Governor’s plan, has local control “written all over it”

The governor’s proposal for the reduction of school districts from 290 to 26 is dramatic, bold and daring. It is certainly a move in the right direction. No one can seriously defend the current system as rational or efficient. What we have now is the product of the exigencies of history, and it’s in dire need of revision to serve the needs of students in the 21st century.

The governor’s proposal – the boldest of them all – comes to the same general conclusion as the Brookings Institution, the Maine Children’s Alliance and the Maine Board of Education reports: consolidate the schools, and use the savings to bolster student learning. Failure to do this – and I am not playing Chicken Little here – will handicap our children’s ability to sustain the quality of life that we have enjoyed. We will be unable to pass to them, and our grandchildren, a world with the promise of something better than what their parents had.

This is not rhetorical hyperbole. It is fact that needs urgent attention.

A major source of opposition to the consolidation movement is the deep commitment to local control. It is a defining quality of our life here in Maine, and there is great fear it will be lost in this scheme. I suggest we examine carefully and thoughtfully what we mean by “local control” before we rush to the conclusion that local control and consolidation are incompatible.

What do we mean by local control? Assuredly, we can agree it does not mean the right of any locality to provide an inferior education. When I read school board agendas published in local newspapers, I find they have a lot more to do with the conveyance of information than they do the exercising of control.

We need to be clear: The larger boards will not mean that local communities will have no influence. I am confident any superintendent worth his or her salt will be careful to listen to local community voices and be sure they are heard at the regional level. Perhaps we should go even so far as to mandate that “Local Advisory Councils” have a voice and some authority, for example, in selecting a principal and determining the local school budget.

When we unpackage the notion of local control as our fellow citizens talk about it, they are declaring they want to know what is happening in their schools, and they want a meaningful opportunity to influence those practices in their community schools.

Indeed, the picture presented in the regional approach of an inclusive community group, working within a larger district framework with a local principal and staff, fashioning a program that will work best for the community’s students has “local control” written all over it.

It seems ongoing engagement of the community “on the ground” in the school represents a more effective way to stay connected and really exercise the kind of local control that truly matters for kids. Surely, if we are willing to turn our minds to it, we can imagine better ways to exercise “local control,” and if we can imagine it, we can implement it to help our young people.

That is the point, isn’t it? What is best for kids? It is not about adult power, it is about preparing our kids for challenging opportunities in the 21st century. And consolidation can help us respond to the challenges of this century by providing computers to students through grade 12, and by beginning to remove financial impediments to postsecondary education through scholarships for those who need them.

Taken together, these two initiatives are a huge step forward for Maine kids, and they are inextricably connected to the savings generated by the consolidation of central office functions.

Let’s not get bogged down in a tradition-bound definition of local control (power). We can retain meaningful local control in a new form, that promises to be effective and at the same time capture revenue savings from consolidation that can be redirected to benefit our young people.

We owe them that!

James W. Carignan, of Harpswell, is chairman of the Maine Board of Education and a retired dean of Bates College.