Month: March 2013

Reform red in tooth and claw

Friday, March 22, I attended the Governor’s Conference on Education.  The conference featured presentations by free-market education reformers like the Friedman Foundation and Students First which generally advocate for more standardized testing, fewer unions, and less public oversight in education.  No one even mentioned what makes Finland’s schools …

 
Graphic representation of state plus local education spending and EPS level (DoE)

Outline overview and context for the current budget deliberations:

• Annual state aid to local schools (the base stratum bounded by the lower red line in the graph above) has declined by $84 million since 2008 (from $978M to $894M).
• Since 2008, by the

…

This week the Education Committee heard two bills for which the testimony favoring and opposing seemed particularly irreconcilable.

1. The post-modern herd

One, LD 672: An Act Relating to Exemption from Immunization for Schoolchildren, responds to a recent national increase, mirrored in Maine, of parents who are choosing not to immunize their children.  Maine …

Legislative report: March 11-12, 2013

This week it felt as if the Legislature and the Governor finally both took two steps in the right direction on the hospital debt.  With both sides plainly committed to making the hospitals whole, the negotiations now appear to hinge on whether its better for the state to build …

Morning

• Breakfast with Critical Access Hospitals at Maine Hospital Association.
• House Session
• Visit from Pemetic School sixth-graders

Afternoon

• Lunch with Island Coalition
• Education Committee hearings
  • LD 668: An Act To Make Agriculture Studies a Part of the Maine Curriculum, Rep. Daughtry
  • LD 669: An Act Requiring School Administrative Units To Adopt School Volunteer

…

Morning
Education Committee work session

• LD 442: Resolve, To Ensure the Continued Accessibility and Affordability of a High School Equivalency Exam for Maine Residents, Sen. Langley
• LD 466: An Act To Provide an Honorary Diploma to Veterans, Rep. Chipman of Portland
• LD 528: An Act To Require Parental Consent for a School To

…

Morning

Press conference with MELIG business leaders announcing Elevate Maine initiative to expand earlychildhood education

• Business leaders commit to raising money for early childhood education

Met with Governor’s policy people to discuss better biological management for landlocked salmon and brook trout and common goals in education policy.

Passamaquoddy concerns re elvers and licensing.

Afternoon:

Education …

Democratic press conference on hospital debt and state liquor contract.

• Democrats, LePage swap offers on liquor, hospitals
• Consensus to expand Medicaid in Maine seen as likely
• Democrats, LePage swap offers on liquor, hospitals
• State House hearing on hospital debt opens with LePage

Morning briefing from Commissioner Bowen on the education sections of the biennial budget. …

Tuesday afternoon, I attended a presentation to the Appropriations Committee by Gordon Smith, the Vice President of the Maine Medical Association about whether the state should accept the additional federal money offered by the Affordable Care Act in order to cover uninsured Mainers.

Mr. Smith gave a detailed and thoughtful presentation of the reasoning given …

On February 26th and 27th, hosted by Educate Maine, the legislature’s Education Committee took a field trip to visit the Williams School in Oakland and to attend a policy symposium in Freeport.

About 200 students attend the Williams School. Nominally, these students are in the third, fourth, and fifth grades. But, for the past …

Monday, February 25, in committee, we got our first detailed look at some of the initiatives related to education that the Governor has placed within his biennial budget proposal.

As Commisioner Bowen was up in our neighborhood congratulating Deer Isle High School for their dramatically improved graduation rate, our committee was briefed on …