THOMASTON – I may be a bit apprehensive about what changes Gov. LePage intends on several issues, especially concerning Maine’s environmental protection, but I believe he is onto something with his ideas for five-year high schools.

One of my earliest teaching experiences was when I taught English and philosophy at Joliet Junior College in Joliet, Ill.

This two-year college shared a building with Joliet Township High School, and has an interesting history.

Not long after he began his tenure as the first president of the University of Chicago in 1892, William Rainey Harper wanted a way to give high school graduates the beginnings of a college education with a smoother transition from high school to a major university.

He found a partner in his mission. The university supported a decision made in 1901 by the superintendent of Joliet Township High School, Dr. J. Stanley Brown, to begin offering two years of college-level courses at JTHS.

With six students, Brown began Joliet’s tuition-free junior college as a two-year extension of JTHS. This event is regarded as the birth of community colleges. For many years, JTHS and Joliet Junior College shared a building, classrooms, faculty and administrators.

As Bill Nemitz points out, there is much work to do to get there from here: how to pay for another year of free education, and who will teach the college-level courses. The taxpayers of Joliet paid the additional costs for Joliet Junior College.

There are probably some towns and cities in Maine that would do the same without additional aid from the state. Most communities would or could not.

Most towns are too small. More consolidation may be required to make a high school’s population large enough to warrant or support to such a fifth year.

Some regulations regarding who is qualified to teach in five-year high schools may need to be changed.

For example, although I have a certificate to teach in Massachusetts schools and have taught at the University of Massachusetts and the University of Maine, I am not allowed to teach in a Maine public school.

There is an innovative school idea coming from the Rockland District consolidated school system that Stephen Bowen and James Fitzsimmons must be aware of.

This school district has proposed an educational campus that would include a four-year high school, a two-year community college branch, and a regional vocational high school.

Students who are ready for them could take college classes.

Students could also conveniently take high-level vocational classes in the trades, hospitality and culinary arts. As Gov. LePage has often remarked, not every Maine student needs a B.A.

But every student who wants to be successful in today’s world needs to get advanced studies in either the industrial arts, or in commerce or medical technology or some other field to compete and make a decent living.

Such a six-year educational campus may be expensive to build, but would have savings. It might not need three libraries, three athletic facilities, three auditoriums.

There might be some savings in transportation costs and administration costs.

It is an idea whose time has come in Maine.

And who is to say? Maybe it could provide all of these benefits in five years instead of six.

– Special to the Press Herald

 

Copy the Story Link