Ever since I retired almost 14 years ago, I’ve asked fellow retirees over the years if they missed it, the being with kids and teachers, and every one of them said it was the best decision that they ever made. “Why haven’t I felt that way,” I’ve asked myself. There hasn’t been a day go by in all this time that I haven’t seen myself back in the hallways and classrooms. But then, along comes your front page odyssey of July 2, “Officials say 19 schools in Maine failing,” and it all comes rushing back – the reason for leaving the high school principalship after 33 years in education.

It was becoming apparent, even then, that changes were coming and that the autonomy of being a principal was eroding, as were the traditional, educational prerogatives enjoyed by the communities themselves. The Maine Educational Assessment was just the beginning of what has become an annual trip to the fairyland of standards, testing and assessments. The Learning Results and its implementation process, without the appropriate funding I might add, has just added to the craziness promulgated by state and federal education officials as well as the Legislature and our good governor. If public education survives this onslaught of imposition on the teaching process it will indeed, be a miracle.

The small, rural communities and schools across this state have suffered undue scrutiny, criticism and humiliation. If publishing the results of the MEA testing isn’t enough for you, hang on, President Bush and his No Child Left Behind Act will ultimately draw even more public embarrassment if your community doesn’t perform up to their standards, as is evidenced by the recent BDN headline and the list of “deficient” schools. You can also count on your state Department of Education pointing out your deficiencies if you fail to meet the Learning Results standards as directed by your friendly Legislature and sprinkling of educational experts. Has it ever occurred to you that communities and their schools don’t have a hell of a lot to say in just how their children are being educated these days? At this very moment teachers across this state are strewed across classrooms aligning curriculum with Learning Results and learning how to assess, design rubrics, etc. In reflections, we didn’t know how good we had it, when we as professional could design and implement curriculum that was appropriate to our own learning needs and not have to respond to an establishment that more and more pulls the plug on our ability to chart our own destinies.

The state of Maine has much to be proud of when it comes to educating its young people. The achievement in math and science and increased reading skills are certainly commendable and it should be applauded, but it seems as if these accomplishments and others are more than offset by the media barrage that results from every reported shortcoming, and admittedly, we do have some. Despite our success in graduating our young people from high school, we do a horrible job of providing them the opportunity for college without accumulating massive debt along with the sheepskin.

Whose failure is that? Is it the family of the kid whose parents are both working at lousy paying jobs without benefits just to scrape by? There are a lot of these families you know. Is it the communities whose tax structure is demolishing any aspect of fairness in supporting local schools? Who or what is to take the responsibility for quality education in this state and how are we going to go about it? Even while currently encumbered with the onset of dementia, it would seem to me that other forces have been at work in contributing to our current state of education, if indeed, there is a problem.

We have a Legislature that cannot properly fund education and that repeatedly falls below its legal obligation to do so. We have a federal government that flies in violation of the law every time that it withholds funds for special education, an obligation that then falls to the communities. We have countless schools across this country that are in utter disrepair, including many within our own state. We have a Legislature that passed on yet another mixed bag bond issue that makes a meager attempt to prop up the falling infrastructure of these schools. We have a president and administration that is now diverting public monies to private schools through a voucher system that will ultimately cause even further disintegration of a national, public school system that is in desperate need of help.

At the same time this distant bureaucracy has the audacity to threaten to withhold funding from those same schools that will now be held accountable to a national testing program that goes well beyond the standards for proper accountability. We have a state government and political body that has seen fit to step in on only one occasion within the last century to adjust the salaries of our teaching professionals to a more acceptable level. That certainly hasn’t worked either. We have a system of teacher certification in this state that precludes using thousands of qualified, retired professionals at a time when we are facing a crisis in properly staffing our classrooms. The “hoop-jumping” and basic methods courses required for prospective teachers often discourage young people from entering the profession.

We have a property tax system that is totally incapable of supporting our schools. We have a Legislature without the fortitude and foresight to accommodate even entry level discussions on reforming that system by defeating legislation to broaden the sales tax base and lessen the burden on the property tax.

Ah well, maybe it really will all come out in the wash, or maybe we could all live in the world of Bangor Daily News columnist Seymore Papert where everything can be fixed with laptops. The governor would love that.

Loren Ritchie is a retired educator who lives in Greenville.