Erik Swenson: Public school is glue that binds us; vote ‘no’ on Question 2

To The Daily Sun,

Long before there was a United States, New England towns taxed themselves to teach their children. People understood that self-government only works when citizens can read, reason, and decide together. In the 1830s, Alexis de Tocqueville toured America and marveled that New England treated schooling as a public duty. Horace Mann, the Massachusetts reformer who championed public education, called it the balance wheel of society. In our small towns, the school is also the glue which holds us together.

That inheritance still lives in our towns. The school is where we vote, where we pack the bleachers on Friday nights and the auditorium for winter concerts, where the bus rolls down our road every morning. When the school thrives, the town thrives. When it hollows out, the ball games, the concerts, and the very sense of “us” go with it.

Question 2 would limit local school property tax growth to inflation, even when real costs like special education, heating oil, and diesel fuel for buses climb faster.

Public schools aren’t only for children and their parents. They’re for everyone who wants a town worth living in. Please vote no on Question 2.

Erik Swenson

Moultonborough