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By WAYNE GERSEN

It was distressing, but not surprising, to read that the New Hampshire Legislature is considering an increase in funding for Education Freedom Accounts by raising the eligibility ceiling to $150,000 per year for families of four who want to secure...

By WAYNE GERSEN

New Hampshire’s Governorship is one of the few competitive elections in the nation. The campaigns of former GOP senator and state attorney general Kelly Ayotte and Democrat Joyce Craig, former mayor of Manchester, are flooding the airwaves and our...

By WAYNE GERSEN

Both Presidential candidates and numerous gubernatorial candidates have made “affordable housing” a hot button issue in 2024. I put “affordable housing” in quotes because the definition of “affordable housing” and who would qualify for it is unclear....

By WAYNE GERSEN

I was interested to read in Tuesday’s Valley News about how Republican legislators will help New Hampshire school districts find the money needed to provide teachers with ample pay. Ethan DeWitt’s article from the New Hampshire Bulletin describes a...

By WAYNE GERSEN

One of the prevalent catch phrases for the 2024 election is “Democracy is on the ballot” and as the election nears, it seems far from certain that democracy will prevail. After a long career in public education, I understand why voters might be...

By WAYNE GERSEN

My wife and I spent four of the past six weeks on the road in the west on two road trips that covered 3,700 miles. Our travels, which took us from Phoenix to the Pacific Northwest, helped us appreciate the vastness and emptiness of almost all of the...

By WAYNE GERSEN

As a retired public-school administrator I have tremendous empathy for Dartmouth College President Sian Beilock. Throughout my career I faced many contentious and complex decisions that I knew would be popular with some constituent groups but...

By WAYNE GERSEN

As April 15 approaches, many of us are preparing to pay our taxes. On some level, all voters realize that taxes help underwrite government services they value, that they are “the price we pay for a civilized society.” However, unlike our monthly...

By WAYNE GERSEN

Two recent Valley News’ editorials focused on what it called Vermont’s “education funding mess.” Vermont’s education funding is a mess, but a mess that is hardly unique to Vermont. It is not unlike New Hampshire’s “education funding mess” or the...

By WAYNE GERSEN

Monday’s Valley News featured two articles describing gun control legislation under consideration this year in New Hampshire. As part of the majority of voters who seek stricter gun control, I am frustrated and bewildered by the incremental approach...

By WAYNE GERSEN

Did you realize that New Hampshire is experiencing a border crisis? Neither did I, and neither did a sizable majority of my fellow New Hampshire residents. A recent survey reported in the Boston Globe, indicated that 44% of us were “not at all...

By WAYNE GERSEN

Despite my efforts to squelch unwelcome correspondence from Ron DeSantis’ campaign, I continue to receive his glossy mailers. One side of his latest missive boasts that unlike his predecessors, Ron DeSantis would be willing to pull the trigger on...

By WAYNE GERSEN

This just in: Climate change is not a hoax! As I was this essay, the lead story on my phone’s news feed was “Hurricane Lee forecast to become strongest Atlantic storm so far this year.” Thursday’s Valley News featured a front-page picture of Judy...

By WAYNE GERSEN

As one of the 46% of Americans who have a family member or friend who struggles with chemical dependency, I view the reporting on Hunter Biden’s misdeeds as a missed opportunity to educate the half of the country who does not view addiction as a...

By WAYNE GERSEN

Here’s a thought experiment. What if, after Roe v. Wade was decided, humanity decided that additional research on birth control was too contentious to explore. In such a world, Roe v. Wade would be the final word on the question of when life began...

By WAYNE GERSEN

Yesterday afternoon I read The Brilliant Inventor Who Made Two of History’s Biggest Mistakes, an article about Thomas Midgley, Jr. that will appear in this weekend’s NYTimes Magazine. Written by Steven Johnson, the article offers a history of...

By WAYNE GERSEN

Over the past few weeks countless articles are reporting on the emerging divide within the GOP between the Trump supporters and the rest of the party who Trump supporters disparagingly refer to as “RINOs,” Republicans In Name Only. Based on these...

By WAYNE GERSEN

Several articles over the past several weeks describe how GOP cultural conservatives like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, of Texas, oppose “woke corporations” who have embraced an “ESG” ethos or investment strategy. Wailin Wong, an...