THE NATIVE CONSERVATIVE: George Smith

Maine's school funding formula doesn't work

Copyright © 2006 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.

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Maine's latest school funding formula provides state dollars to local school districts based on an allocation model called Essential Programs and Services, or EPS. Some consider it nothing but a scheme to avoid state funding of local education at the hoped-for and promised 55 percent level.

It may be no coincidence that the EPS model came along at the same time the governor and legislature promised to -- over time -- increase state funding to that 55 percent level. EPS allows them to lowball the total upon which that 55 percent is based.

They're only promising to pay 55 percent of the costs of what they have decided are essential programs and services. Any programs and services beyond that must be paid entirely with local property tax dollars.

You'd have to join the skeptics when you examine what the state now considers nonessential.

Foreign languages, for example, are no longer essential. Despite the rhetoric about how Mainers must be able to compete in the global market place, it apparently isn't important to understand the language of any other country in that market place.

You might say, well, elementary students don't need foreign languages. They can begin studying languages in high school. Not exactly! Studies show that younger children grasp new languages much more readily than to older students.

I would like to meet the brilliant scholars who determined that music is not essential. My life has been immeasurably enriched by music, from pre-kindergarten to today. Experiences in band and glee club and choir, at Winthrop Elementary and High Schools, were just as critical to my education and success in life as were my lessons in math, science, and English.

Shame on those who would not offer Maine children an opportunity to have music in their school lives!

The state is short-changing us in a host of other areas too, from transportation to special education to food service. Rural towns are especially hard hit because our kids literally can't get to school, from home, without the bus.

The worst of this involves the state's Learning Results mandate. The state demands that our students measure up to their Learning Results standards, but many of the courses and areas of study needed to achieve those learning results have been left off the list of essential programs. Hypocrites!

And then there's the argument over class sizes. The state no longer considers small classes to be essential, even though any village idiot can understand that students get more of a teacher's valuable time and attention as the class shrinks in size.

And whatever happened to the drive to raise the aspirations of Maine kids? Now, we ask them to aspire only to what is essential, nothing more. Shame on us.

At Mount Vernon's June town meeting, we were asked to vote -- by secret ballot (another interesting state mandate; I guess they don't trust us to raise our hands or voices as we do for all other warrant articles) -- on an article to raise and appropriate $100,057 in additional local funds to pay for programs and services that are not covered by the state's essential programs and services allocation model.

I was proud of my friends and neighbors who voted, 42 to 3, in favor of that article. Now that was a statement! We made a decision years ago as a community that our children would have as much opportunity for a good education as the children in other Maine communities. We know what is essential and we support it every year.

We also supported, two years ago, the Maine Municipal Association's ballot initiative to force the state to provide property tax relief by funding, immediately, 55 percent of the costs of public education.

In a panic, the Governor and legislature repealed that new law and replaced it with a promise to increase state aid to the 55 percent level over time, based on their own new EPS formula.

Clearly we didn't get what we voted for, and the new promise falls far short of what we wanted. You might be excused for being angry that your vote was treated so cavalierly.

I guess my University of Maine education is just not sophisticated enough to allow me to understand the thinking behind the state's essential programs and services model.

But then again, how sharp do you have to be to see the hypocrisy and cynicism in the state's manipulation of this issue? Not too sharp, I'd say!

George Smith is the executive director of the Sportsman's Alliance of Maine. He lives in Mount Vernon and can be reached at george@samcef.org.