Maine’s Largest Daily Brags On Bargain Education – While Its Own Columnist Says The Math Doesn’t Add Up

Amid great fanfare, the Portland Press Herald not long ago announced it was establishing what it was calling a “fact-checking” team to keep their competitors on their toes.

But one would assume that a squad that was created to do nothing but make sure everyone else got the facts straight would at least do the same in-house.

Big mistake on that assumption, no pun intended.

Judging from the most recent faux pas they can’t even keep their own facts straight at the printing house run by the National Trust for Local Journalism.

The fact squad trumpeted its pride this week pointing out that Maine has the lowest per-pupil education cost in New England.

Hard to tell why suddenly they would decide to publish that gem of information but in any event it couldn’t be more irrelevant.

The paper’s readers wouldn’t need long memories to recall that just five days before the fact squad came out with that little tidbit of information its own veteran columnist pointed out that per-pupil costs are irrelevant.

The columnist, Jim Fossel, wrote a piece underscoring that the expense of education is moot if it’s not measured by the result.

“When it comes to education in Maine, spending is not the problem,” Fossel opined. “The question isn’t the spending.

“Instead, it’s whether we’re getting good results out of that spending – and, lately, the data show that we’re not,” he said.

Maine fourth-graders’ math and reading skills last year were ranked among the lowest in the country, according to the Nation’s Report Card.

In Mississippi, which spends $12,300 per student compared to Maine’s $19,310 , student scores “have been generally increasing,” Fossel said.

“They’re now ahead of us in both fourth-grade math and reading,” he noted.

Looks like the Portland Press Herald has to now appoint Fact Squad 2.0 to keep Fact Squad 1.0 in check.

Scorecard Facebook followers:

✓ The Maine Wire 158,000

✓ Portland Press Herald 93,000