Stratham School Board candidate Paul Tusini
Name: Paul Tusini
Education: Graduate of Boston College School of Management, 1978
Occupation: Retired
Political or civic experience highlights: None
What would be your top three priorities if you are elected?: 1. Fiscal balance and discipline.2. Academics, focusing on traditional core subjects. Becoming the No. 1 top-rated school in the state for academic achievement.3. Individual student character-building.
How should the school district handle requests to remove books from the library or curriculum?: An independent council of three with differing perspectives should evaluate the requested removal for appropriateness in categories of academics, emotional and social topics. By majority vote, if the book fails to have redeeming value as defined by the council in all three categories (fewer if it does not address one or more), the book is removed.
Do you support the expansion of education freedom accounts in New Hampshire?: "Expansion" can be interpreted in different ways. Does it mean a higher dollar amount per child? Does it mean "available to more children"? Does it mean raising the means testing (currently set at $105K per household) so more families can take advantage of it?
Freedom accounts help a family of lesser means choose a different educational setting for their child. The transfer of state funding does not impact the public school because the child is no longer at the school and the school is funded to the extent of the school annual budget that was voted on by the taxpayers. To that extent, I support freedom accounts.
What else should voters know about your views on local schools and public education?: From a global perspective, generally, the USA does not even rank in the top ten of developed countries. There are other concerning trends. I ask myself: Why is the most powerful, smartest country in the world not number 1 by a large margin? Why is the trend going in the wrong direction? How are we going to remain globally competitive? And finally, how do we turn this around?
These are questions we should all be asking ourselves. We need to put differences aside and focus on what's important: The kids. We need to arm children with a strong grasp of basic skills in reading, writing (including sentence structure), English, mathematics, geography, American history (love of country), and yes, civics. And, we need to continue this in middle and high school, so they have wide choices in higher education or other vocations. Our children are tomorrow's parents, scientists, doctors and leaders. When we don't push them diligently and consistently to excel, we are in essence, failing them.
This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Stratham School Board candidate Paul Tusini
