John Morris, a spokesman for Republican candidate Paul LePage, says LePage also favors charter schools. He said LePage would eliminate excessive education costs that he says fund an unnecessary bureaucracy.
"Our kids deserve a better education," Morris says. "Twenty percent of our students are dropping out of school before graduation. That's not acceptable. Maine is in the top one-third in education spending, the bottom one-third in results. Our education dollars should be going to teachers in the classroom, not to fund a bloated education bureaucracy."
As Brian Hubbell points out on Twitter, that Maine's public schools are in the "bottom one-third in results" is flat out wrong. The U.S. Department of Education (which LePage wants to eliminate) provides state profiles regarding the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP); select "Maine" to see our profile.
From this list of data, a state by state comparison can be found for 4th and 8th grade assessments. Below I provide how Maine compares. The first number (+) is the number of states that have a higher average score than Maine; the second number (=) is the number of states that are not significantly different; and the last number (-) is the number of states that have a lower average score (by definition, Maine falls into the '=' column):
This is not the first time that LePage or his campaign has maligned the public schools of Maine, but as the data suggests, the situation here is not as dire as it seems. Does this mean that Maine's schools do not need to improve? No, of course not.
But this constant drum beat that Maine public schools are failing is self-serving; it creates a perception that radical change is required, when in fact, it is not. LePage is setting up a straw man, and which if left to go unchallenged, will gain validity.
At first glance, the cafeteria at Bonny Eagle Middle School was typical. Students crowded around tables talking excitedly, quickly eating off trays and drinking out of milk cartons. But what made this scene stand out was the dark green swiss chard on their plates, grown by the students in the school's greenhouse. More surprising, though, was that they were eating it-and, by the looks of things, actually enjoying it.
I recently held a forum at the school to ask experts from around the state how we can make this scene the reality for more Maine schools. Now is the time to make the changes we need to get us there as we reauthorize the Child Nutrition Act. Joining me was Kevin Concannon, Under Secretary of Food and Nutrition at the U.S. Department of Agriculture-and a born-and-raised Mainer-who was eager for input on strengthening our country's child nutrition programs.
Video of the forum
What these experts-food service directors, nutritionists, agricultural leaders, child advocates, and more-had to say was clear. Maine is making incredible progress in providing our children healthier alternatives throughout the year, but things need to change so it can go further.
Every day, programs of the Child Nutrition Act help feed over 30 million of the nation's children. They are critical for the health and success of our children, and a lifesaver for low-income families, especially as a tough economy makes it more and more difficult to put a solid meal on the table. These healthy breakfasts, lunches, and snacks are as essential to education as pencils and notebooks. As Darlene French, president of Maine School Food Service Association, said at the forum, "You can't teach a hungry child."
But for too long the system has been geared toward processed food-high in calories, low in nutrition-to the benefit of a few large companies and agriculture producers. To what end? Our children eat food trucked across the country with no connection to where it came from. Childhood obesity is a national epidemic. Today's kids are dealing with health problems that, astonishingly, have made their life expectancy shorter than that of their parents.
The Nutrition Act is doing a good job at making sure children are fed-but we need to make sure it does a better job of what it feeds them.
I'm proud to say Maine is already taking the lead. Schools across the state are producing more nutritious meals that not only feed kids but also local economies. At the forum, nutrition directors recounted that they have been able to get kids to eat vegetables they wouldn't touch before, and, what's more, that students are asking their parents for it at home. The key has been engaging kids in the process, taking them to see the farms where their food grows or, in the case of Bonny Eagle, actually getting their hands dirty.
A local community feeding its own. A hundred years ago it was the norm-it's what my grandfather came to America to do. In today's drive-thru world, it's a foreign concept. But ask yourself the question, why should we truck a can of peas across the country when we can grow them right here? Like a watershed, a "foodshed" describes the food that can be produced in a given area. In Maine, that "foodshed" is rich with local farms looking to gain a foothold in the market. There is incredible potential for economic development if they have major institutions to create the demand.
Many Maine schools are eager to oblige and have been incredibly industrious in stretching their thin resources to make this change happen. But they don't have many of the resources they need. After all, for years, they made lunch from a box; it takes more equipment and more training to turn the raw ingredients into a meal.
Leaders at the forum expressed a number of ways the Nutrition Act could support their efforts. Schools need more access to grants like the one that helped Lewiston schools buy a refrigerator so it could store fresh ingredients. A more streamlined paperwork process would help eligible families sign up for free and reduced lunches as well as other programs. It should be harder for school districts to raid food budgets for other departments. A strong Farms to Schools program would set the groundwork schools need to access more local food.
Leaders also supported strengthening key Nutrition Act programs that subsidize meals at child-care facilities, provide assistance to summer student programs, provide snacks after school, funds grants for schools to provide fruits vegetables, and more.
Concannon was truly impressed with what he heard and, like me, pledged to bring their comments back to Washington as the Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act takes shape. If you have an idea to share, please email it to pingree.questions@mail.house.gov. You can find video of the entire forum at http://pingree.house.gov.
For far too long we have been at the mercy of union jobs protecting the resulting performance mediocrity of firemen who just move up the pay ladder truck based on longevity without results. Outcomes may be haphazardly measured but the consequences of poor performance are borne by taxpayers who have to foot the bill for ineffectiveness. Furthermore our economy and the marketplace of capital are damaged when fires not extinguished early and entirely destroy valuable property.
Legislative solutions to Maine educational budget problems are starting to come in. Rep. Ralph Sarty (R-Denmark) released a proposal for one such idea today. Rep. Sarty's legislation would give districts the option to self-insure and hopefully save money. "I've spoken with nearly 20 school superintendents, and they are all intrigued by this idea," said Rep. Sarty (R-Denmark). "They are keenly aware that the state's General Purpose Aid for local schools will drop by $92 million next year and is expected to remain at that level for the following biennium. Health insurance for teachers is costly, and superintendents are very interested in the idea of saving money by self-insuring. They see it as a way of preserving positions for teachers."
More here UPDATE: Rep. Sarty's proposal was voted down today. In a party line vote, the Legislative Council rejected the proposal 6-4.
A reader sent along this opinion piece from State Journal-Register of Springfield, Illinois, project funds aplenty; none for city schools, detailing why many of that city's school projects are not moving forward:
There isn't a single dollar for the district in last year's $29 billion state capital improvements bill. Why didn't the district get anything at the same time hundreds of school improvement or construction projects elsewhere in Illinois were funded?
As a result of the cuts to the federal stimulus, the Springfield School District lost out on $6.4 million in funding in 2009, while Ball-Chatham lost $239,700, according to an analysis of proposed stimulus spending produced by ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative journalism organization.
This is not an issue just for school districts in Illinois, but for our entire nation. And as the Journal-Register notes, one person is responsible for it:
Members of Congress seemed to think that the $792 billion bill, instead of, say, a $1 trillion piece of legislation, would somehow provoke less outrage. Politics mattered more than getting the right mix of spending and tax cuts to get the economy going again.
At the behest of Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, all of the funding for school construction was cut from the final version. A weak compromise allowed states to use money that they received to stabilize their budgets to instead repair existing schools. There was no money for new school construction, despite $127 billion to $268 billion worth of need nationally, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers.
As I've long argued, rebuilding America's infrastructure is about much more than creating jobs; done properly, it would leave a solid foundation on which the economies for the next three or four generations would rest.
But this requires long-term vision, something that some members of Congress are sorely lacking.
A new series will be coming to The Maine View. The "State of Maine Education" will be beginning shortly. I spend most of my time giving you my opinions so this series will gather opinions of others. I have sought to interview education professionals from all levels. I thought it better to give you view from the trenches so to speak. Look for the interviews to start coming in soon.
If you are an ed professional (Teacher, researcher, administrator, etc.) and would like to participate please contact me here or at The Maine View. The more interviews we can get, the better picture of the state of Maine's education we will get. Sources will be protected if they wish.
DIRIGO BLUE is available as an