The Maine Education Association would like to add its voice in support of your editorial on school funding (Nov. 4). Our members know firsthand the problems created by the Legislature’s failure to adequately fund K-12 schools and the shift in costs to local property taxpayers.

The Bangor Daily News is correct — the defining idea behind the state’s participation in local schools should always be equity and opportunity for all students.

As many schools in northern and eastern Maine can attest, the failure to adequately fund the school formula created great inequities in student learning opportunities. Property-poor schools simply cannot offer the services or programs available in our more prosperous communities.

The problem is not how to cut up the pie; the problem is the pie is too small. No matter how cleverly lawmakers divide up a small pie with a revamped funding formula, they will never have enough to serve all of Maine’s students until they make the pie bigger.

MEA supports the equity and opportunity policies of the Essential Services and Programs study being conducted for the Legislature. This report offers a blueprint of the essential services and programs to which every child is entitled, regardless of where he or she may live. It is a well-documented, data-based approach that could restore equity to the distribution formula if lawmakers have the courage to fund it properly. Idella Harter President Maine Education Association, Augusta