Despite the old saying, desperate times do not always call for desperate measures.
It is certainly within reason to characterize the crisis in state education funding – the loss of $38 million this year to local school districts, with hints of more severe cuts in coming years – as desperate times. But the subsequent reactions of some school officials, teachers and parents suggest that the time has not yet come for desperate measures. Instead, some districts have responded with creativity and a willingness to look beyond old methods in order to deliver quality education in a dire economic environment, and to make changes that should have been considered long ago.
Last month, for example, Westbrook Superintendent Reza Namin restructured the school department’s administration, eliminating four positions and consolidating two others to save nearly $600,000. As part of the plan, Namin agreed with a proposal from the city’s municipal government to share a financial director – an example of how departments, and even communities, could work together to save tax dollars.
The budget crisis has also spurred communities to take the kind of action that often comes in the week or two preceding a budget vote. In some cases, administrators, teachers and parents have responded, at least initially, with a vigor that focuses not only on how to keep taxes down or fill budget gaps, but also on how to maintain the high level of education that the 21st century demands.
In Scarborough, a new parent-teacher group met for the first time recently to argue that not enough local dollars are being spent to educate the town’s students, and outlined ways ¬- from larger classes to too few computers – that students are being shortchanged.
The Windham-Raymond School Department is undergoing a similar process by convening a group of residents and community leaders to discuss exactly what should be expected of the department, and how to reach those goals together.
The involvement of the community in these matters must hold, and even intensify, if Maine is to survive the changes that are sure to come as long as the state is unable to adequately fund education.
Yet creativity and hard work, as admirable as they are, will only go so far. Eventually, schools simply will not have the resources to do what absolutely needs to be done – educate Maine students to compete on a global level. Some districts are already facing this problem.
In rural Regional School Unit 57, based in Waterboro, as residents gathered to discuss the current and future budget shortfalls, Superintendent Frank Sherburne said the district is no longer able to deliver a top-flight education.
“We are no longer talking about the best anymore,” Sherburne said. “I can’t lie to you, nor can the board.”
His words are as frightening as they are honest, and RSU 57’s situation is hardly unique; in fact, if the crisis continues as expected, it will be commonplace.
So the time will come, if not this year then certainly next, when communities will be forced to make a decision: continue down a path that is destroying education, or swallow higher property tax rates at a time when people are struggling to make ends meet.
To us, the choice is clear. While higher taxes will unfortunately burden many residents, educational needs must be met. We have to be sure our students can compete. We have to be sure our future workforce can help fire the country’s economic engine.
We have to get back to talking about the best.
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