[Local-Maine-Schools] Consolidation and local control: be careful who you elect

[Dick Atlee]

(Speaking for myself and no other organization, on an issue which 
probably will not be problematic on MDI, but may well be elsewhere.)

                     A CAUTIONARY NOTE

Those who voted in good conscience against the final budget in order to 
preserve local control over schools were right -- voting NO was the only 
way to GUARANTEE local control.

To be sure, there now IS an element of local control in the budget.  The 
budget clearly would not have passed without the hard-fought-for 
amendment that included budgeting-financing-appropriating in the powers 
the new Regional School Units (RSUs) can delegate to any local school 
committees it chooses to form.

But therein lies the rub.  An RSU Board of Directors doesn't HAVE to 
create local school committees, and even if it chooses to do so, it 
doesn't HAVE to include such financial power in the powers it bestows 
upon those committees.  The Board may prefer "advisory" committees with 
no teeth -- certainly less of a hassle.

As mentioned above, I would guess this lack of GUARANTEED local control 
is one of the main motivations of the legislators who insisted on voting 
NO on the budget.  It IS a serious concern.

So, perhaps the single most important thing for communities to realize 
in this new world of consolidation is:

    IF YOU WANT LOCAL CONTROL,
    NOMINATE AND ELECT AN RSU BOARD THAT WILL GIVE IT TO YOU...
    AND KEEP ELECTING THEM

It would also be a good idea to

    MAKE SURE THE REGIONAL PLANNING COMMITTEE
      BELIEVES IN LOCAL CONTROL

It is the members of this committee (RPC) who will be guiding the 
initial setting up of the RSU.  And keep in mind that the agency that 
will be offering them "guidance" and "facilitation" in the task of 
setting up this RSU is, of course, none other than the one that hatched 
the whole idea of radical and fast consolidation in the first place.

The Department of Education's rhetoric and obvious distrust of the 
capabilities of communities to govern themselves seems a clear 
indication that they would never have permitted even the possibility of 
local control if they could have figured out a way to pass the budget 
without it.  And it is difficult to believe that they won't make every 
effort to convince the RPC that local control is inadvisable when one is 
trying to slash education costs -- Democracy is, after all, messy.

As Tom Paine might have said:

    The price of LOCAL CONTROL is ETERNAL VIGILANCE.

Watch out.

Dick