When I first came to the U.S. Senate 10 years ago, our state of Maine had the dubious distinction of having the highest smoking rate among 18- to 34-year-olds in the country. Nearly 40 percent of Maine high school students smoked, and nearly one and a half million packs of cigarettes were illegally purchased by Maine’s young people each year.
Maine’s economic growth depends on the quality of our workforce, and Maine’s community colleges are critical in that effort. Since 2003 these colleges have seen rapid growth.
The Legislature is in full swing in Augusta. As the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee, my colleagues and I have been working overtime, including weekends, to forge a compromise on the final details of the state’s two-year budget.
In light of the massive changes our education system will undoubtedly see coming out of this legislative session, the antics of the Legislature’s Education and Cultural Affairs Committee are far from comforting.
Children used to face more tangible dangers. When most of us were growing up, our parents’ warning of “never talk to strangers” seemed sufficient to arm us against those who might want to do us harm. But today’s children face threats that are harder to see and often hard for parents to understand.
Remember Red Skelton? Red had a “Great Old Pro” way with humor. He could slam all of us, yet we all loved him. His humor was a thin disguise for his respect for us.
As a member of the Education & Cultural Affairs Committee, I have found myself very busy with many meetings addressing the proposed school regionalization plans submitted by the Governor and several members of the legislature.
In those rare moments of daydreaming in my Presque Isle High School classes I could not imagine that one day I would be walking through the streets of Shanghai, China. At the time all that we really knew about the place was that it was communist, it had something called a ‘Great Wall’, and lots and lots of people who were poor.
Each year, the president of the Maine Community College System and the chancellor of the University of Maine System address a joint session of the Maine Legislature and report on their systems’ achievements over the past year.
Since I began my career in the United States Congress 28 years ago, I have seen firsthand the struggles of women trying to achieve equal representation in medical studies and research.
