Maine Legislature
House Democratic
Office
February
11, 2012
Contact:
Jodi Quintero [Nelson], 287-1488, c. 841-6279
Rep. Nelson:
LePage education agenda wrong choice for Maine
Good
morning, I’m Democratic State Representative Mary Nelson from Falmouth.
For
the past three years, I have served the people of my community and the
state on the Legislature’s Education and Cultural Affairs Committee.
We’ve
had the opportunity to hear directly from parents, teachers, students, and
business leaders about what’s most important for Maine’s classrooms.
If
you’re a parent, you want to make sure your child gets the best education.
If
you’re a teacher, you want to make sure all of your students are making the
grade.
If
you run a business, you want to make sure our classrooms are training the
workforce of the future.
We
all share these goals. How we get there is the challenge. Earlier
this week, the governor unveiled several new education initiatives that will
only make it harder to achieve our shared goals.
He’s
proposed initiatives that will hurt our local schools and communities and pit
Mainers against each other.
The
legislation would allow all students to attend schools outside their districts,
permit giving public taxpayer dollars to private religious schools,
and put our hard working teachers at risk.
The governor’s proposal to allow unbridled school choice in
our state will have a damaging impact on local taxes and local school budgets. Our local
schools are already working to do more with less. His proposal will only
make that job harder.
The
governor’s proposal also allows your tax dollars to be sent to churches and
religious institutions. In fact, state and local tax dollars could be
sent to religious schools and you, as a taxpayer, would have no say over
it. That’s simply wrong.
Maine's
school population is already declining. If schools begin losing students
to nearby schools, many will likely face closure and school boards will not be
able to budget with any certainty.
The
ripple effect would be felt across our communities. Ultimately, the program
will put more of a burden on property tax payers, especially in rural Maine,
where resources are already scarce. This is last thing we should be doing
when middle class and working class families are struggling to keep money in
their pockets.
Instead,
we should be doing everything we can to strengthen our public schools so every
child in Maine has the opportunity to get a top rate education. Not just
some children. One child shouldn’t benefit at the expense of another. The
governor’s proposal does nothing to improve our schools yet does everything to
create an education system of the “haves” and “have nots.”
In addition to undermining our public school system, the
governor’s proposal will also put our teachers at risk. Teachers are the single
most important resource to a child’s learning.
We must ensure that teachers are supported in the classroom,
while also holding them more accountable. The governor’s proposal won’t do
that. Instead of focusing on ways to improve standards for teachers, his
proposal allows
superintendents and principals to unfairly punish teachers and fire them
without cause or reason.
Attacking
basic workplace rights of teachers won’t help our children.
We
all want a world class education system in our state. We will only
accomplish that if we focus our resources, involve the community, engage
parents, train and support teachers, and invest in our children.
The
governor’s proposals won’t move us in the right direction.
A
quality education should not be determined by a zip code, nor by the ability of
a parent to transport a child to a school out of their community. We owe
it to every Maine student to have access to an excellent education no
matter where they live, and to provide support to teachers in every corner of
the state.
Thank
you for listening. I’m Representative Mary Nelson. Have great weekend!