What Abigail Adams Would Say About Maine’s Education Crisis

Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams and mother of John Quincy Adams, was an insightful, “to the point” writer. Without her counsel, our second president would have stumbled, lost confidence and his way. Top of her list was faith, family – and education. We must hear her wisdom again, now.

Wrote Abagail: “Learning is not obtained by chance. It must be sought … with ardor and diligence.” Ardor is, of course, enthusiasm, or passion, or love of a thing. Diligence is just plain hard work.

The latest national – and Maine – education results show America’s students are learning neither “ardor” nor “diligence.” They are hardly learning, at all. This year, the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) reported that American students are not just lagging the world, but also their past.

Math scores are at historic lows for 8th and 4th graders, reading scores falling from the 2022 all-time lows. This 2024 drop is more than troubling, it should be setting off alarm bells.

Without math and reading skills, achievement has no chance, progress stalls, and survival itself becomes a question.

Without math, trades fail. Carpenters, plumbers, mechanics, welders, electricians, ironworkers, machinists, paramedics, radiologists, masons, loggers, and fishermen all fail when denied the basics of an education in math as it applies to all these trades..

Without math skills, tied to reading, houses, cars, trucks, ships, planes, as well as roads, shipbuilding, airports, and energy fail to be designed, built, and maintained. Absent learning, what breaks just stays broken. Just check out places like Afghanistan, Laos, Bolivia, or much of Africa.

Bottom line: We are in trouble – and that is before we get to education of engineers, doctors, accountants, biologists, chemists, physicists, economists, historians, law enforcement, firefighters, and a qualified military.

Peeling back the onion, some states are bottom of the heap. Maine – once on top for public schools – is unfortunately one of these today, failing its youngest generations spectacularly, unforgivably, betraying them with politics.

Why focus on Maine? Because Maine is a glaring example of what happens when one party – in our case, the Democrats – control things for 30 years. FAILURE, in capital letters, is the outcome. In 2023, Maine ranked dead last in the US News & World Report ranking of education outcomes.

And 2024 is little better. Data does not lie. It tells a story. The 2024 NAEP scores show Maine with the lowest math and reading scores in history, after leading the nation 30 years ago. Today, only 33 percent of Maine’s 4th graders are math-capable, and only 26 percent are proficient in reading. So, more than two-thirds, or 67 percent of Maine’s 4th graders lag in math, and almost three-quarters, or 74 percent, flail in reading – and based on how little they’ve done about it, Maine’s Democrat government could give a rats’…

Maine’s Democrat leaders wear a “scarlet letter,” an allusion to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s book by that name that too few nowadays will get. They have devastated the future of Maine kids, and families fleeing our public schools.

As the results show, Maine’s primary and secondary schools are in a free-fall. Statewide enrollment, even before what is left unlearned – and taught that has no place being taught – fell from 207,000 to 168,000 – or 19 percent – from 2000 to 2023. From 2007 to 2015, the number of Maine teachers dropped from 16,700 to 14,500.

As teachers are punished for trying to impose consequences on students by Democrat-dominated administrators, Maine’s Democrat governor and legislature, teacher morale plummets. Many move away or retire.

As teachers lose control over their teaching plans, curriculum more broadly, and academic freedom, big things go untaught. Back when Maine schools topped the nation, even average students like me got four years of math, science, English, a language, two of history (one of Maine history), industrial arts, and time to wonder and think.

Those days are gone. Today, Maine public high schools are in trouble. Discipline problems are rampant, and driven by fear of holding kids accountable, standards are constantly lowered (11 credits will “graduate” a student), Democrat political priorities replacing objective learning, drugs are everywhere – There is NO LEADERSHIP.

Speaking frankly, this is on us – the voters. Teachers are given the freedom we let them have, through state political leaders. Kids learn what we teach and model, what we care about.

Fact: Maine, like other Democrat-dominated states, is paying a terrible price for indifference to kids, pretending their success does not count, that skill learning (which is hard) can be replaced by emotional learning, sensitivity, the grievance culture. Spoiler alert: That does not work, it never has.

Without teaching values – like Abigail Adam’s appeal to “ardor” or enthusiasm for learning, and the power of “diligence” or hard work, we are doomed to the insanity of repeating bad outcomes.

The problem is not money, as the students per teacher ratio has fallen by half and spending has doubled in 20 years. It is about quality of what is taught, the lack of critical thinking, teaching kids to question the assumptions not accept them, think for themselves, not pose and play.

Student outcomes go to undercut, second-guessed, unfree, demoralized teachers, pushed by administrators and politically craven leaders in Augusta. When Democrats push indoctrination over real education, kids lose. Time to start winning. Maine’s kids – and the Nation’s – need us. Somehow, I think Abigail Adams would agree.