Education Reform
While Maine is blessed with many incredible teachers, our educational system has created an environment that has created a mass-exodus of teachers and it needs to be fixed. Most of our current teachers in the state are working and taking a lower salary than they could make outside of teaching, and they do that because their heart is to invest in the next generation. They want to see our children grow up to be successful, functioning adults, playing an active beneficial role in society. Did you know Maine's students currently achieve lower than a 50% proficiency in the foundational subjects of schooling (ie-Math, Science, Literacy). Our current educational system is failing the teachers, the students, their parents and our society at large. The current administration in Augusta (legislative and executive branches) refuse to acknowledge this. Janet Mills knows this and just (summer of 2024) paid Maine's newspapers $60k to write 3 positive articles about Maine's schools ($20k per article). Propaganda is not the answer...admitting it is an issue and taking action is the answer.
The family unit has always been the building block of life in Maine, and our parents need to be allowed, encouraged, and helped to be involved in their child’s education. What we are teaching our children while they are home needs to be reinforced by what they are learning at school, and their parents need to know what is being taught in schools to help talk about it at home. I am a firm believer in education. I have a master’s degree in business and have considered going for a doctorate at some point, but I also readily admit that most of the key lessons in my life came from my parents and those closest to me growing up, and from the school of hard knocks as an adult. Our formal education in this state needs to be a priority, and it will be under my administration. That being said, it is ultimately the parents' responsibility for the training, guiding, and well-being of their children. Our education system needs to be respectful and supportive of the parents' role as primary caregivers of their children. Our current educational system doesn't do this. There is a visible and growing rift between parents and schools, our education system needs to be one that can be trusted by Mainers.
Our education system needs to make the basics reading and academics the focus again. It is not our school’s job or right to teach and insist that our children embrace the administration’s system of social beliefs. We need our schools to refocus on reading, writing, math, sciences, social studies and technology with verifiable results that demonstrate increased proficiency in these areas. We need our students to graduate from Maine high schools with a comfortable working knowledge of the practical skills that they will need to navigate through life after graduation. Our students need to know how to create a financial budget; they need to know the importance of saving and investing.
If you as a parent don't feel that your child is receiving that at your local public school option, you should have the freedom to choose another means of educating your child. Having school choice allows the parents (who know the children the best and in most cases, love the child the most) to make decisions that are best for their particular child to learn what they need in life to be successful. Right now we have just a few formats of schools, with the biggest one being the public option...I hope to see a bunch of formats of smaller schools all around the state that are meeting children's educational needs in their own way and watch our children absolutely thrive in life. Logic and history would both tell us that putting hundreds of people in the same building and teaching them ALL the same way all at once would be less effective than smaller classrooms with specialized approaches...so why are we doing it the first way? Let's lay aside our "traditions" and do what is best for our children.