Former Governor Chris Sununu of New Hampshire made a horrible choice for state school superintendent. He picked Frank Edelblut, after beating him in the election. Edelblut is a homeschooler of his 10 children with a low opinion of public schools. He successfully promoted vouchers and every other kind of school choice. He didn’t see the point of public schools.
The overwhelming majority of students in New Hampshire attend public schools. As soon as vouchers passed, most of them were used by families whose children never attended public schools. In other words, the state is spending many millions of dollars to subsidize the tuition of students already enrolled in private schools, whose families could afford the tuition.
Sununu was replaced by Republican Governor Kelly Ayotte. She did not reappoint Edelblut. Instead, she selected Caitlin Davis, a 15-year veteran of the state Department of Education. The selection of Davis was cheered by members of both parties, as well as the teachers’ union, no doubt thrilled to be rid of Edelblut.
Unlike Edelblut, she is unlikely to attack public schools but will collaborate with all sectors.
Davis, who most recently served as the director of education analytics and resources, had worked in the department for 15 years. She built a reputation as a neutral, data-driven financial expert, often sitting before lawmakers on the Joint Legislative Fiscal Committee or Finance Committee to brief them on complicated budget spreadsheets. And she vowed to lead the department as a nonpartisan executive, carrying out both lawmakers’ and the governor’s policies without injecting her own politics…
In seeking the job, Davis styled herself as an experienced administrator. Near the start of a multi-hour confirmation hearing Tuesday, Executive Councilor Joseph Kenney, a Wakefield Republican, asked Davis whether she considered herself a “passionate educator” or a “passionate bureaucrat.”
“I suppose I’m a passionate bureaucrat, but I don’t like the term bureaucrat,” Davis replied. “… When you use the term bureaucrat, I think you take away all of the effort that state employees and the legislators and the citizens are putting into the system.”
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Diane Ravitch's blog 
There is a lot in a word. When I was a boy, there was a guy named Joe Richardson who worked in our county Soil Conservation Service. Everybody loved Joe. He worked tirelessly to teach farmers good soil management practices, treating people with respect and a helpful attitude. He was a bureaucrat.
All the farmers would bad mouth bureaucrats. Their sons and daughters are still badmouthing bureaucrats and voting for Trump. Little did they realize that they were being led by the nose to a precipitous slope to fascism. I have come to hold a far dimmer view of my forebears and their poor mouthing of government as we have moved closer to authoritarianism.
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‘Civil servant’ might be better. ‘Bureaucrat’ sounds like tyrannical officialdom — it’s the etymology — and evokes images of cold hearted Soviet administrators denying freedoms. Davis is a civil servant, and this is cheerful news. Thank you.
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Actually, I used “bureaucrat” because she described herself as one and said the public should view the term favorably, not negatively.
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When Executive Councilor Joseph Kenney, a Wakefield Republican framed her as a bureaucrat, she did not retreat from the idea of responsible civil service and embraced liberal, social democracy. When they go low, we go wry.
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You’ll get a kick outta this… Last month the Boston Globe ran an “opinion” piece – more accurately, a veiled sales pitch – titled “New Hampshire is expanding school choice. Will Massachusetts follow?” (https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/07/21/opinion/massachusetts-new-hampshire-private-school-choice-vouchers/?p1=BGSearch_Advanced_Results might be behind a paywall).
As soon as I saw “expanding school choice,” the DEFCON level went up. It was interesting to note this about the author: “Jim Stergios is executive director of Pioneer Institute, a think tank with offices in Boston and Washington, D.C..” That did it, this is no drill, this is for real.
I’ve known of the Pioneer Institute for years, at the time as a conservative, business-oriented “think tank” (do these characters really think, as opposed to connive?). To update them, I went to Sourcewatch.org, plugged them in, and found out they were worse than I initially thought.
So I go through the piece, see it for what it is – shameless propaganda, irresponsibly published by an editorial board that did zero vetting – and make an entry in the online comments section, quoting directly from the Sourcewatch.org summary, thoroughly devastating, refuting Stergios’ blather. As is was early in the morning when I read this, I saw that my comment was the second one of the day, hence high visibility.
I checked about ten minutes later to see if it had received any responses, saw seven “likes” and one “dislike” (from a fascist, no doubt). I figured great, I’ve done my job in setting the record straight.
I go back maybe an hour later, and instead of my entry at #2, in place of it is a notation “This comment has been blocked.” Needless to say I was furious, and reposted. Saw it stick, although further down among the comments, losing some visibility. Okay, that should do it.
Same routine as before, checked for responses, fewer “likes” this time, no “dislikes.” Waited a bit, checked again, found it had been blocked a second time!
Reposted it again, saw it post, again further down amidst all the others, and I haven’t bothered to check if it’s still up.
So I got an introduction to all the crap that’s going on.
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