[Local-Maine-Schools] Gail Marshall's Op-ed: Fight Club, Augusta style

[Brian Hubbell]

Fight Club, Augusta style
Gail Marshall

In the realm of legislation and public policy it is always good to have a
frank discussion with those whose objectives are different than your own.
The outcome is likely to be far better for it. For over a year Mount Desert
Island citizens have been trying to do that with the governor and the
commissioner of education over the subject of school consolidation. At
virtually every turn we have been met with smoke and mirrors. This past week
we entered the land of fight club politics.

There are so many problems with the consolidation law passed last June that
the commissioner has proposed "fixes" in an attempt to forestall widespread
collapse of reorganization efforts. But the Band-aids would dictate cost
shifts on MDI of upwards of half a million dollars and force the loss of
municipal control of key aspects of our schools with no attending benefit.

Therefore the state has forced us into the unpalatable position of just
going along quietly, forfeiting three quarters of a million dollars in
non-compliance penalties, or hiring legal counsel to draft an alternative.

For now we have chosen the latter. Known as the Damon Amendment to the
school consolidation repair bill, our legislation offers a comprehensive
statewide alternative. It allows for the continued existence of school
unions. A common high school, superintendent, curriculum director, special
education director, business office and other efficiencies are already in
place on MDI. Similar administrative consolidation would be required of
others choosing to use the Damon Amendment. The amendment is not intended as
a substitute for Regional School Units. It is an alternative to consider
when struggling with the myriad problems the Department of Education's grand
schemes have generated.

So, how is the Damon Amendment being received? Launched February 12 with an
able presentation by our senator, it survived the first vote in the Senate.
Since that moment the hallway between the two chambers has been rife with
assertions like: "the Governor is livid." the commissioner is "breaking
knee-caps," and "World War Three" is underway. What that all means as far as
we can tell is that a scorched earth policy against the Damon Amendment is
in full swing. There may be an attempt to reconsider the bill in the Senate
when they reconvene on February 25.

The Department of Education is spamming the public with allegations of
inherent flaws and exorbitant expenses in school unions. Here are a few of
the published assertions:

• School unions spend an extra $24 million annually solely because of their
form of governance.

• A regional school union can not possibly be considered one legal entity
for the purpose of interacting with the state and therefore there will be
far more than 80 school systems, the state's artificially set maximum
number.

• Voters in school unions have less oversight of their schools and are more
confused than those in larger school systems.

• "Clear, consistent K-12 curriculum, budgeting, priorities, etc" in a
school union are "impossible."

• School unions have "too many layers" of administration, (by which they
mean your local school board).

Only problem: none of their assertions are true. And they know it.

The canard that school unions cost more because they are school unions has
been repeatedly asserted, challenged and rejected by David Silvernail, the
state's own inveterate expert witness. There is no causal relationship
between the form of governance and the cost per pupil. Take a look at the
map of school unions. You will see they have two things in common: They tend
to be in small communities and/or they tend to be clustered along the coast.
Communities along the coast tend to have bigger property tax bases and raise
and spend more money to educate their children. And economies of scale will
dictate that per pupil expenses will be greater when there are fewer
children in each classroom.

A regional school union can and is considered one system because the Damon
Amendment declares it to be so by law. It will interface with the state
government as one entity. The magic number of 80 systems will not be
breached under this amendment any more than it will under the Regional
School Unit system. However, if we are forced into choosing non-compliance,
that would create nine school systems on MDI and adjoining islands, over 10
percent of the total DOE target.

Those who would argue that a small town meeting form of government provides
less budgetary oversight than a big school district have never been before
any of our warrant committees or stood on the floor of a town meeting to
answer citizens' questions. The state's assertion is wholly unsubstantiated,
perhaps offered by someone with little or no experience with small town
government. Further, it was Portland, the state's largest school system,
which surprised its citizens with a million dollar overdraft last year.

As for well-coordinated curriculum and priorities, I challenge the
commissioner of education to tell us who are the school systems that have a
more coordinated, better aligned, more refined learning results system,
better local areas assessment system (or ANY local area assessment system)
more collegial union-wide faculty professional interaction and more parental
access to school administrators than Union 98. I promise you that if the
answer is honest, the list will be very short. Are there unions that are not
as coordinated? Yes. Is that because of the structure? No. Will greater
coordination be expected under the Damon Amendment? Yes.

Too many layers of administration? There are school administrative district
(SAD) superintendents who do not like school unions. They complain about
having to go to too many school committee meetings and answer to all those
different elected citizens. Well, fine. They shouldn't work in one. But it
is not acceptable to attempt to deny our citizens the right to directly and
immediately participate in the governance of our local schools. Our
superintendent will tell you that attending meetings in each school gives
him unparalleled ability to know and manage each and all of our schools and
provide the kind of coordinated leadership we need. His task is made easier
because within our union we have a single school calendar, virtually
identical policies and identical teacher union contracts. There is nothing
inherent in the union structure that prevents any of that. What will prevent
coordination, regardless of the structure, is the atmosphere that will be
created when towns are forced to consolidate against their will.

Whatever the motivation for the Machiavellian behavior of the governor and
commissioner, we believe our course is clear. Either we obtain the right to
order our educational system in our communities in a manner that preserves
the integrity of our schools and recognizes their contributions to each of
our towns, or we part company with the state over the reorganization of our
schools. Ultimately you, the voter, will have to make that decision. We are
doing our best to secure a positive outcome to put before you. But, sadly,
we are witnessing our educational leaders saying and doing anything to
defeat our efforts. We recommend you don't let the kids watch.

But if you want to, make sure you regularly read mdischools.net

There you could also subscribe to the Local Maine
Schools<http://mainetalk.org/mailman/listinfo/local-maine-schools_mainetalk.org>e-mail
discussion list. Our next reorganization planning meeting, to which
you are always welcome, is set for February 27 at 7 p.m. in the MDI High
School Library.

Gail Marshall is a resident of Mount Desert and chair of the MDI
Reorganization Planning Committee.
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