Giving up local control no way to fix Maine schools

Gov. John Baldacci has proposed education reform entitled “Local Schools, Regional Support” or LSRS. If adopted, LSRS would wrest control of our school systems from towns and place that control in regional administrations.

The repeated misrepresentations surrounding the governor’s proposal are unacceptable. I have supported Gov. Baldacci in many of his proposals. LSRS is not one of them.

The most glaring example of the misrepresentations pervading the governor’s proposal for education reform is the name itself: “Local Schools, Regional Support.” In fact, the proposed legislation is designed to take away local schools – take away the physical plant and take away control over how education is imparted within the school. Perhaps it is best to explain by listing the ways in which the proposed legislation would take away local control of our schools:

. The proposed legislation would take every public school building and grounds in the state of Maine from its existing owner and give it to the newly established region. Every town in the state that has a public school would no longer own its schools.

. All local school boards would be disbanded by state mandate.

. All the public school systems in each region would be governed by a single regional school board of up to 15 individuals, supposedly one representative from each town. Regions 7 (Ellsworth), 8 (Bangor), 9 (Lincoln) and 10 (Dexter) comprise 139 towns. Only 60 of those towns would have representation at their Regional School Board. The 79 remaining towns in those regions would not have representation at their Regional School Board. Each town can form an advisory board that would have periodic meetings with the Regional School Board, but that advisory board would have no vote in the affairs of the local public school.

. Should LSRS be fully implemented, only the Regional School Board would hire and fire all teachers, staff and administrators associated with each and every school in its region.

. All funds dedicated to education in the state of Maine, including all taxes collected locally and all funds from the state, would flow through the Regional School Boards. The principal in each school would propose annual budgets to their Regional School Board, and only the Regional School Board would approve, amend, or reject the proposed budgets.

. Once the school is in the Regional School Board’s hands, the state of Maine would not allow any town to raise additional taxes to dedicate to the education of its children. If there are extraordinary special needs of students, if the physical plant requires maintenance or improvement, if the town would like to improve its course of study, our towns would have no recourse but to ask the Regional School Board for funding.

. The state of Maine would not fund more than one teacher per 17 students (statistics on current teacher-per-student ratios vary from 12.5 students per teacher to 16 students per teacher). LSRS specifically allows Regional School Boards to close schools. Since the Regional School Board would only be allotted funds for no more than one teacher per 17 students, it would likely close small schools in its region.

. If a town with a small school wishes to keep its school open against the mandate of the Regional School Board, it would have to pay practically the entire cost of its school, in addition to its assessments for the whole region.

Maine is a state that traditionally defers to local control. The tradition of local control pervades our perspective. It is one of the attributes that makes Maine more than “Vacationland.” The report of the Brookings Institution indicates that Maine should have a more efficient school system. We should take that advice seriously and implement it in a way that makes sense. LSRS does not make sense. To suggest that creating 26 remote administrative bureaucracies is an antidote to “Administrationland” is to stand logic on its head. There are alternative proposals for education reform being presented to the Legislature that do not so thoroughly rob the state of its tradition of local governance. Those alternatives must be given full weight and consideration in open debate.

Performance of the public schools in Maine is not at issue. Maine has many excellent schools, and on a whole the schools in Maine perform above the national average. The problem lies in the financial burden that our public schools place on the state and its citizens. That financial burden needs to be addressed. But before we put our public schools in jeopardy in favor of financial efficiency, we need to have a clear and very detailed accounting of anticipated costs and savings resulting from the change.

If we must give up local control in order to make the system work financially, we should do so in a thoughtful manner. The governor’s push to pass LSRS does not allow the citizens, the media and the legislators of this state the opportunity for thoughtful debate about this weighty decision. The misleading rhetoric, frantic fact finding, and resulting misunderstandings surrounding the current debate bodes poorly for a positive outcome.

Many small-town communities revolve around establishing and implementing school systems and educational policies. To take away that local control is yet another blow against local community, local governance, local control.

Margaret T. Jeffery of Bar Harbor is an attorney and a member of the Bar Harbor School Board.