I've made no bones about the fact that neither of the two major party candidates were my choice for governor. Eliot Cutler, who I endorsed and voted for, had what I considered a plan and a talented team to carry it out, and Shawn Moody had the strongest understanding of what many of Maine's young people and micro-businesses needed.
But the days since the election have been fascinating…a conversation with a close friend livid at both Libby Mitchell and Eliot Cutler for not joining forces to beat LePage. A respected colleague in Wisconsin (who may have helped vote a principled politician I revere and once worked for, Russ Feingold, out of office) asking, “How’s it feel to wake up in a red state?” A conversation with my “throw the bums out” father, who finds lots to admire in LePage, daring me to find something positive in this outcome.
But even more surprising was a conversation with a close Chellie Pingree ally who is also a passionate LePage advocate. What could possibly bind two candidates who, if you were to list almost any other comparable characteristic, life circumstance, or political position, would be opposites? In this person’s words, it is advocacy for “working class Mainers.”
All of this, along with a question from a parent who hopes for a Maine Enterprise School in her town, got me to thinking that Mr. LePage's election, along with the new majorities in the House and Senate, creates a great opportunity for dramatic change in Maine's education landscape.
Why? Mr. LePage supports a charter school law. Done well, PUBLIC charter schools play a vital role in transforming educational systems, like Maine's, that consistently fail to innovate in meaningful ways. That alone is not enough, though. There is no guarantee, unless the authorizing law is very carefully crafted, that it will actually serve those students most in need of options. As I've written elsewhere, done poorly, charter schools can confirm the fears of those who oppose them by fostering a further stratification of haves vs. have-nots.
Mr. LePage is also on record as a supporter of both further consolidation and greater local control – positions that may be very difficult to reconcile with each other. My critique of his education agenda has been the lack of specifics, and with consolidation the specifics will matter a great deal.
Many of us were intimately involved in trying to make the first round work - and I think we can agree that it fell short of the policy goals. We have fewer, but still far to many superintendents and school boards (the agents of the local control Mr LePage advocates). Round 1 was wrenching for communities - often with counterproductive result of closing schools that would be viable were the community not carrying hundreds of thousands of dollars of administrative costs. Consolidation was least popular and least effective in the rural communities in which Mr. LePage ran strongest.
Maine not only can, we MUST use the elements Mr. LePage supports - charters and consolidation - to re-invent a system that is more local AND more cost-effective -- by which I mean, with a nod to my good friend Tom Shepard, more productive, not just more efficient.
So in answer to the woman who is hoping for a public school in her town in which her son will thrive rather than languish, Mr. LePage’s election could make a Maine Enterprise School in her community - and a network of such schools around Maine - more likely. Such a network will not only work better for more young people, but create schools that serve their communities more sustainably.
But the work I’ve been doing to advocate with and educate “influencers” leading up to the election has not only had Maine Enterprise Schools innovations in mind. As I’ve spoken with leaders of non-profit social service organizations, business leaders, think-tanks, economic and workforce development folks, educators and lots of “just folks”, they almost all agree on one thing – many kids are NOT coming out of school as the kind of workers our businesses need, nor are they coming out with the creativity, problem-solving, resilience and, yes, hope – that would fuel the micro-business revolution Shawn Moody and others believe is out there. A majority of those who do come out of school with those characteristics (and the truth is that many of them are kids who ENTER school with those characteristics) are being quite reliably shipped out of state – the frequently bemoaned "brain drain."
But we also drain the brains (and souls?) of many young people from all kinds of backgrounds who find school neither rigorous, relevant, nor connected to the fiber of their community. Often these are the future entrepreneurs, artists, farmers, foresters and fishers who, if we connected them reliably to emerging 21st century economy, would stay in Maine. Going back to my friend, the Pingree/LePage man: could the brave new world make a real difference for, among others, “working class Mainers?”
My answer is: YES, if we build on what works. And NO, if we try to blow it all up and start over.
Tomorrow: Three lists of what works: one from Prepare Maine, one from the Nellie Maine Foundation, and one from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. And on Thursday, a proposal for how take those lists and turn them, by January, into bi-partisan, child-centered K-12 innovation legislation.
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