[Local-Maine-Schools] Frost heaves, black ice, a Valentine, and a smoke bomb

[Brian Hubbell]

Frost heaves, black ice and several accidents characterized this
morning's trip once again to Augusta in early morning darkness.  But,
for her persevering presence, Gail was compensated with an unexpected,
genuinely affectionate hug from a Senator in the Senate foyer after
she re-introduced herself.

Beyond that, although one might otherwise charge all to Valentine's
Day,  the hallway outside the Senate chamber this morning was aflutter
with more intrigues than a junior high school dance as Senators and
constituents alike tried to settle rumors of the shifting alliances
that the Governor was whispered to be determinedly effecting in the
aftermath of Tuesday's evening's vote on the Damon amendment.

The pressure of the Governor's and Commissioner's affections was said
to be intense, unrelenting, and focused on a few key Democratic
wobblers from the more populated south.

At the same time, more than one rule book was getting thumbed as
others tried to figure out what the limits were under which the Senate
could strip the Damon amendment back out of LD 1932 given the bill's
continuing status as "unfinished business" and whether the game clock
continued or was stopped during yesterday's storm-canceled session as
the total elapsed time apparently related to whether a simple- or
super-majority vote would be required to accomplish any alterations.

Concurrently, whatever tenderizing of the Democrats the Governor and
Commissioner were managing was being countered to a complementary
extent in the more protected environs of the Republican caucus where
sentiment favoring the amendment was generally expected to be
solidifying.

Given all this and that the Damon amendment already constituted some
of the most improbable voting alliances (both pro and con), there was
surely plenty of uncertainty about how to handle this morning's
scheduled second reading of LD 1932 which in most other cases would
have been merely a pro forma stamp on a bill on the way to the House.

In the end, Senate leadership chose to table further action until the
next session which, with next week being set aside for vacation, means
LD 1932 is stalled until February 26. This suggests that advocates on
both sides will stay busy over the prolonged interim trying to hold or
advance their own lines.

Evidence so far suggests that the Department's strategy is to
distribute some volume of tables that appear, at least on the surface,
to indicate that schools with union governance cost more per pupil to
operate than schools under other forms of governance, with the hope
that uncritical viewers will infer that the same schools, with the
same programs, could be operated for significantly less under an
updated governance structure.

One such statistical smoke bomb distributed this morning can be seen at:
http://mdischools.net/20080214_DoE_Table.pdf

As any data can be correlated, the real question is what mechanism is
hypothesized that generates the superfluous costs which are supposed
to be inherent to union governance.

This seems particularly pertinent as unions currently are merely
vehicles for municipal districts (of all inherent efficiencies) to
centralize and share services and therefore achieve greater
efficiency.  But, so far, the Department has left this question
unanswered.