[Local-Maine-Schools] Paris 1919, Augusta 2007

[Dick Atlee]

Paris.  1919.  The Supreme Council of the biggest peace conference in 
history meets to try to sort out the mess left by The Great War. 
Victorious countries are vying for pieces of the defeated empires. 
Confused, with no solid data and conflicting claims, the Council turns 
over the task of redrawing the boundaries of nations to teams of 
experts.  The experts are confronted with little data other than 
knowledge that there are all kinds of nationalities and ethnicities 
scattered across Europe and the Mideast.

One of the British experts. understanding the situation clearly, writes, 
"How fallible one feels here,  A map, a pencil, tracing paper.  Yet my 
courage fails at the thought of the people our errant lines enclose or 
exclude.  The happiness of several thousands of people…."

But under political pressure and time constraints, they go ahead and 
draw the lines.  Amidst conflict and bickering, with little knowledge of 
the complexities on the ground, they produce countries out of thin air. 
  Jugoslavia.  Iraq.

Fast forward seventy-five years.  Jugoslavia collapses in chaos and 
death.  Fast forward another ten years.  Iraq collapses in chaos and death.

Fast forward another couple of years.

Augusta.  2007.  The Maine Legislature meets to try to sort out the mess 
left by the Governor's declaration that new districts must be 
established out of wildly diverse schools.  Confused, with no solid data 
and conflicting claims, under political pressure and time constraints, 
the legislature considers handing over the final say on boundaries to a 
commission of experts, one with a proven disregard for the importance of 
gathering and using data to understand the complexities on the ground. 
Perhaps one of these experts, taking up map, mouse, and keyboard, has a 
brief sense of fallibility, of the tremendous impact what they are about 
to do will have on thousands of people for years to come.  But they go 
ahead and draw the lines.

Fast forward a few years . . . .

Those who ignore the lessons of history are bound to repeat them.  And 
we manage to ignore a lesson because its earlier situation isn't quite 
the same as our present one.