Part One in our 2015 New Hampshire Liberty Forum Discussions
(Photo Credit: Virgil Vaduva)

Jody's Presentation: Public education is based on some flawed ideas: (1) Geographic location determines your opportunity to become educated. (2) Age determines what other students you are grouped with. (3) Taxes can be used only for government-run schools. (4) All children must get a “free” education. (5) Taxes are needed to pay for public schooling. I will argue that free and appropriate education needs to be changed to appropriate access to education – not daycare or medical support. I will present these and related ideas using general principles and my experiences as chair of the Croydon school board. I will propose some ideas for change, and make sure there is time to have audience participation in designing a paradigm shift for public schooling. Bring your ideas!

Jody's Bio: Jody Underwood, Ph.D., is a founder and owner of Bardo Project and is one of the faces of Bardo Farm. She lives off the grid on a large property in New Hampshire with a varying number of people, depending on the season and the year, all learning back-to-basics skills. She moved to NH for the FSP in 2007 and is currently on the FSP board of directors. She focuses on K-12 education both professionally and as the chair of her local school board, which recently instituted school choice and included private schools as part of the choice (which is causing a stir in the state department of education). Her goal is to figure out ways to revolutionize education.

Jody’s work history includes artificial intelligence research at NASA, Carnegie Mellon University, Rutgers University, and Princeton University, and education research and development at Vanderbilt University, the Math Forum, and Educational Testing Service. She earned her doctorate at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. She currently works for a small for-profit company in Maryland (telecommuting from NH half the time and working in the MD office half the time) designing and developing games and simulations for learning and assessment.

Look Closer:
Bardo Farm - http://bardofarm.com/
Free State Project - https://freestateproject.org/