[Local-Maine-Schools] Consistency and reliability vs. shuck and jive

[Brian Hubbell]

Re: School cut topples trust
http://bangordailynews.com/news/t/viewpoints.aspx?articleid=148687

This is one more indication of the three-card monte confidence game
we're engaged in with the state and EPS at the moment.

So, how is anyone supposed to trust the Department of Education to
drive when, from week to week, they can't even settle on what the
basic components of education are?

Given that the state support of education is subject to legislative
whim and fluctuating ability to pay, who can you trust to set and keep
the day-to-day real-life activities in your local school?

Who, if not the community of your neighbors, is the responsible party
who will provide the steadying support while the state dithers and
flakes out?

Better the state should just come clean and admit up front that, this
year and next, they can't afford to pay what they've previously
committed for education rather than go through this enormous shuck and
jive about restraining costs by removing local authority over schools.

The end result is the same: the state budget balances through
legerdemain and local taxpayers are still left to make up the
difference as best they can.

After the latter sleight-of-hand, the only difference is that the
taxpayers no longer own their schools and, under a downward-revised
EPS formula, another threshold of support is undercut -- all so the
state can claim to have fulfilled its statutory level of obligation in
funding education.

Care to play again? Perhaps best two out of three?