PROSPECT, Maine — While Gov. Paul LePage’s school choice legislation was stopped at the committee level in March, the four proponents of school choice who gathered at Fort Knox State Park on Tuesday said the fight isn’t over.
The event was organized to celebrate what would have been the 100th birthday of Milton Friedman, a wildly influential economist and advocate for school choice, a policy that allows parents to enroll their child in the school of their choice, regardless of its location.
“We’re always going to be supportive and want to bring forward more legislation for school choice,” said Carol Weston, executive director of Maine’s chapter of Americans for Prosperity, which organized the event.
Weston said the event had not been advertised because she and her organization were busy preparing for a Thursday trip to Washington, D.C., for the sixth annual Defending the American Dream summit.
LePage proclaimed Tuesday to be Milton Friedman Day, saying in a news release that “Maine’s educational goals align with Friedman’s vision: All children should have the right to the highest-quality schools possible.”
LePage’s legislation, “An Act To Remove Inequity in Student Access to Certain Schools,” failed to pass the Education Committee in March. It would have allowed schools to become “schools of choice” and accept students from outside their districts. Students could be enrolled in these schools without needing permission from their home district and the local taxpayers dollars would go with them. The committee opted to study the idea and come back next session with new recommendations.
Despite the school choice bill’s unknown future, attendees at Fort Knox were celebrating a victory for school choice as two public charter schools — Maine Academy of Natural Sciences in Hinckley and the Cornville Regional Charter School — cleared their final state hurdle on Tuesday and are now set to open in the fall.
Judith Brown, chairwoman of Maine Association for Charter Schools, was at Fort Knox and said the charter schools were an important piece of school choice, which would provide incentives to traditional public school districts to improve or risk losing students to charter schools.
“This is going to give people some more options. It’s a start,” said Bill Brown, Judith Brown’s husband and a member of the charter school association.
Judith Brown and Weston repeated a common refrain among school choice proponents in Maine: that greedy superintendents are the enemies of school choice. In Maine, a student can attend an out-of-district school if both superintendents agree, and that doesn’t happen often. Weston said that’s because superintendents don’t want to lose the taxpayer dollars that come with each student. LePage also has blasted superintendents for their opposition to his package of education reform.
“Superintendents are looking at their bottom lines, not at the interests of their students,” Weston said.
Paul Stearns is superintendent of School Administrative District 4 and president of the Maine State Superintendents Association. He agreed Tuesday that superintendents care a great deal about money.
“The governor has taken us to task for caring about money,” he said. “But money translates to programs and opportunities for students.”
School choice and charter schools may provide great opportunities for students, Stearns said, but it likely only would be those students with affluent parents because those students’ families are more likely to be able to arrange for their child to attend school far from home.
“Students in my district depend very much on our transportation system to get to school,” he said. “The ones that don’t, the affluent students, are the ones who are more likely to be able to head in another direction. The expense of transportation alone would be prohibitive for the others.”
Stearns and Weston agreed on one thing: Both are confident that school choice will be back on the legislative agenda when the next session begins in January.
“The governor and the commissioner of education have been very clear that this is important to them,” Stearns said.
Follow Mario Moretto on Twitter at @riocarmine.
This charter school concept is a long running conservative theme. The US spends a bunch of money on education and there are very few ways for profit-takers to gain access to that market, because it is funded with public money. This is the healthcare debate in reverse. Trust me, we don’t want for-profit schools any more than we want for-profit healthcare.
Competition, competition, competition. This is what set this country apart for the last two centuries and the reason why it prospered. The school system began with private schooling by religious institutions, but was taken over by the public school system when primary education was made mandatory. In 1852 Massachusetts became the first state to fund and make education compulsory. This idea then began to spread to other states until, in 1917, when Mississippi became the last state in the Union to follow suit. Now public schools enjoy a monopoly by being fully funded at tax payer expense, and are producing mediocre results at best in spite of increased funding over the decades. It’s time we put competition back in the educational system by allowing private schools to compete on a more even plane. An expanded voucher system is the way to go so children of parents who can’t afford to pay for private school tuition will be able to attend schools of their parents’ choice and thereby create competition among schools for students. Yes, initially the public schools will hurt financially on account of less students in the classroom, but that situation will only be temporary as they adjust to new conditions by closing down inefficient schools and making do like all private schools do. Rather than setting public schools back, school vouchers will also serve as an incentive for public schools to put out better educated students.
This idea is not a new one. It’s time to get the ball going. Waiting and stalling to expand the voucher program can only further delay the prospect for a better education for our children.
This reminds me of how the big-box stores, such as WalMart, shut down “inefficient” local businesses. Nowadays, many people have to drive 60 miles or more to find what used to be “local” stores that carried specialty items. I don’t think of that as progress.
What will life be like for families when “inefficient” local public schools are closed down for a radius of 30 to 60 miles or more?
Once the corporate version of schooling takes over Maine, how long will it take before quality drops?
Or School Consolidation which killed off many small prized rural schools like Harpswell Elementary, whose supporters now want to re open it as a Charter school after SU 75 closed it last year?
Socialist/liberals are far worse than a Walmart who wins by competition; they prefer the totalitarian police state.
Totalitarian police state? Huh? Sounds like canned verbiage from Rush or Fox…
People who drive 50 or 60 miles to WalMart generally don’t do so to save money. It’s an outing, a form of recreation if you will. It’s no different than going to the Bangor casino or going for a leisurely ride into the wilderness.
Anyway, I was not talking about the private sector taking over the educational system. The public sector has done that already. What is needed now is a restoration to a healthier balance of ownership and control through fairer competition. Right now corporate government controls and runs nearly all aspects of the educational system. That’s not in our and our children’s best interests.
Odd that one of the founders of the charter movement was Albert Shanker, who also founded the American Federation of Teachers…”
Jun 21, 2011 – It’s time to return to the original vision for charter schools outlined in 1988 by American Federation of Teachers President Albert Shanker, who….” USA TODAY
or maybe you don’t have a clue about what conservative themes are all about?
The proponents of school “choice” won’t be satisfied until public education has been destroyed, and corporations are raking in taxpayers’ money. Then, there will be no choice left.
“The U.S is ratcheting up a societal-level war on public education. At issue is whether we are going to make it better — build it into something estimable, a social asset that undergirds a noble and prosperous society — or whether we’re going to tear it down so that private investors can get their hands on the almost $1 trillion we spend on it every year.” [http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/04/29-0#.T520ch4NUcg.facebook’]
“Across the country, disabled students represented 8.2 percent of all students enrolled during the 2009-10 year in charter schools, compared with 11.2 percent of students attending traditional public schools, according to a Government Accountability Office analysis of Department of Education data… [Also,] We’re concerned from some previous studies that children with disabilities are admitted but then counseled out.”
[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/20/education/in-charter-schools-fewer-with-disabilities.html?_r=2]
Another article tells the story of a boy named Matthew, who was pushed out of his charter school because of ADHD symptoms. “Matthew’s story raises perhaps the most critical question in the debate about charter schools: do they cherry-pick students, if not by gaming the admissions process, then by counseling out children who might be more expensive or difficult to educate — and who could bring down their test scores, graduation rates and safety records?” [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/11/nyregion/charter-school-sends-message-thrive-or-transfer.html?hpw=&pagewanted=all]
Incidentally, if anyone wonders why demonizing teachers’ unions has become so popular, it’s because many charter schools shave costs by hiring inexperienced teachers at low wages and making sure teachers can’t join together to advocate for good pay and working conditions. Absolute power for the corporation.
It’s a very good idea.
Then the people who have children can pay for them. How fair is it when someone who has four children pays less than someone who has none to educate them?
The conservative philosophy in a nutshell–thanks! Every man or woman or child for himself, and the devil take the hindmost. Everyone living in a tiny bubble of SELF with no connection to neighbors and no vision of community.
The politics of me-Me-ME-and only MEEEEE!
So you do understand after all?
Maybe we should have an “OPT OUT” place to check on our taxes, that would be even better.
How many people without children helped pay for your public education? You remind me of senior citizens who say the same thing, seniors that don’t realize that when their own children were in school other seniors were paying taxes to keep those schools open.
This senoir is happy to support schools.
I didn’t go to public schools, and I never wanted any children (tax write offs).
I’m far from a senior citizen, but already it’s obvious how liberals want to squeeze all they can get from anyone who has any success.
All the arguments you make are worth reading. . Private schools can discriminate. If parents can afford to send children to private school, they should do so. Taxes from a small town will be sent to another town. The future of towns will be a road through towns with no schools.
Public schools also discriminate…not every child gets to play on a team, and many schools select members of groups by skill, by ability….and other discriminatory criteria. Few people bother to see what happens to a child AFTER they get inside a public school; esp. those forced to have IEP’s and behavior modification drugs. NOW THAT’s DISCRIMINATION!
“Forced” to have IEPs? An IEP is an individualized education program. It’s developed in collaboration with the parents. If you don’t like it, you can appeal. You can also ask for an outside evaluation, for example by a psychiatrist, psychotherapist, psychologist, and/or neuropsychologist, if you disagree with whatever the school is basing the IEP recommendations on.
Schools don’t have the power to “force” anyone to take medication.
Perhaps your child was way out of control, and desperate measures were suggested? How are things going? This can be a very challenging state of affairs for parents, school, and the kid him/herself.
Not every kid can make the team? What’s new? Hardly discrimination.
Children are not forced to take behavior modication drugs.
Competition improves performance, just look at business and the Olympics as examples. Government monopolies do not have competition and their prices and service are terrible, look at the DMV and the public schools. Each of us pay an exorbitant amount of money in taxes to pay for education, 75% of our property taxes go toward the local schools. And what do we get? I have heard that 40% of Mainers are culturally illiterate and that 1/3 of Mainers are on welfare. Something isn’t right with the educational system with results that show graduates aren’t educated enough to function or hold down a job.
Maine’s public schools need to compete against each other as well as private schools to bring out the best in their students. I’m not willing to risk my children’s future in the current public schools with the statistics given above. They only have one opportunity to learn, not decades for administration officials to unveil the latest gimmick in educational reform. Let each child’s $10,000 follow him/her to whatever school the parents want to utilize. What are the public schools so afraid of? That, if given the choice, no one will want to send their child to their school system? What does that say about their faith in the quality of the education they are offering?
You forget that public education is a universal service, that is, it’s provided to all children who enroll. Universal systems by their very nature are not as efficient as those systems that can exclude costly elements.
Public education isn’t a revenue producing business. The public schools are afraid Katherine, of losing so many funds and being left to educate primarily the disadvantaged with dwindling funds.
I don’t totally disagree that the quality has gone down- it has since we’ve been doing NCLB.
And regardless of how many charter schools there are, the majority of your future citizens/consumers will still be educated in public schools. Is it in the best interest of our society to relegate them to an even lower educational priority?
You mean ECLB — every child left behind?
No, all students have 12 x 180 opportunities to learn.
As for 1/3 of Mainers on welfare (is that really true, data please), that works both ways. kids raised in poverty don’t do as well in school as those who aren’t.
“Gov. Paul LePage’s school choice legislation was stopped at the committee level in March…… four proponents of school choice…. said the fight isn’t over.” How typical of our current State dictatorship. The citizens, or those representing, have spoken but are paid no heed. Gov. LePig proves time and time again that he’s not interested in the best interests of Maine people, despite what we tell him. Ater he’s swept out of office these dark times will be known as the Age of the Swine.
Talk about discrimination from someone who uses racist language…”Gov. LePig” ….”Age of the Swine”…..and you want your child to attend a school run by this lout?
You’re right. That’s offensive to pigs. Apologies.
The continued onslaught of the LePage/Bowen administration on public education is detrimental to the state and its children. These two Tea Party puppets won’t be happy until they have thrown access to our students and the tax dollars that support their education over to the corporate wolves to devour. School choice is merely the opening salvo. Parents have plenty of choice where their youngsters are educated. If an area’s schools are not a primary consideration when a family chooses where to live, then that is their own cross to bear. It is not up to the taxpayers to fund this oversight on their part. If you value your children’s future, do not venture where this bumbling governor wants to go. He has already disparaged our youngsters successes in his recent radio talks and outright lied about the efforts of educators to improve an already exceptional education system. He claims that his ideas have the children’s best interests at heart just like his party had with their notions of a training wage for students. These Tea Party goons also had our children’s education foremost in their minds when they suggested increasing the number of hours that a student could work at an after-school job – one of the first measures they tried to get passed.
Don’t forget this is also a very sneaky plan by conservative Christians to shove their crap down the taxpayers and students’ throats instead of paying for parochial schools.They need to be watched and stopped at all costs.They very slyly infiltrated school boards in the 1990’s and got aaway with murder.
Now they’ve cowed textbook publishers in TX into outright lies.WATCH OUT AMERICA!
It’s not Brown. It’s Jones: Judith and William Jones.
And let us not forget that charter schools are NO better than regular schools….They just add another layer of eltism on society…
I don’t know if charter schools are elite schools, but your comment makes me wonder: What’s wrong with elitism?
Some even win Olympic gold medals!
Nothing, except the attitudes often induced. Aren’t conservatives typically against elitism?
Well, I consider myself conservative, and I’m all for elitism and elite schools, like the Maine School of Science and Mathmatics.
And don’t forget the parents control who enrolls in a Charter school; esp. those ‘elite’ poor minority parents.
The Charter must make a difference in their child’s life or the parent can, and will, withdraw their child…and if enough leave, the school will close! So be it!
I want to know if the charter schools will be taking on the kids with the biggest needs- kids with emotional, financial or educational deficits. Or are they going to be able to pick and choose.
They will but only if the funding formula pays them what the government schools get to take care of similar children….right now it doesn’t.
As important as this discussion is, one might also note that the Americans For Prosperity and our Governor seem to be using Fort Knox as their own private meeting hall. Ahhh, privatization, the GOP doctrine on how to disenfranchise the citizens of our country.
I believe groups that use Fort Knox for events pay a fee for their use. Democrats and other left-wing groups can use it too, if they’re willing to pay.