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Posted By:Candice at February 1, 2007 7:10 PM (Suggest Removal)
I would like to commend Maine's Gov. and Education Commissoner in their efforts to bring Maine's public education to a level where graduates can be admitted to public and private institutions of higher learning throughout the nation and abraod. As a resident on loan from Florida as the result of the Hurricans of 2004 with two teenaged daughters the Western Maine School systems are such that they have been unable to provide adequate education for my aspiring children. When my oldest entered her Jr. year, there was not a single science class available as she had taken both biology and chemistry in Florida (college level), she went without that year. She also had to take elective history courses as the two years of history in Florida covered all of the material covered in your dragged out four year program. She had to switch from Latin, which she had two years of, along with three years of Spanish in middle school to French because neither Spanish, nor Latin are offered at her high school here. She spent half her day "working' in the library for credit. She had to take pre-calculus independent because it too was not offered. This year my daughter only has physics lab first period on Tuesdays and Thursdays, no other classes and the newly hired physics teacher who has 5 students in the AP physics class she is in has announced he will be departing and not finishing the school year. Last years French teacher decided at the last minute not to teach this year and left the school with no teacher for about the first six weeks of this year. There are less than 70 students in my daughters senior class. This is not enough to offer the courses necesary to prepare students for work or further education. The schools in Florida are county operated. There are eleven high schools in our county. Each high school provides general education for students in its geographic area and also is a magnet school. My daughter had a 40 minute bus ride from the transfer location to her AP/H/IP magnet high school in the south east part of the county. There are 4000 students in her school. Her school here is less than 7% her school there. She had a full range of music, art, history, languages, PE, psychology, sociology, clubs, photography, you name it because they had the student base, if her school didn't have it, she could get it through another county school. Besides my Sr. now loosing her physics teacher and both girls starting french late, both have been without a guidence councelor from close of school till the first day of school, they have had two pricipals this year and two athletic directors. My sophmore has had three enlish teachers this year and two math teachers this year. What kind of education is this. It is time to going forces and bring the numbers together. Six or eight students can not make a class. Three hundred students can not make up a high school. I would much rather see my child ride a bus an hour to school for four years and have an education than fifteen minutes and have no future. My hat is off to Gov. Baldacci and Commission Gendron keep up the good work, keep the future of Maine's kids first. Thank you also for creating Academ-e so my Sr has an English course at her level that she can take online through the University of Maine.

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