Local school board elections are imminent. In Claremont, this is where most of our property taxes, which have recently been raised, in some cases significantly, are allocated. Turnout at school board elections is notoriously low. People employed by the School Administrative Unit, teachers, paraprofessionals, and parents of students attending the schools managed by the SAU are more likely to turn out than the run-of-the-mill property taxpayer.

This low voter turnout is a problem. In his second treatise on government, John Locke said legitimate government governs with the people’s consent. The way our democracy works, the first past the post-voting model, you are not denying your consent to be governed by not voting. Instead, it is empowering those who vote to inflict government on you. Many proposals have addressed this problem, from ranked choice voting to mandatory inclusion of None-Of-The-Above as a choice on all ballots. These proposals require state-level action, such as changes to the Constitution, and cannot be adopted in time for our next election.

To prevent our democracy from further sliding into a mobocracy, you must vote. Sometimes, this may mean not voting for the single candidate running for a specific office. Sometimes, this may mean voting against the proposed school budget. In any case, it is essential that you contact the SAU, find out who is running for what positions, read a copy of the proposed budget, and make an informed choice on election day, which is March 12, 2024.

School Administrative Unit #6 contact information 165 Broad Street Claremont, NH 03743 (603)-543-4200 (603)-543-4244 (fax) Interim Superintendent: Christopher Pratt Assistant Superintendent: Michael Koski Executive Assistant: Chelsea Weatherford Fiscal Year 2023 Budget

I recently attended Ian Underwood’s presentation ¹ titled “Back to Schools” at the Sullivan County GOP Committee meeting, during which he argued coherently and convincingly for separating the concerns of what to include in government-funded schools and what to exclude. The main thrust of the presentation was identifying how the reality of Education Freedom Accounts, EFAs, do not support the goals that many of their proponents claim and that the most crucial question, what is the goal of education, is obscured by the EFA discussion.

The presentation happened shortly after the SAU#6 deliberative session ². During that deliberative session, the administrators were congratulated on their outstanding performance, and a school board member described the goal of education as raising New Hampshire residents focused on creating a fairer New Hampshire. It’s hard to imagine a situation more at odds with Ian’s perspective. The incongruency between the deliberative session and Ian’s presentation caused me to think of how the vital questions raised by the presentation could gain the consideration they deserve from the taxpayers. If, as Ian claimed, EFAs are not a market-based solution to education issues, what would constitute such a solution? Then it dawned on me. There isn’t one because New Hampshire’s education structure mirrors a pre-market capitalism economy. It is a feudal model.

As the name and orthography imply, the State is the omnipotent ruler. The SAUs are fiefs granted by the State. The administrative staff serves as the barons who receive the rent the State extracts from the taxpayers, who are the serfs. The administrative staff direct the use of the rent in maintaining the fief. The teaching staff are the overseers who perform husbandry services on the students, who are the livestock. Changes in the size of the herd do not impact the amount of rent extracted from the serfs. Changes in the amount of rent do not affect the nature or quality of the husbandry services implemented by the overseers.

Feudalism ended in continental Europe primarily due to the black death reducing the number of serfs, which indirectly led to the rise of wage-based employment. Sadly, the persistent reduction in enrollment that New Hampshire’s schools have experienced won’t play a similar role now because the students are just livestock. The proponents of EFAs may eventually play a role analogous to Martin Luther’s, e.g., throwing the peasants under the bus in return for favorable treatment by the State. None of this fills me with hope for the future.

---

1. A video of Ian’s presentation can be viewed here. ↩︎
2. In New Hampshire, the deliberative session is the meeting at which the school board presents their proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year. ↩︎

---

Kevin’s Random Thoughts and Rants https://kptyson.substack.com/

The MLK holiday was observed on Monday, which always engenders much activity by the Civil Rights Era Re-enactment Societies, often featuring quotes from “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

Observance of the holiday prompted me to query GPT-4.

“When did Martin Luther King Jr predict the election of a black president?”

GPT-4 produced the following response. 

“There is no definitive record of Martin Luther King Jr specifically predicting the election of a black president.”

A simple Google search revealed the interview in which Martin Luther King Jr says, “…I think we may be able to get a negro president in less than 40 years. I would think that this could come in 25 years.” 

Bobby Kennedy predicted a negro president in forty years, which was close to the election and then the re-election of Barack Obama. So, why is GPT-4 so inaccurate? What is popularly known as AI is the application of data science techniques to web content. Data science is a combination of linear algebra and statistics. As every Nigerian prince seeking to deposit funds into your bank account will attest, there’s a garbage-in-garbage-out problem with Internet content. Applying data science techniques to uncurated web content is just Data Scientology, the good taste of scientific rigor without all the hard work.

In the case of GPT-4, the goal of the curation effort is to produce results that align with a particular worldview. This worldview holds that the current state of inner-city black America is not the result of the unintended consequences of many decades of bad government policies supported by both political parties but rather the evil forces of ‘whiteness.’ Interactions with GPT-4 reveal other facets of this worldview. It is a veritable tensor field of qualities, including citizenship, gender, skin color, formal education, ability, sexuality, neuro-diversity, mental health, body size, housing, wealth, and language. These qualities have associated signs and symbols ranging from pronouns in bios to flags and emojis. Fully specifying one’s place in this worldview requires something akin to the service ribbons that adorn the chests of high-ranking military officers.

For those who didn’t participate in the March on Washington, the Stonewall Riot, or César Chávez’s grape strike, the appeal of this worldview and its attendant symbols is understandable. But as in the case of Data Scientology, real work is required to advance humanity in the twenty-first century. We must each embrace the privileges we have earned and come together in voluntary association to address the concrete problems of the individuals in our towns and cities.

---

Kevin’s Random Thoughts and Rants https://kptyson.substack.com/

HOW WOULD BOOKER T. WASHINGTON VIEW CIVIL RIGHTS AND SOCIAL JUSTICE?

Lessons from the great proponent of black self-sufficiency

By Virgil Walker

Welcome to Your Candidates – Kevin Tyson interviews Lily Tang Williams, Republican Candidate for US Congress in New Hampshire’s 2nd Congressional District. www.lilytangwilliams.com

MEMORIAL DAY SATURDAY
BBQ
WITH THE REPUBLICAN
U.S. SENATE CANDIDATES
Don Bolduc, Dennis Lamare, Edmond Laplante, Virkam Mansharamani, Chuck Morse, Kevin Smith
Saturday, May 28
11 AM – 3 PM
Chase House Inn
1001 NH Route 12A, Cornish, NH 03745
Veterans get a free soft drink