AUGUSTA, Maine — Four controversial education reform bills announced more than a month ago by Gov. Paul LePage and education commissioner Stephen Bowen face public hearings this week before the Legislature’s education committee.
The administration has called the education reform package an ambitious set of bills designed to put students first. The initiatives build on another bill that passed last year allowing charter schools in Maine.
Collectively, the governor’s legislation would: allow students to choose their own schools no matter where they live; allow state-funded tuition to private religious schools, ask schools to build better teacher evaluation systems and enhance career and technical education.
The bills already have drawn criticism from Democrats as well as the state teachers union and are expected to evoke spirited debate from educators and others this week.
Technical education
The least controversial bill will be heard first.
Members of the public can comment on An Act to Enhance Career and Technical Education beginning at 1 p.m. Tuesday, March 12, in Room 202 of the Cross State Office Building, adjacent to the State House.
As written, this bill seeks to expand opportunities for students in technical and vocation education. LePage has said he’s not convinced the education system currently in place is preparing students for the reality of the work force.
The legislation would mandate that school districts with career and technical education centers alter their schedules so they match the traditional classrooms. It also would make it easier for students to receive credits that can be used if they enroll in the Maine Community College System.
So far, there has been little criticism of that proposal.
Teacher evaluations
At 1 p.m. Wednesday, March 14, the education committee will host a public hearing on LR 2773, An Act to Ensure Effective Teaching and School Leadership.
In essence, this bill would require school districts to implement standardized teacher evaluation systems. If teachers do not meet criteria and improve performance over a two-year period, they can be put on probation and, ultimately, can be fired.
Last month, Bowen said school systems in other countries use a model that Maine should follow, which involves training their teachers and school administrators well and giving them plenty of support.
“We want to get out and really focus on teacher and leader effectiveness,” Bowen said. “[We’ll be] asking school districts over the next couple of years to build new and better teacher evaluation systems. We will see how well teachers are doing and the leaders are doing. We get information about what extra training opportunities they may need to go along with that.”
The Maine Education Association, which represents teachers, said it’s not opposed to better teacher evaluations but it does not support the governor’s proposal.
“The LePage plan for improving teacher quality focuses narrowly on increasing managerial control, punitive approaches that have failed in the past and lowering the standards for entry into the profession,” MEA President Chris Galgay wrote in a recent op-ed. “While MEA agrees that we need to change the way teachers are recruited, trained, evaluated, supported and held accountable, we recommend a comprehensive approach supported by research.”
Open enrollment and religion
Two public hearings beginning at 1 p.m. Thursday are expected to produce the most fireworks.
That’s when the education committee will take up LR 2774, An Act to Remove Inequity in Student Access to Certain Schools and LR 2775, An Act to Expand Educational Opportunities for Maine Students.
The first bill removes one sentence from state law that says public dollars cannot be used to fund private, religious schools. Bowen and LePage said removing that sentence simply provides another opportunity for students who want a certain type of education. Any students can go to a religious school currently but they must pay tuition.
Sen. Justin Alfond, D-Portland, who sits on the education committee, has criticized that bill.
“Using taxpayer money to pay for private schools is another example of short-sighted policy that chooses ideology over what’s best for Maine people,” he said “We should be doing everything we can to strengthen our public schools, which is an investment in our future work force. Anything less cheats our children and our economic future.”
LR 2775, which would create open enrollment in Maine, also is controversial. The state teachers union says it would cripple rural schools that already face declining enrollment.
Rep. Jeff McCabe, D-Skowhegan, who attended the news conference last month when LePage and Bowen announced the bills, said open enrollment could be problematic.
“School choice will put more of a burden on property tax payers, widen disparities between the haves and have-nots and weaken public education in rural Maine,” he said.
Bowen, however, has said school choice participants would set the number of students they would accept for the upcoming school year. If more students apply than there are openings available, the schools would hold a lottery to determine which students would be taken. The process would prevent schools from recruiting students.
Late session discussion
Some wondered last week why the bills had not been referred to committee more than four weeks after they were announced.
Galgay, the union president, said last week that he thinks the administration is delaying the bills to stifle public debate.
“I think it’s a strategy,” he told the Lewiston Sun Journal. “They’re saying, ‘Let’s hold the bills until the end and let’s ram them through.’”
The LePage administration, however, said it was simply a matter of crafting the legislation and getting approval from the Revisor of Statutes.
Lawmakers have a lot to contend with between now and the end of the session in April. Bills were supposed to be reported out of committees by the end of this week.
That could leave little time for the education committee to debate the four bills after the public hearings but before they reach the floor of the House and Senate.
Stephen Bowen is straight out of the Maine Heritage Policy Center.
He does not have Mainers interests in mind and when he is done, he will be back in Virginia faster than you can say Terry Bragdon.
Bowen has long been a proponent of online learning — and a bill that allows the expansion of online learning in Maine was passed by the legislature back in June. Put online learning together with school vouchers and you have an environment ripe for out-of-state for-profit online learning companies (some of these are virtual charter schools) to come in and start sucking up the tax dollars that used to support your local public school. It’s already happening in other states. And, especially in a bad economy in which consumers aren’t spending, corporations see this as a huge source of profit. Insight into the ALEC’s involvement with education is at http://bit.ly/zaChDK A longer article on the problems with school choice is at http://bit.ly/wReUEd
The statement made that the schools could set their number of opening does not prevent these schools from setting such high enrollment numbers to force the closure of smaller out-lying schools. Bigger is not better nor is it less expensive. Will the sending schools be required to provide transportation as well as the students? It is apparent that LePage and Bowen intentionally delayed the publication of the bills to require a quick vote by a bullied legislature. Again, the vasoline is going to be flowing in Disgusta and throughout the state as these are rammed through.
It’s about time Maine is getting more progressive regarding how we educate our students. I’m sure the hearings will be overrun with retired teachers, who have been called to action.
How about constant evaluations for the governor and if he doesnt show improvement he gets fired Teachers get evaluated continuously and are licensed by the State of Maine. They must takes classes and get their licenses renewed after every 5 year period. Many teachers have graduate degrees. Let’s see how many credit hours the Governor has amassed over his career.
If LePage and Bowen really believed in their own rhetoric about “student centered” education, they wouldn’t have waited 4 weeks to “craft” these bills that are largely based on “language”copied and pasted from existing bills/legislation in other states and countries as Bowen suggests. They would have submitted the bills a month ago to encourage more thorough public debate and the time consuming committee work necessary for shaping educational policy for our youth. Trying to rush it all through in less than week is irresponsible and unprofessional. We never encourage this type of behavior from our students when they are assigned work in school; this is a case of bad role-modeling.
“The LePage administration has called the education reform package an ambitious set of bills designed to put students first.” If there’s one thing we’ve learned about this LePage crew over the past year it’s that whenever they say they’re out to help us, what they really mean is they want to put the screws to us so tight that we’ll wish we were born a LePage (At least we’d have a great job!). If any of this garbage passes it will be a sad day for the future or our public schools and thus our children as well. On the other hand it will be party time for the folks at the Maine Heritage Foundation and corporate elite at ALEC. Just say no Maine.
Let’s ruin public education and tell the people what we are doing is putting kids first. I’m sure the Tea Baggers were putting kids first a year ago when they wanted to loosen the amount of time a kid can work after school during the school year. They certainly were putting kids first when they suggested that they could do that work at a “training wage.” What could make anyone believe that these hacks have kids’ interests at heart? They are just a commodity to these Tea Baggers, mere pawns in their chess game against the people.
How is letting parents pick the school that best serves their kids ruining public education?? Students are a commodity and until we as a nation and state change our thinking about that then we are going to continue to fail our children. It is time to push them to be the best, refuse to accept being average as okay, teach kids that winning is good and that if you loose at something then you need to work harder. Some communities already have the ability to choose but others don’t how is that fair?
“Students are a commodity…”?
Please explain what you mean by that, condad. While you’re at it, maybe you can also explain how corporations are people.
Perhaps conservative dad’s across the county are planning on selling some of their commodities in the future? I guess if you’re planning on adopting you best do it now before the price of children under “wacky conservative capitalism” skyrockets!
Students are a natural resource all over the world and we have to harvest and refine it through education and not indoctrination. When teachers are not effective and can’t be replaced it only diminishes the quality of the finished product, parents should have a way to have their children taught in the school that best meets their needs. This will also provide a performance based hiring of teachers as they will want to work at good schools as well.
Ah. Thinking of students – human beings – -as a commodity to be smelted. News for you: “average” is not bad – not everyone is whatever version of “superstar” that you embrace. Not all even Ivy-league graduates find great jobs. You want robots performing robotic work. Not thinkers and creators, who may not be “perfect” beings.
No average is what we have become as a nation, because it has been accepted, I have worked in the real world for years and when you raise the bar for people 90% will raise their performance. AVERAGE S U C K S
Your use of that horribly vulgar word ill represents raising the bar.
I’m all for parents having “a way to have children taught in a school that meets their needs”
But I’m against using tax payer money to fund their private education.
And TRUE conservatives would also be against it.
Well, in higher education, students are a commodity or the resource that allows a college (2 or 4 year) to continue. It’s not a good thing or a bad thing. It’s just how colleges have to make and plan budgets. They need X students and how can they get them.
As for corporations: a corporation is not a “person” in flesh and blood, but corporations are legal entities unto themselves. They do not live and die with the (a) shareholder. People manage the corporations, but the corporation has legal rights just like people. Like most things, it’s not a simple issue.
A person is not a corporation (and vice versa). Neither is a person a commodity. The use of those terms only clouds the issues being discussed and the policies being debated.
Clearly, corporations are legal entities with rights and responsibilities defined by law. But to say that a corporation is a person does nothing to promote a better understanding of what a corporation is and is not. And calling students commodities is bound to create negative reactions in many of us. I suggest that this isn’t a productive use of language if you’re trying to arrive at solutions to very difficult problems.
What is the going price on the stock exchange for students?
That depends on what companies are willing to pay for them when they enter the job force, when provided with a high quality education they will get paid more, or maybe they will get minimum wage cause they had crappy teachers and schools who let them slid through.
How about my 22 month old grandson. What is he worth to you people who somehow have the ability to attach a dollar sign to everything. I have heard a lot of sick things from conservatives when it comes to the way they look at people but your defining students as a commodity takes the cake.
The Republicans have gotten us (some of us) to think of ourselves not as ‘citizens’ but ‘consumers’. Also, people who interact with social services are called ‘consumers’. And now children are ‘commodities’? What is the value of a human being to people that identify themselves as conservatives? Only dollars and cents.
Thank you for your statement.
Stupid is as Stupid does!
Years ago there where jobs for them Under Achievers as well as college graduates.
However,
Your Conservative God’s sent their jobs to China!
Its funny how they declare Communism an Evil until they find out that they can get slave labor from it!
Then it is the Free Market.
Or maybe we should call it what it is, a “For Free” Market
Maine Taxpayer dollars going to private for profit education, private for profit highway studies and private industry toxic dumps.
How is that $134.00 average family Income Tax Savings (To vote Republican ) doing for ya now folks?
So we should continue the failed socialist one size fits all approach to education a system that has been broken for 30+ years. A system that has us 27th ranked nationally in education (supposed to be Democrats bread and butter). A system that has more than 70% of Maine’s schools failing in some form. You would rather have us stuck in bad performing schools with costs that are out of control. Having us to deal with Superintendents and School Board members that are not only out of touch with its citizen’s and the parents of the kids, but refuse to change their failed school system. You would also rather have us pay for out of control costs with Sports Programs. Considering the costs to run these programs are extremely high, with these districts having declining enrollments/participation in these programs and the high costs of diesel nearly $5.00 a gallon in parts of Maine. I don’t understand Liberals they think we should just leave things the way it is. That we should have no modernization of these programs, no innovations. That we should continue to let the Teachers Union and the Maine Principals Association continue to hijack these districts. No its time to make the changes we need to make our schools better. We should not only have open enrollments and choice. But we should make these schools public high schools/private academies with high open enrollment figures. So we can not only bring in the best teachers , best academic standards, but also allow people from other towns, states and foreign exchange students be allowed to attend these schools to get the best bang for our bucks to increase statewide enrollment numbers as well.
I do not want my tax dollars to support private, religious schools. Nor for-profit out-of-state businesses.
Well I don’t want one cent of my hard earned money going to Welfare Bums, Environmentalists, Liberal Special Interest, Greedy Former Democrat Politicians (Ethan Strimling, Dennis Bailey, Kurt Adams, Karen Baldacci, Angus King) through Liberal Democrat Wealth Redistribution.
Separation of church and state. There has to be a line drawn or we are lost. We are a secular nation. No tax dollars to religious schools.
Please provide data to substantiate your claims. Thanks.
More BLAH BLAH BLAH
You had better go back to your Fox news, fair and unbalanced…lol
At least it isn’t the garbage that comes from PMSNBC, CNN, Current/Al Gore Tv , The Nightly News and PBS Newshour . With the Obama boot licking spinmeisters such as Keith Olbermann, Rachel ” Miss Menopause” Maddow, Erin Burnett, John King, Ed Schultz, Chris Matthews, Wolf Blitzer, race baiter Rev. Al Sharpton, Cenk ” Young Turk” Ugyar, Lawrence O’ Donnell and Martin Bashir.
I am often skeptical about standardized testing results and about where we stand in the world in terms of education.
I question if is it bad that the testing scores in the United States have stayed the same in math and reading? Is there a reason why our test scores should be much higher than they were in 1970? I question the validity of some of these results because I believe that there are many involved in the testing industry who are in it purely for the profit and not because they have our children’s best interest at heart.
There is a great deal of money to be earned by the corporations that control our testing and textbook industries. I often wonder if the test that students take today is identical to the tests that were taken by students in this country twenty or thirty years ago. If it is not the exact test, asking the same questions then how can the data be accurate and useful?
And when we compare our test results to other countries, are all students around the world taking the same tests? The questions worded the same, the same content? Can we really compare one test given in one country to a different test that is not exactly the same given in another country? There are so many questions for me around these testing issues.
There is a money trail between the standardized testing and textbook industries. Test scores drop (possibly through the manipulation of questions) so then the textbook companies jump in with flashy, new-and-improved curriculums guaranteed to improve test scores. Schools do poorly on testing then scramble to find the right curriculum to raise the test scores which may or many not ever change.
I also believe that testing and textbook companies are some of the most active lobbyists promoting this fixation on testing. Our politicians have become convinced that standardized testing is the only way to assess the quality of education delivered in this country largely in part because of this lobbying activity.
I had a bagel for breakfast, does that make me a socialist? I’m asking cause everything you disagree with you call socialist, socialism, etc. It reminds me of a line from “The Princess Bride”, Mandy Patinkin’s character says, “You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.”
So dark, are you a product of “…the failed socialist one size fits all approach to education…?”
BTW, did you realize that we’ve had essentially the same system in place for a lot more 30 years. What do you suppose changed the once-successful public education system into a failed socialist one?
That is why its getting kicked to the curb being replaced by a much better system that more than 15 states use. Liberals don’t like it because it doesn’t work its a huge waste of our tax dollars. Democrats love having us waste our money and being at the bottom half or at the bottom in everything. They would rather us stick with The Maine Teacher’s Union, The Maine Principals Association running the show. With us bound to failing districts, with failing administration bound to Superintendents and out of touch school boards refusing to make changes. Just lets raise taxes, hire more of our family and friends and lets mess up the current situation as we have now.
What does a $134.00 tax figure have to do with this topic???. Nice change of subject.
They call it Bait!
Gotcha!
Well the party will start on November 6th when Liberals go crying again because they are likely to get several defeats this election.
Definition of Commodity
1. an article of trade or commerce,especially a product as distinguished from a service.
2. something of use, advantage, or value.
I think I will stick to thinking of students as our children, grandchildren and as human beings. It must really be sad when conservatives start looking at our young as things rather then people. To compare our children to a peck of potatoes or a bushel of corn is insane.
“Students are a commodity”
Really? I always considered them human beings.
I guess you have never attended a school budget meeting where they discussed enrollment numbers and the effect on the budget.
Health care in this country has become a commodity also, leading to the most expensive, profit driven, worst system in the developed world. That is a preview of what the corporate puppets want to do to public education, destroy it and create a profit driven educational system owned by corporate interests, or worse by religous interests. They’ll be free to set up and teach what they want, like the madrassa schools in Pakistan.
I have a problem with my tax dollars paying for someone’s child to go to a religious school.
If you read any of my posts I have not supported the use of public money for religious schools, I do not agree with that, private schools, religious or not should be fully paid by parents,(John Bapst, parents pay for it, not with my tax dollars) but I do believe that some public schools are better than others and parents should be able to choose which one their children go to. That allows for competition between public schools.
Corporations are not people!
Children are not commodities!
Let’s put students first . This implies that we haven’t been putting students first. When he threatened to close schools in May was he putting students first? and if so is he putting all students first ?
It also helps bring about that bagger dream of having kid’s parents compete with they’re kids for those minimum wage jobs. Sorry Pop’s, I can hire junior here alot cheaper than I pay you. Adios.
More lies and bullying tactics. I am really discoraged that the Christian right is excusing all of this “sinful” behavior. I’d say we’re a long way from family values.
This is more proof as to what i have been saying all along.. Spreading money to private and religious schools will bankrupt public schools.. This is a direct hit to our children’s futures.. If you are fortunate enough to send your child to a private or religious school that’s great.. But the rest of us want our children to go to public schools cause that’s what we can afford, and that’s what we pay for with our taxes.. Giving money to private schools ensures that they will get an even better education and possibly lower their tuition.. Again the fortunate get wealthier and the poor get poorer.. Gop principles..
LD1858 includes one very disturbing provision – a teacher or principal cannot appeal an evaluation.
This places incredible power in the hands of administrators, especially principals. Schools are no different than any other workplace regarding politics and favoritism – and the other side of that coin, the poor treatment received when one is disliked by the boss.
Without a chance to appeal an evaluation, a teacher can lose their job – and really, their career – simply because they are disliked by their principal.
Why should schools be such different workplaces than others? I have a supervisor who evaluates my performance and offers me a raise based on that performance. Sure, some of the content of the evaluation may be considered subjective, but the vast majority of the evaluation is based on objectively measured outcomes. According to you, every supervisor who doesn’t care for a subordinate can just fire them. That is not the case. Supervisor evaluations of performance work in the social services, in the health care industry, and in private enterprise. I find it impossible to believe that it just won’t work in public schools.
Principals are educated professionals who are skilled in teaching and supervising the education of students in addition to overseeing school management. It is perfectly logical that they should evaluate the teachers in their school.
The MEA says “no” to student standardized testing for performance evaluation; then they say “no” to a principal evaluation. Then they say let’s use research based methods, but they don’t say what those methods are. I would like to hear just how they feel teachers should be evaluated?
Public School Teachers just want an automatic “pass”. Just like they give to their students.
You are clumping all teachers into the same group. There are many, many teachers who want to be the best teachers they can be to help as many students as they can help. Sounds like you must have had some bad school experiences to dislike all teachers so much.
It does seem as if the teachers union wants the public to just take their word that all teachers are saints and highly skilled. They seem incredibly resistant to any suggestion for evaluating teacher performance.
For the most part teachers are evaluated by administrator “observations”. There is little tangible data regarding success nor can there be. A teacher can have a dream class one year and a nightmare the next.
Who is in a better position to understand the dynamics of a teacher’s class from year to year than the principal/vice-principal of a school? I can understand not wanting to rely on standardized tests because those scores cannot tell us what kind of students a teacher had to educate.
Working is social services with families leaves a person in a situation where some families are successful in meeting goals, and others are not. A supervisor knows the dynamics of the families and understands how effective the social worker has been.
Thats true………..i’m just saying that if an administrator dislikes a teacher for any number of non-performance related reasons then that teacher should have some recourse to refute an administrator’s opinion. There should be some built-in protection since some administrators have been known to cut staff positions just to hire friends from a previous administration. There are many reasons that an administrator might want to screw someone over. Its one reason unions exist.
Gerry, you don’t know how close to the truth you are ! By leaving teacher’s and principal’s subject to the personal whim’s of administrator’s, virtually all of whom are not accountable to anyone short of a Judge and a lawsuit, the ability of these teacher’s and principal’s to teach and manage is reduced to a ‘Simon say’s’ mentality and cirriculum. This will inevitably lead to any number of teacher’s, and principal’s, just saying “Hey, I am not some puppet that needs some moron’s hand’s up my XXX to do my job ! ” and just leaving. Been there and seen it before. Once that type of crap starts, and the reputation that goes along with it get’s out, Maine is going to drop below the 50th position of places that are recommended as a place for new teacher’s to start out. Recruiting is going to be all but impossible if this litmus test-type reputation and nonsense get ahold here. Teaching, as a profession right now, has well over a 50% burnout rate in the 1st 4 years. The MEA knows this. Why they aren’t citing that is beyond me. But this ‘new educational reform plan’ is nothing more than MHPC personnel management thru subjective and selective intimidation and threat’s, pure and simple.
And this personal whim nonense is also gonna come back and bite everyone in the butt when it’s seen as both a ‘due process’, and ‘separate but equal’ in the case of the religious school’s, issue when the inevitable court case comes up. Trying to disguise corporate and religious mainpulation of the educational system under the guise of ‘educational reform’ is just one more way for these type-diploma mill’s to get rich off the public dollar without having to be held accountable for the train wreck of a mess they leave in their wake. And as far as religious manipulation goes, well, just go look at some of these religious schools overseas. Anyone wanna’ go down that road and risk our kid’s future ?
Private schools will still require higher than state average tuition and only the most wealthy will be able to take advantage of this. If these schools are funded by state money they need to follow all state mandates including providing full special education services, the same number of school days and highly qualified teachers. They should also be required to teach all MLR’s which would include teaching about evolution.
Do NOT use my tax dollars to fund ANY religious school. I refuse to sponsor a curriculum based on bronze age mythology and nonsense. I cannot conceive of a clearer and more direct violation of the separation of church and state than this.
Putting money in religious schools will divert money from local schools. The state is not even close to paying what it’s supposed to pay.
There’s only so much to go around. It will only pass the bill to the local town /school district.
Will the money going to religious school make them have to have certified teachers? They don’t now. Will the students have to take all the state tests and have their scores published? They don’t know.
Will the teachers be allowed to unionize? They can’t now.
These bills collectively are anti- union bills pure and simple.
It’s the gov’s social agenda that comes first, not the students.
Students will get a better education in either a private or perocial school. That’s a fact!
Unions have no place in government or education.
Put the kids and the future of America first for a change.
And how do you know it’s a fact?teachers in religious schools do not have to hve ANY certification.Anyone off the street can get a job there.These schools don’t have their students take the state / federal mandated tests so justy how can one measure just how good or bad they are.I’ve taught students who came from religious schools and they were lacking in quite a few areas.Seperation of church and state is one of the founding principles that our nation was/ is founded on.It’s funny, the r’s cling to “what the founding fater’s wanted’ but are quick to change when they can privatize something while weakening unions.
So its better for kids to be in schools where teachers don’t have to be certified and where there are no ways to test or evaluate the success of the students? And it’s better to have taxpayers money funding children who go to Christian schools rather than fund public education?
Now really, can you be that hoodwinked as to what is going on? Certification has very little to do with how well they teach. It’s a stepping stone conjured up by the unions to promote out of sight pay scales that us non-union working dudes must pay. Put a pencil to tacher salaries/benefits divided by the hrs. they actually work and you might be surprised.
Those are trying to limit school choice by parents are exploiting tax-funding of schools to control what is taught. State control over the content of education was the primary goal of government controlled schools in the 19th century.
There will always be a conflict between responsible use of ‘public’ funds in approving schools for government-funded education versus First Amendment freedom of choice in thought and education. The contradiction will not be resolved until abolition of authoritarian, state-controlled education with its taxpayer funding preventing use of private schools because parents cannot afford to pay twice. In the meantime everything possible should be done to encourage and make possible freedom of choice in education to break the current government imposed monopoly controlling what is taught and how. This is a much broader issue than ‘freedom of religion’, it pertains to freedom of thought in general.
“School choice” already exists. Families that can afford it often have added choices besides the local public school LePage’s plan will create a nice subsidy for these families while — in rural areas at least — children from less privileged families will be left behind in downsized local schools.
What also currently exists is the belief that each Maine community (or at least each community large enough to do so) deserves to have a quality public school. There is great value in having all kinds of children from all kinds of families attend school together. There is also great value in having a local school board — with input from community members — be responsible for the curriculum and the hiring and evaluation systems at each school. No, it’s not a perfect system, and — in fact — it is often fraught with frustration and inefficiency, but it is still a while lot better than the next best thing, which is what happens when local communities lose control over education decisions and education dollars.
Don’t be fooled. “School choice” is a nice-sounding euphemism for changes that will financially benefit corporations and religious schools (that’s called paying back the base) and ultimately result in less palatable choices for the majority of Maine students.
As for your idea that public schools control freedom of thought, that is utterly ridiculous. Perhaps you, like LePage, think we should be teaching Creationism and promoting prayer in public school. (For the record, I have nothing against creationism and prayer but they do not belong in public school).
One major aspect of “school choice” is that transportation is not part of it. So parents that want to send their kids to a receiving school have to actually deliver their kids to the school.
This effectively means that children in lower income households do not have a choice. Their parents do not have the means or the time to drop them off or pick them up.
Not necessarily. It will be up to school districts to decide if they will provide transportation.
In addition, you are suggesting that parents can not use their brains to figure out a transportation situation–but parents have been more than capable of arranging car pools in the past. I suspect they will muster up the grit to do so if they want to send their child somewhere else.
Furthermore, you are also suggesting that just because some lower income parents will not be able to transport their child to another school, that no low income parent should have the opportunity. Did you like those punishments teachers used to impose on the entire class because some of the students misbehaved? You probably thought they were unfair. Let’s be fair. Let’s give people a choice. Low income families who can arrange transportation will do so and benefit, and those who can’t will be no worse off.
He took down a mural in the dead of night and then lied to us about it. He put through tax breaks that substantially help only the rich and called them tax breaks for the poor. He rushed through a health insurance reform bill that was later revealed to have been written by the health insurance industry itself. He has made clear that he has nothing but disdain for the 30% of us who receive some form of government benefits. He has stated that those who are on unemployment are lazy. He has defended the state treasurer who clearly is guilty of ethical violations at least. He apparently lied about an agreement with the town of Millinocket and threatened to withhold education funding if they did not comply with his wishes. He pressured to legislature to make cuts to MaineCare at the same time that his administration knowingly withheld information about overpayments due to computer errors — and then threatened to close schools if he didn’t get his way . . .
. . . And now he wants us to trust him to “reform” education?
The LePage “education reform plan,” much of which has been copied and pasted from ALEC will open the doors to online learning corporations, divert money away from local communities, and create a two-tier education system in which more privileged children increasingly have better schools and less privileged children are stuck attending what’s left. It is targeted toward weakening teachers unions, taking control over education away from local communities — and ultimately privatizing education. This plan will be particularly harmful to rural communities that will successivly lose their schools and then suffer further drains on their populations.
I encourage those concerned to contact their legislators today.
For insight into LePage’s real thoughts on educations, see http://bit.ly/wbfnEw
Thanks for posting the link …… too bad some cannot see the direction he is headed in …. public funding for private religious education for all and God and prayer in every classroom (no matter what – whether parents support it or not).
I bet some of the high schools who recruit basketball players will love this proposal.
Public funding for religious schools was deemed unconstitutional in 1971 by the Supreme Court in Lemon v. Kurtzman. It will be interesting to see if Maine can get around this.
LD1866 would repeal this section of existing state law:
§2951.2
A private school may be approved for the receipt of public funds for tuition purposes only if it:
2. Is a nonsectarian school in accordance with the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Ever since Lepage has been governor we have had nothing but drama and a lot of controversy, How about you leave all this behind and for once be a Governor. Find ways to create jobs, those that are on assistance get creative find ways to get them off assistance. Winter isn’t over yet, how are Mainers suppose to pay oil bills, the list goes on and on….
Using tax-payer money to subsidize private schools is a bad idea. What we should do is abolish public education, and go from there. Property taxes will be lower, budget private schools will appear, and parents and students will have a lot more choices. Public education is very expensive. It is not free, public schools spend much more per student than private schools do.
You didn’t propose any replacement to the public education system. Was that an oversight on your part?
I can’t wait for the first Muslim school to open in Maine and request state funding. We will then see how the so called governor responds to this event.
More likely Chevrus or Catherine MacCauley. Or Waynflete or North Yarmouth Academy.
Read the bill – the State funding follows the student, even to a private school. With tuition at $20,000 or more, what parent of a public school student can afford to pay to send their kid there?
But which parents that already do will see cash back?
I don’t think it will be run like that. They are not setting up a voucher system. If it is modeled on what is going on right now, which is my understanding, the school will have to set its tuition at the rate reimbursed by the state. Not just any school will be able to accept public money for students. The schools will have to conform to guidelines set by the state. The bills are actually much less “controversial” than people are making them out to be.
The bill removes a sentence from existing legislation, so the claims you are making are baseless. There is nothing being set up so far.
people are already paying on average 45% to 51% of local tax to their school district whats a few more percent on the backs of the working class.they can stand the raise because they keep on working and never complain.Wonder what will happen when this generation gets too old to work.
If the Governor’s comments on it taking time to craft the bills sounds a little false – it is! The bill about religious schools consists of one sentence! How long does it take to craft one sentence?
What Hypocrisy!
Imagine REPUBLICANS advocating using taxpayer money to fund private education.
At the same time cutting funds for those public students who need assistance the most most.
If people want a PRIVATE education, let them pay for it.
HEY REPUBLICANS! Keep your greedy hands off my tax dollars!!!
Let’s face it – our public schools are failing and the number one reason why they are failing is because the government is too involved. It’s not all the teachers’ fault or all the parents’ fault. We homeschool and see both sides of the fence. We spend an extra $2,000 on curriculum and supplies, above and beyond our property taxes, each year in order to be able to homeschool. My husband works (median income) and I teach. That’s our choice, and we don’t begrudge paying the taxes. However, a lot of the problems we see with public education stem from government regulation, intervention and mandates. So let’s get the government out of our schools.
How about we do this….eliminate the funding of schools through property taxes. Each school sets a tuition fee per student based upon curriculum needs and a portion of the teacher’s salary (which they actually do now anyway) whether it’s public, private, charter, homeschool, etc. Then the parent chooses, based upon affordability, type of education desired, and location, which school they can send their child to. This would be fair for all. Tuition would be paid by the parents through what they saved not paying property taxes. Schools could tailor their curriculum according to the programs they deem necessary, feasible, and based upon their projected incoming tuition totals. The costs associated with implementing government mandates and administration would be dramatically reduced or eliminated. Those savings could be forwarded to building maintenance. This way, everyone can choose what type of education they want, send their kids to the schools they deem most appropriate and no one’s tax dollars are being spent where they don’t want them to be.
I realize there’s more to it than that, but it’s a starting point to discuss. Why can’t we take control of our children’s education and make it the best it can be? It’s working for our family. It’s not one shoe fits all. No one entity should be able to tell you what your kids can/will learn in school. Every kid is different and has different learning styles. Freedom means we have the freedom to choose our education as well.
Some children would be denied an education, their families not being able to afford the cost of sending them to school. The way it is now every child can go to school.
I have taught home-schooled students who returned to public school or entered public school for the first time. I found that, generally, they were far, far behind grade level. It almost seemed like they hadn’t been in school at all.
I read a statistic recently that 40% of Mainers are functionally illiterate. That means they can’t read above a 4th grade level. This is the product of the educational system currently in place in Maine. This situation is unsustainable as most of these “graduates” can’t hold a real job and must be on government programs for the rest of their lives, it is imperative that the state government change the failing system.
I recently moved to Maine with my family and refuse to trust my children’s education to this substandard instruction. We homeschool and send some children to Catholic school, all on our own dime, while simultaneously paying taxes for the public school system. These reforms sound like a solution to the failing, dysfunctional, indoctrination centers we currently call the public school.
Why did you move to a state with such a bad education record? With the job situation as bad as it is how will that help your children when they are old enough to work?
Privatize The Penguin.
Home schoolers aren’t certified either but…………well you know the rest of the story.
Certification is over rated.