George Crawford of Harrington, ME The Education Committee's Plan was a responsible and reasonable compromise instead of Governor Baldacci's plan. Some aspects of the plan being developed by Education subcommittee of the Appropriations Coommittee ares just a rehashed version of the Governor's plan with smaller numbers.
Cooperation between school districts is a much fairer and process willing to be embraced by the school districts involved than forced top down consolidation.
The Planning Alliances or Cooperatives as defined by the Education Committee set goals for savings and also gave school systems a way to work together. The Education Committee's plan was a balanced one with incentives for consoldiation and it kept local control and local decision making in schools.
Some of the new terms by the Education Committee of the Legislature including calling "consolidation" a new term that is polilitically correct "realignment" and having towns vote on "realignment" in the November election. The other aspect is that the vote is "advisory" and is meaningless because schools systems would be forced to consolidate anyway.
The consolidated school systems would have to have plans submitted to the Department of Education by November 1st or December 1st. All current school boards would have to define items such as schools, new system governace, tranferrinng assets, staff contracts and other issues relating to new megadistrict by November 1st.
The whole process would be "facilitated" by DOE personnel or hired consultants. Education in Maine for K-12 schools would be a for the coming year. Current School Board members and districts will be working the equivalent of a full time job to make this happen. Spending for next year definitely will go down because current districts will not make major investments to give to a larger distrcit for free!
School Unions would be abolished and all districts would become Supersized School Administrative Districts. Keep decisons local. report abuse

Maine Commenter of Portland, ME Rod, I also went to one of those small schools; itself within a small school district. The level of activities beyond the three R's was pathetic. By the time I left elementary school, shop, home ed, and art were abandoned. It was as "bare bones" as you can get. That school should have consolidated with the other nearby district ages ago and offer a more diversified curriculum. Can't believe they're still trying to "band aid" the education of students.report abuse

Mark of Westbrook, ME If the State is contributing 55% of all education costs to local school districts...it certainly has the right for call the shots with regards to mandatory consolidation.report abuse

Curaigh of Harpswell, ME This ain't rocket science.

Taxpayers want good education at a reasonable, and affordable price.

Cost savings can be achieved by streamlining operations by eliminating duplicate, or unnecessary programs or job positions that more often than not, add no value in the classroom.

And while we're on the subject, why not give taxpayers a voucher that would allow them buy education from a different source?

Forcing public education in Maine(and the U.S.)to compete would improve the product while reducing its cost.

The time has come to strip public education of its taxpayer funded monopoly.report abuse

Rod Wood of Red Hill, PA I had the good luck to attend a one-room school for first and second grade before moving to a consolidated elementary school in third grade. All of my classmates from the Reed School (the one-room school) were several grade-levels ahead of the students who had attended the larger Red Hill School.

The Red Hill School had made the mistake of following the diectives of the state department of education, which was stuck at that time on proressive education. "Sight reading," the precursor to "whole language," was in vogue back then, as was the belief that one need only learn the times tables to nine instead of twelve. In English grammar, it was progressive to refer to nouns as "naming words," and verbs as "action words," as if the use of "noun" and "verb" might overload young minds and damage their psyches.

Suffice to say that consolidation, and with it, submission to state standards, began the long decline of education in Pennsylvania. As for cutting administrative costs, there were no administrative costs at my one-room school -- our teacher even had to start the fire in the coal stove and take the ashes out to the driveway.

The downside of consolidation is the forfeit of local control. report abuse

Janet of Cumberland, ME Of course it's easier for the Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee to come up with a consolidation plan: they have no responsibility for the quality of education! Let's make it clear that this has nothing to do with "reforming" schools, and everything to do with cutting the budget. (I hasten to add that I favor rational consolidation.) I'm wondering what other functions the Appropriations people will force localities to consolidate? Read the policing column in The Forecaster some day. North Yarmouth has no police force, relying on a state cop who could easily be in Harpswell if something happens. Right next door in Cumberland, also part of SAD 51, we have a full-fledged police department, who manage to find things to fill their time, such as responding to calls from nervous nellies who see a car they don't know on their street or a raccoon in the front yard. The pot-smoking kids of North Yarmouth do so with impunity, one gathers, yet there is no crime wave there. How much money we could save if we eliminated the entire department and relied on that solitary state policeman? Imagine how much we could save if we consolidated management of that sacred cow, snow plowing. Repeat this around the state. If the goal is to save tax dollars, local government reform cannot be ignored. (Or can it?) Oh, and it is easy for someone sitting in Portland to say that representation should be strictly by population. Let's apply that nationally, shall we? Oops! Maine vanishes from the national radar screen. Hmmmm....report abuse

Barney Google of Gorham, ME Ms. Marshall, you said a mouthfull in those 3 sentences.
It is hard to imagine that "rural" schools in this state will cease to exist because of redistricting. Indeed, were all the island schools of the Gulf of Maine to consolidate would there be a visible change to the education of each child? I don't think it will happen. The economies of scale are best at about 2500 students. There has to be that many on Mt. Desert.
There has to be economic accountability, and the state needs to take initiative.
Where the state has strayed is in taking a "pie-in-the-sky" number (250 million) and forcasted it into future budget numbers. Recipie for failure to acknowledge pacing of change.report abuse

observer of Bethel, ME this is a good editorialreport abuse

Curaigh of Harpswell, ME
This editorial position is correct.

Given the power and influence of the educational community which has a vested interest in blocking any cost cutting reforms, stating this position so plainly is courageous on your part.

I hope that lawmakers and educators alike read this editorial, and once again, think about the promises of tax relief most of them made to beleaguered property taxpayers last November.

My thanks to the editorial board for writing and publishing this position.
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Gail Marshall of Mount Desert, ME The way in which the editorial board of this paper repeataedly attacks schools and arrogantly pushes plans leading, among other harmful outcomes, to the unescapable elimination of rural schools, accomplished by further re-allocation of resources from rural areas to suburban ones, (one Republican legislator refers to these proposals as "the rural clensing act"), and to increased levels of micro-management from the Department of Education, despite it's repeated failure to exercise reasonable, appropriate AND cost-effective leadership in recent history, betrays your utter incuriousity about the impact of this proposed decapitation on the quality of our children's education and our communitiies' viability. No organization, especially one that is so personnel intensive as education (We are not making widgets here, remember?), can function in an efficient and effecive manner without strong, close-at-hand leadership. Further, you give the administration a total pass on whether or not their proposals will really save the kind of money (proffered in constantly shifting, unsubstantiated estimates) they are bosting of. Your position is pure attitude, as they say on "Car Talk", "unencumbered by the thought process." report abuse