Sponsors and supporters of LD 1248, a law that would take the right to make local educational policy away from elected school boards and put it on the negotiating table, are attempting to characterize the bill as unimportant, routine and inoffensive politically. It is none of those things.

Any lawmaker who takes the time to get into the details of this legislative proposal will see quickly that, as its title states, it is an Act to Amend the Municipal Public Employees Labor Relations Laws. If they pass the bill, state lawmakers will:

Upset, in a single stroke, decades of decisions by the Maine Labor Relations Board supporting the authority of elected school boards in making policy for local school children.

Confer power for local education policymaking on labor negotiators and arbitrators who don’t have residence in a community.

These related issues are fundamental to public education in Maine. Education unions exist to negotiate salaries and benefits, working conditions and other job-place related issues, but it is not the role or the right of people who reside outside a community to dictate educational policy for that town or city’s school children. LD 1248 should appeal only to lawmakers who believe it is time for Maine to junk the principle of local control.

This bill also will complicate the already challenging mission of improving public education and moving it into the next century. Maine children must be able to compete in a global economy. The right changes in public education may never occur if LD 1248 passes, and decisions on the structure of the school day, transfer and reassignment policies and other key management decisions must be put on a negotiation table or worse, repeatedly turned over to outside arbitrators.

This bill does not address the real problems facing public education in Maine. It is bad public policy. Any lawmaker will reach a similar conclusion on LD 1248. Just read the bill.