The Last Bake Sale

The Fight for Fair School Funding

by Andru Volinsky

Imprint: Peter E. Randall Publisher

224 Pages, 6 x 9 in, 10 images

Paperback
9781942155904
April 2025
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$24.95

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During this time of attacks on public education, teacher layoffs and funding crises, it's crucial to understand why some schools struggle for lack of resources while others flourish. Why is education funding in America so embattled and so unequal?

In The Last Bake Sale, Andru Volinsky tells this story as no one else can, using New Hampshire as the example of the most unfair and regressive state in the nation in terms of how it funds its schools. In New Hampshire, taxpayers in the state's poorest communities pay the highest education taxes yet raise the lowest revenues for their kids’ schools.

As the lead lawyer in the Claremont, New Hampshire, school funding case, Volinsky waged a twenty-year battle to make access to education fairer for all children in the state, not just the wealthy, white, and privileged. Volinsky offers not just a history of how we got here at the state and national level, but also how to find a better path forward.

Combining litigation with public engagement and direct political action (including holding office) is our best hope to change public policy on education and advance the public good. Change can happen, and The Last Bake Sale shows us how.

Author Andru Volinsky is an attorney, a former NH Executive Councilor and 2020 candidate for governor who is currently flunking retirement by writing his first book, teaching a graduate course in public policy and practicing law on a limited basis. He was the lead lawyer in the Claremont School Funding case for twenty years. Andru earned his BA from the University of Miami in psychology in 1976 and a Certificate in Conflicts Resolution Studies from the University of Pittsburgh in 1975. He earned his law degree from George Washington University in 1980. He lives with his wife, Amy, in East Concord, NH. Follow him on his Substack, https://substack.com/@andruvolinsky.

"...a must read for anybody who cares about education, taxes, fairness..." ~Becky Rule, NHPBS "Our Hometown"

"...personal, insider’s account...will continue to ensure the issues are at the forefront of our public policy discussions." ~Stephen Reno

"...a lively documentation of the tenacious legal battles... for how to use the law to bring about social change." ~Douglas Challenger, Professor of Sociology, Franklin Pierce University

"...tireless and outspoken advocate for fully funding public education for all children." ~Daniel McNeil, General Counsel, American Federation of Teachers