To the editor:
I recently listened to two dismal comments on Maine’s education issue from Paul LePage. In one he seems to advocate importing Asian students to raise Maine’s standardized math test scores. I am not quite clear as what disturbed me more: the racial stereotype or his assumption that the people of Maine are so unintelligent that we have to import brains.
The other was even more disturbing: beating the drum to close schools like the University of Maine campuses in Presque Isle, Fort Kent and Machias. That was quite a statement made on Channel X Radio July 15. From the interview it was clear that Paul LePage does not know the difference between a trade school, a community college, or a university. He also seems unable to distinguish the difference between a small private college and a public college or university either. This lack of understanding clearly disqualifies him to contribute to Maine’s education issues.
Eliot Cutler, though far more articulate, also seems to advocate the closing of our campuses or reducing our important rural campuses in to mere feeder schools for the Orono campus of the University of Maine system. He indicated this in a interview this spring, where he stated, “We simply can’t afford for every campus to operate in its own silo.” He also seems to indicate combining the University and Community College systems into a massive centralized mega-system.
Both candidates seem unaware of the importance of regional campuses to our local Maine populations that are place bound and separated by long distances from the Orono campus, the large numbers of jobs they add to our local Maine regions, and the number of graduates they produce. Cutler in particular makes the assumption that higher education in Maine is a static institution that rarely if ever reflects on its role in the state, reforms itself, or considers the needs of its graduates.
Nothing is further from the truth. Both the faculty and administration have gone through painful program cuts, retrenchment of tenured faculty (the academic term for layoffs), exhaustive programs reviews, collaboration between campuses and made remarkable innovations (such as the rapid implementation of on line courses). Programs with few graduates have already been cut unless they are a critical part of the regional school’s mission, a new developing program or an important part of the local economy.
“New Challenges-New Directions” has been a painful part of University Maine systems landscape for some time. We have also been working on a fair way of transferring credits agreements between the state’s community colleges and the University of Maine System. Part of the problem has been previous University of Maine administrative policy which made the University’s campuses actively compete with one another rather than cooperate. The legacy of this foolish “free-market” is that the faculty and administrations of our campuses are only recently beginning to communicate in an effective and honest manner. This competition model ended (officially) several years ago, but this has an enduring legacy that started before even Angus King was governor.
Libby Mitchell understands the education needs of the state of Maine. She doesn’t advocate LePage’s slash and burn strategy (which seems to be the only strategy of the Tea Party in general). Indeed she has stated that reforming the UM System “doesn’t mean dismantling the access points of our campuses.” Libby knows the value of higher education within our state well. She recently wrote, “each campus is a driving force for both the culture and economy of their community and the state is better off because of it.”
Libby Mitchell has consistently advocated for a better collaboration between the providers of higher education in Maine as part of educational reform efforts without doing violence to our children’s futures. This is a far superior solution to closing important regional campuses or consolidating the University and Community College System into a massive, centralized bureaucracy. That is why I support her as Maine’s best choice for governor.
John F. DeFelice
Presque Isle
