Strong communities work together
The recent letters about Mascenic schools keep circling the same drain: taxes, test scores, and which town deserves the blame for rising costs. We are arguing about the wrong problem.
Children are a blessing. Public education isn’t charity or a local favor; it’s a constitutional right. The New Hampshire Supreme Court affirmed more than 30 years ago that the state is responsible for defining and funding an adequate education. That ruling has been reaffirmed repeatedly. Yet local property taxpayers are still carrying the largest share of the burden.
When school funding depends on property values, the system turns neighbor against neighbor. Greenville versus New Ipswich. Seniors versus families. Taxpayers versus the children sitting in those classrooms. None of that finger-pointing changes the numbers.
Mascenic’s costs are driven by things no vote can wish away: state and federal mandates, union contracts, the realities of rural transportation, and special education services required by federal law. Even a default budget doesn’t make those expenses stand still.
Voting down a budget or pointing across the town line might feel like doing something. It isn’t. Protest votes don’t fix a roof, reduce class sizes, or make structural costs disappear.
If residents want genuine accountability and genuine tax relief, the conversation has to move beyond local blame. The real answer is demanding that the state finally honor the obligation given to it by the founding fathers and reaffirmed decades ago to fund an adequate education fairly and sustainably, without offloading the burden onto the people who happen to own property nearby.
Strong communities do not turn on each other. They work together. They hold their government to account.