Several months ago, a merger was proposed by two large office supply companies. The federal government said they couldn’t go forward in the fear that it would create a monopoly. I heard no complaints from people over what was government instrusion into the private sector.

It seems people want to ensure that there is diversity in suppliers of office equipment. This is probably quite good, seeing how important office equipment is to the average citizen. The main argument against monopolies being that without competition you necessarily sacrifice quality and therefore, harm society.

I do find it interesting, though, that people don’t want a consortium when dealing with something as trivial as office equipment, yet have no problem with a monopoly in what is the most important commodity: education. Apparently, it is dangerous to risk putting faulty filing cabinets on the market but not a problem with a person’s mind. Maybe I just don’t get it, but something seems backward.

Our education system is failing (and reportedly getting worse), however, all we hear about are poor solutions that don’t address the problem. In a letter to the Bangor daily News (May 20), Robert Cobb touts the Learning Results legislation and in recent legislative hearings, many educators lobbied for these standards. They argue standards will let them know what to teach children and ensure how to do their part (i.e., math teachers teach math, English teachers teach English) after extensive education and certification processes then these standards will not help them.

We need to get rid of the monopoly. Parts of the state already do this. For instance, if your community doesn’t have a high school then you are offered a choice of your high school. All we need to do is to extend this to every family. This means allowing every family to decide where their child will be best educated instead of forcing them into what is essentially a dead-end street. Until this monopoly in education is broken, we’re going to be tinkering with an all but broken system that will continue to fail.

Of course, giving parents a say in their child’s education will take a lot of political courage in Augusta (to stand up to some powerful lobbies). Unfortunately, the current Legislature and governor have come up short in the realm of political courage, so I don’t expect them to do anything different on this issue.

Craig D. Brann lives in Old Town.