How to Rebuild Our Broken Schools

Of all the challenges facing Maine, caring for our children – assuring their safety, ability to prosper, and live with confidence – tops the list. Our children’s chance to enjoy peace and prosperity depends on getting them properly educated. Sadly, over 30 years, Democrats have squandered the high-performing schools we once had. It’s time to rebuild.

Five and half decades ago, I began a journey in education. That journey started in a little schoolhouse in Wayne, four rooms, two grades per room, and the Pledge of Allegiance every morning.

While my sisters, brother and I took our first steps toward far horizons in that little schoolhouse, our mother taught – for more than 40 years – in a Monmouth schoolhouse. There it was the same ritual.

Maybe surprising to some, we were highly motivated – to learn. Parents and teachers insisted on it, expected it, and did not let us wander from the mission. Neither teachers nor the principal cared one iota about politics, never mentioned it, except in the context of biographical greats.

Instead, they measured their success by our success, in and beyond the classroom. They set high expectations and insisted on discipline. With the support of parent, teachers taught us to set our expectations high and taught self-discipline. They also taught math, reading, science, history.

All across Maine this happened, teachers given freedom to tailor lessons to our needs, gently herding us like rambunctious horses, corral to corral. In time, we learned in primary, middle and then in high school.

By the time we graduated, we could all do Algebra and Geometry, some Calculus. We were reading books on our own, Kenneth Roberts, Jack London, favorite authors. We had an exposure to classics, had learned Earth Science, Biology, Chemistry, and Physics. Some learned Welding, Carpentry, how to work under the hood of a car, and how to work with electricity.

Most of us were confident – even at that age – in our future. Some classmates would become Master Maine guides, others start businesses from homebuilding to accounting, still others become nurses, musicians, educators, pilots. Two would be US Marines, one Air Force, one Army, several got good wages at our local paper mill (now gone), I went on to higher education and the Navy.

The point is Maine’s public education system prepared us, taught us, worked. Today, by contrast, while America is ranked 31 among 78 nations, Maine ranks “dead last” – ie. at the bottom – in public education. In 30 short years, under Democrat leadership – Maine has let go of the kite string.

Today – and studies by the Maine Policy Institute make the point well – our public schools are failing. What that means is that we are failing our kids.

We are measuring success in the wrong ways, money spent per pupil, ideological conformity, political activism, graduation rates based on lower standards, less learning, more indulgence, and less rigor.

Last year, US News & World Report put Maine 50 of 50, in public education. Fully 71 percent of our 4th graders cannot read to level, while nearly as many 8th graders cannot do math. Less than two percent of our schools were in the top quarter nationally.

What does this mean? A child who cannot read or do math is handicapped, put on a path for frustration, self-doubt, lower wages, less confidence, no job at Bath Iron Works, no promotions, no American Dream, and is likely to meet failure.

A child who might have succeeded in countless ways, as we all did, is denied the basic skills required to form and follow his or her dreams, instead of being on a virtuous cycle, ends up on vicious one.

Whose responsibility is that? Ours. Leadership is needed, and has been sorely missing for decades. So, where is the good news? Right here. If those Democrats in Augusta and on school boards can stop focusing on politics, and focus on kids, we can rebuild Maine’s school system.

What will that take? First, a belief that it matters, more than anything else – that our legacy is our kids. Second, a commitment to doing the right thing, what works not what a party says. To get back to the top, public schools, religious schools and homeschoolers must all succeed.

How do we do that? Drop the political mandates, stop spending to please unions, stop measuring success by money – because that is not working. Raise teacher pay, morale, and freedom, stop excusing low performance, elevate expectations for teachers and kids, rewarding them when these are met.

We need to return Industrial Arts (shop) to schools, integrate job training wherever possible, link schools to future jobs, abandon the old, failed federal standards. More broadly, expect and create mentally strong, hardworking, self-motivating contributors to society, effective schools.

Outside the schoolhouse, we need to protect our kids too – on the streets from predatory drug traffickers, and – following the example and work of people like Bill Diamond – assuring Foster Care works, not one child faces abuse. Inside the schoolhouse, kids must be fed, given a chance to succeed.

Our kids get just one childhood, which means we have one chance to make K-12 work for them. The next governor and commissioner of education will have their hands full, but we can organize, educate, and prepare to inspire and enable proficiency, and encourage kids to reach higher.

There is so much more, rewarding good teachers and students, creating real school choice, restoring faith by parents in these schools, restoring respect for faith in the schools, but to get there – we first have to care. It’s time to rebuild.