Maine’s teachers are on the front lines of education every day. We became educators because we care deeply about our children’s future and we are committed to the success of every child.

Our classroom experience has taught us that the only way to guarantee our children’s future is to put students at the center of education reform and make a commitment to:

•  Hold all of us — teachers, students, parents, and elected officials — accountable for our children’s success.

•  Invest in the classroom priorities that build the foundation for student learning.

• Ensure that every student has a qualified, caring and committed teacher in the classroom.

MEA opposes major portions of Gov. LePage’s education plan because they create more problems than they solve.

The plan is bad for students, bad for educators, and bad for public education.

The LePage plan for improving teacher quality focuses narrowly on increasing managerial control, punitive approaches that have failed in the past and lowering the standards for entry into the profession.

While MEA agrees that we need to change the way teachers are recruited, trained, evaluated, supported and held accountable, we recommend a comprehensive approach supported by research.

We need to 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 professional salary, developing reliable evaluation systems to measure teacher effectiveness and giving teachers the resources they need to succeed.

We believe Maine can raise the bar for what it means to be a quality teacher by focusing on six key elements: 

1. Recruit and retain quality teachers.

2. Ensure high standards for all teachers.

3. Prepare new teachers for the classroom.

4. Provide continuous training for all teachers.

5. Revamp teacher evaluation systems to promote great teaching.

6. Ensure effective teachers in every classroom. 

The vast majority of teachers do a good job under difficult circumstances.

LePage’s focus on the few ineffective teachers distracts attention from the real priority — ensuring that every child has a qualified, caring, committed teacher.

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

MEA is committed to assisting school management in counseling and improving ineffective teachers or escorting them out of the profession.

We believe we can accomplish this without sacrificing the profession to heavy-handed managerial control.

Equally misguided is Gov. LePage’s vision for school choice that invites chaos by removing needed resources from local communities and their school; reducing local control by school boards; diverting taxpayer money to religious instruction, and increasing the disparity of educational opportunities between poor and wealthy families.

His plan is a libertarian initiative to defund and destabilize public education that comes right out of ALEC, a national conservative legislative operation funded in large part by America’s wealthiest corporations.

Under his plan, local school boards would see their budgets reduced when each student exercises a “choice” because local tax dollars follow the student.

The loss of five students could result in the layoff of two educational technicians or a teacher; the loss of 10 or 20 could be catastrophic in small communities.

And the loss of 30, 40 or 50 would severely damage larger districts.

Since their fixed expenses remain unchanged and revenue is being reduced, many school boards would have to choose between cuts in programs or higher taxes.

As funding for student programs is siphoned off, local communities, particularly those in rural Maine, will suffer and some schools will close.

Under this ill-conceived plan, schools would not be obligated to provide transportation for those students who opted for a different district.

This places students with working parents or limited means at a disadvantage for attending schools outside of their area.

Public education is the cornerstone of our democracy and a common good essential to the health of our society.

The LePage choice plan undermines public schools because it is a program for individual purposes, private gains and promoting religion.

Rather than adopt this extreme makeover of public education, the MEA invites parents, community leaders, and members of the Maine Legislature to work together to truly put students at the center of our school improvement efforts and to base them upon proven, research-based approaches, not political ideology.

Chris Galgay is president and Lois Kilby-Chesley is vice president of the Maine Education Association.

 

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