “persistent inflation”(“A President whose star keeps rising”; Editorial, Jan. 4) hardly describe what, for many of us who were actually around then and raised on parents’ tales of the Depression, was the worst aspect of Jimmy Carter’s term as president. At inflation’s peak, a CD might pay 18%, but your money would have lost value by the time you cashed it in. Friends spent and then overspent almost frantically for months, taking on debt to buy anything they thought they might eventually need because their money was going to become worth far less if they waited. The venerable Girard Bank of Philadelphia (now extinct) called to recommend that we move our professional corporation’s nascent retirement fund elsewhere, since inflation, plus rising costs and fees, would likely exhaust the fund over the next 10 years.

Over Easy: A glorious new day has dawned

By DAN MACKIE

I bet you thought liberals were going to run the New World Order. Tell that to Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, the three richest men in the world.

Column: When ICE comes for our neighbors

By WAYNE GERSEN

For much of the 20th century, social studies textbooks proudly declared that the United States was a melting pot or a mosaic of immigrants. These books almost always included a picture of the Statue of Liberty and the words of Emma Lazarus’ poem engraved on its base: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

Forum for Jan. 13, 2025: So long, liberals

New Year’s Resolution for 2025: I am divorcing my liberal-left friends. I can no longer be pals with them — especially my old high school cronies. You see, my liberal-left friends from high school are, well, rich. Really rich. They own enormous houses, often more than one. They drive fancy cars and go on lavish vacations. They live like queens and kings.

Column: Books and the magic of Christmas

By MARY OTTO

The new year lumbers in accompanied by dark skies and rain. In a world so messy and muddled, I become thoughtful. Today we live with weather disasters and cultural conflict. We are required to acknowledge countless profound and ordinary examples of man’s inhumanity to man, around the world and close to home. Still, I am again heartened by a look back at December and the Christmas holidays, where hints of magic can sometimes tiptoe into our lives.

Forum for Jan. 11, 2025: New bike lanes

Change can be hard, but with millions spent to resurface a road for the first time in over a decade, it makes sense to address identified safety concerns and community needs — as required by Vermont law.

Forum for Jan. 10, 2025: Plane construction

We appreciate the Valley News’ coverage of Lebanon High School’s Take Flight program (“ ‘We start from the ground up’ ”; Dec. 7). In its first year, it has proven to be an outstanding opportunity for our students, and it would not be possible without the tremendous support we have received from the community.

Editorial: Social media is resistant to fact checking

Facts are the lifeblood of journalism, so any suggestion that they don’t matter is a grave affront to what is now referred to quaintly as the “legacy news media.” (Which is the only legacy the vast majority of journalists we have encountered over 45 years are likely to inherit.)

Column: Kearsarge voters deliver a jolt to lawmakers

By HOPE DAMON

As a New Hampshire state representative serving on the House Education Funding Committee, I attended the Kearsarge School District’s deliberative session last Saturday, Jan. 4. More than 1,500 voters engaged in a civil and robust discussion before overwhelmingly rejecting a petitioned article that sought to impose a budget cap based on per-student district costs. This measure would have severely harmed public education. In this local battle reflecting a broader national culture war in education, 92% of voters decisively stood up to say, “I value public schools!”

A Yankee Notebook: Winters were once a true test

By WILLEM LANGE

I’ve looked out the windows quite a lot this past week, and each time the thought sweeps across my mind: Now, this is the way it’s supposed to be. Snow everywhere, and not just transitory, but settled in to stay a while. Thermometers at 10 degrees or below. It feels as though a cherished friend has returned home.

Forum for Jan. 9, 2024: Kearsarge school budget

As more than 1,500 voters descended on Kearsage Regional High School the morning of Jan. 4 to defeat a last-minute warrant article threatening to significantly reduce the district’s funding, I was struck by how political and emotional school funding support has become in the sad and struggling state of New Hampshire. Today’s overwhelming vote clearly demonstrates that there is support for better funding methods among much of the electorate, but there remains a determined group of free-staters who seem bent on destroying the school system. They were unsuccessful in Croydon in the past, and now they’ve been roundly, and one hopes, finally defeated at KRHS.