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February 14

Another View: Editorial wrong about LePage's bills and the teachers union

These bills are produced by a national lobby group and don't fit the needs of Maine schools.

By Rob Walker, executive director of the Maine Education Association

Your ignorance is showing. Your Feb. 12 editorial applauding Gov. LePage's education proposals and criticizing the Maine Education Association as a roadblock to progress demonstrates a profound lack of knowledge about public education and our children's future.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rob Walker is the executive director of the Maine Education Association.

The governor's bills are bad for students, bad for educators and bad for public schools.

They were drafted by ALEC, a national conservative legislative operation funded in large part by America's wealthiest corporations, and have nothing to do with the experience, studies and deliberations that have been taking place in Maine among all stakeholders in the education community.

For nearly two years, the MEA has been working with the Maine Department of Education, superintendents, school boards and principals to cooperatively develop a teacher evaluation model that will identify effective and ineffective teachers.

The MEA believes Maine should focus on what helps students the most: recruiting the right people to the teaching profession, supporting new teachers, providing ongoing training, paying our teachers a decent salary, developing reliable evaluation systems to measure teacher effectiveness, and giving teachers the resources they need to succeed.

The MEA adopted a policy statement that includes the commitment to assist school management in counseling and escorting ineffective teachers out of the profession. We believe we can accomplish this without sacrificing the profession to heavy-handed managerial control.

Nearly 15 years ago, the National Commission for Teaching and America's Future stated the most important thing to do to advance public education is to put a qualified teacher in the classroom. We totally agree.

Maine's teachers are deeply committed to the success of every child. And, providing every child with a world-class education requires more from all of us. High quality teaching and learning can't just occur in the classroom and it will not be promoted by shallow political or editorial attacks.

 

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