Education
Here are some statistics that may shock you. Approximately 15-20% of our young adults drop out of high school. Of the 80-85% who graduate, approximately 70-80% say they want to go to college, but only 60% actually do. Of the 60% of high school graduates who go to college, less than half actually attain a degree. Out of the 20-25% who earn their degree, half leave the state! So, let’s summarize these facts. Two in ten young adults attend college, earn their degree on time and stay in Maine! How’s that for a “return on investment?” Wow! If that doesn’t shock you, I don’t know what will.
This may come as a surprise considering my educational background, but I believe we can have a tremendous, positive impact on education. How can Shawn Moody help? I am in the 80% of young adults who graduated from high school but chose not to earn a college degree. I know what they’re going through and what they desperately need. Though I graduated from Gorham High School in 1978 with my class, during my last two years of high school, I was in a work “co-op” program. My senior year, I was actually self-employed in that program.
Maine’s educators have always worked hard at preparing our young people for higher education. The truth is, not everyone heads down that path. What Maine needs to provide is more focus on the right choices for non-college bound students. These are some of the brightest, most creative, and motivated individuals in our school systems. Left unchallenged, we inadvertently may close the door and turn out the light on their bright future!
I will work with educators to provide comprehensive choices for our non-college bound students and to restore pride and dignity to our young people. The highest percentage of entrepreneurs and small business start-ups come from high school graduates, not college graduates. This is a huge, untapped potential. Let’s make sure our current vocational programs are based upon “real world” technical training. Let’s require vocational teachers to “work” at least part of the year in their respective fields. For example, my sister Kim is a Professor of Nursing at USM. She works per diem at Maine Medical Center in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit. She stays current with today’s technology and processes, in turn delivering that real world experience to her students!
As for our young adults who go to college, we must recommit ourselves to them, as well. It troubles me that our community college system is thriving, yet the state proposes to reduce its subsidy in order to help offset the state’s university system which is suffering from decreased enrollment and higher operating costs.
I’ve learned by operating five independent locations how to leverage resources and create economies of scale. A Moody administration will help the university system regain its competitive place by expanding programs that meet today’s workforce needs and consolidating classes with decreased enrollment. Utilizing web-based technologies will lower the cost of delivery.
As for charter schools, I don’t believe they are the answer to our state’s educational woes. In the past, when we’ve run into an impasse, outside influences have said, “Bring in the charter schools. We’ll show these guys.” I think we need to have a serious discussion with the union representatives before we look in that direction. Dirigo Health is a perfect example of reinventing the wheel instead of confronting and curing the problem.
Think about the long-term effect of across-the-board pay increases from an economic sense. Let’s say a high school principal earns $100,000 a year. An entry- level educator starts out at $35,000 a year. Multiply a 3% pay increase for 5 years. The high school principal’s pay increases by $15,927. The new educator’s pay increases by $5,574. I won’t put you through a 10-year scenario. You get the picture. Let’s get the right people who care around a table; we need to increase pay based upon a comprehensive assessment and development process. Across-the-board pay increases breed mediocrity. I really believe that. Right now we’re stuck with union representatives negotiating contracts with a monetary and benefit gain; now we’re talking money, not growth of the student and educator.
Governor Baldacci had the right idea, but his plan was too “top down.” A Moody administration will introduce the 2nd Generation of Consolidation clearly centered on our educators, students, parents and taxpayers. We have years of knowledge and success in centralized operations such as payroll, benefit administration, human resources, payables and receivables.
Maine’s educational system needs to develop student and educator success because in the end, that’s what really matters.
Give me the chance…I’ll fight the education fight for you.
Shawn,
It sounds to me as if you have the right idea about the direction in which we should be heading. I am interested in your thoughts on merit pay for teachers. I feel it is difficult to determine which teachers are doing a good job. Who decides? How do you measure personal growth? How do you measure encouragement? Teaching is much more than just test scores. I think that is why merit pay hasn’t swept the country.
Best of luck with the campaign. I am proud and thrilled that you are running for governor. We need someone like you to lead our state. You always have had great thoughts — even in eighth grade you did!
Bonnie Thumm Edwards
Some interesting ideas. I agree that our educational system is too centered on college prep, when that is not what all kids need or can do. So a lot of kids are falling through the cracks because they don’t have what it takes to learn AP Calculus or the like. So the curriculum isn’t appropriate for the life skills that people need in life. As for the pay issue, as a teacher I have an issue with your idea. Are you going to raise the starting pays to be in line with what other professionals make if you are not going to give yearly pay raises? People seem to think that there is an endless supply of people who can or want to teach. The truth is not many people can do what we do, and most who get in don’t stay because it is incredibly stressful and increasingly undervalued by our society.
I am not sure if this is something that can be changed at the state level or not, but if it can be…it should be considered. I have talked to a lot of parents as well as juniors and seniors in high school who think taking the SAT test, whether they want to or not, is not fair. If they are going into the military, it will be of no use to them to take the SAT test as the military has its own system of testing.
Your blog is so informative ¡ keep up the good work!!!!
Howdy, your site is on air in the radio! Good job mate. Your posts are truly great and bookmarked. Regards
Education is really a vital field, because every thing in civilization depends upon education and learning. I saw that on a website someplace — a non-profit organization in the Philippines. Teachers work hard at their craft (most of them, anyway). But there are a few who seem to have a gift to inspire. My high school world history teacher was one particular. She had lived in China as a child. When she taught in Rockville, Maryland, you could potentially feel the wisdom of all her experience. She didn’t have us memorize dates. That was the first truly good thing I had heard from a history teacher. What she said next took the subject several magnitudes higher in value. She wanted us to understand the motivations of history — the deeply visceral, human facets of what can otherwise be a deadly dry subject. Jaime Escalante of “Stand and Deliver” fame, dared to dream big. Calculus for the typically dropout crowd? Pushing them to go on to college? Wow. And I have this publication called, “Calculus Made Easy,” by Sylvanus P. Thompson, first published in 1910. It’s been through dozens of printings all in making a fairly easy subject simple. What can we do to create more teachers who inspire world-changing quality? Einstein once revealed that imagination is much more important than knowledge. Knowledge can present you with the foundation. Imagination can take you to the stars. Don’t our kids ought to get better?
I hope you cover the whole state. Lately schools in northern Maine dont get coverage form Augusta all the money goes to th southern part of Maine, we do have schools and people in central and northern Maine also.
Same goes for our elderly the state does not seem to want to help with them. I hope you cover the whole state not just certain parts like ha happened in the past. People say we have to be careful because you are from down that way. I hope you will have he chance to prove them wrong and help the whole state.
I would like to say “wow” what a inspiring post. This is really great. Keep doing what you’re doing!!
Shawn,
I believe your view on Charter Schools is misinformed. Maine has always had a tradition of school choice. Many communities still allow their students to chose what school to go to. Public charter schools are a natural continuation of Maine’s school choice tradition. The interests that have blocked it have been the same interests that have blocked other important education reforms such as merit pay for teachers. It makes little sense to have one commonsense education reform and not the other.
Almost every state in the country has laws that allow for the establishment of public charter schools- Maine continues to lag behind. To continue to block charter schools will only make matters in the state worse.
In every state, students in public charter schools perform at a much higher level than those in traditional public schools.
And to compare charter schools to Dirigo is off-base. Charter schools are proven successes throughout this country. Dirigo, and any other “public option” health reforms, have always been failures. Charter schools do not re-invent the wheel in Maine: They will give a 2nd wheel for parents and students to choose from.
Giving parents the choice of how to educate their children, not the unions, is the answer. As an independent you should come down on the side of parents and give them educational choices.
As a 20 year Maine educator I encourage you to think about the following:
1. Multiple pathways for students (as you have stated) college bound, military and perhaps most important work force bound.
2. Local control. There are too many UNFUNDED state mandates passed onto districts. Provide districts the control to run their schools as they see fit and provide financial incentives for those that are successful. One size does NOT fit all – consolidation.
3. Look closely at the high level of power our unions have in education.
4. The current Essential Spending Formula is a joke – as previously stated – one size does NOT fit all
First thing I would do is get rid of as much of theMaine Dept. of Education as possible, decide which UMS campuses would have which specific programs to avoid duplication and eliminate all others, possibly eliminate several UMS campuses, cut down on administrative personnel and make a sincere effort to make UMS professors work hard to earn their money. As crazy as it might sound, pay the best teachers the most money and pay school administrators less than your highest paid teacher in the system. Perhaps many of them who couldn’t survive in the classroom and are there for the money and benefits would do something else. The whole pyramid of education pay is assend backwards–best teachers deserve highest pay!
Kudos for the above comments of “A Maine Educator!”
I have taught at the elementary, high school and college levels, and in the last several years have seen some very disturbing trends;
Who is coming into public education and why? :
1. Most HS grads at the top of their classes choose to go into professions other than teaching because of lack of public respect and lower income levels for educators.
2. A significant percentage of those who do go into education choose to do so, not because they have the intellectual and imaginative capacity to inspire and educate, but rather because they see teaching as a relatively easy and financially safe occupation with summers off.
3. Sadly, few of the financially disadvantaged undergraduate college students I came in contact with had even passable communication skills and almost none had been inspired and educated to be able to bring that to their future students.
Non-local, top-down travesties
1. Teachers are being required to “paint by the numbers” rather than encouraged (or even allowed) to use their own creativity to inspire and meet the individual needs of young people.
2. When manufacturing and business models are applied to education, the human element of how learning is inspired is lost. Education of young people is an entirely different process than manufacturing a product.
3. Just as in government and health care, paperwork is consuming enormous amounts of time and money which could be directed toward education.
4. Textbook selection is becoming a serious issue with standards being set in Texas for students in Maine.
Teachers unions and merit pay
1. Without unions, teachers would be earning even less, making it an even less desirable occupation for talented young people.
2. Tenure is a double-edged sword. With it, some unskilled or unmotivated teachers are protected. Without it, teachers will be let go after only a few years experience in order to save money which would be paid more experienced teachers.
3. Merit pay – as questioned above – what are the standards to determine who qualifies? It can encourage “teaching to the test” which is a disastrous way to prepare young people for the world.
Possibilities?
1. Consult the inspiring and effective teachers around the state. What are their thoughts???
I think you are doing great. As a Westbrook High Votec Graduate, it is tough to say what had steered me from College to the Military. I am now working full time and going to USM full time. From what I am experiencing, I feel the system is only set up to work with 20 percent of the High School Graduates. Between finding money to attend college and enrolling in the correct degree program it is no wonder 18 year olds are walking away from it. As with our k-12 educators have the correct professor in college, makes a difference. It is all about finding a balance and it seems to me that we are spending time and money on the bottom 20 percent and the top 10 percent.
I from a small town that join RSU24 and we were promised new program for the gift and talent and if they could not get the program there they would moved the child to a school that did have that class i.e. like math
We were debt free when we joined the RSU and were forced to join or pay stiff penalties. So like so many other towns we joined. Now we face huge tax increases because ellsworth has a new high school, middle school and Pennisula has a new school. Now they want to close our school because were overbudget!The thing that has put us overbudget are requiring a salad bar that was never put into the budget in the first place. This town alot of kids get free lunch/reduced lunch and they want you to pay for the salad bar.i.e. the salad bar food gets thrown out and wasted.
What would you do to end this RSU mess and give us our school back?
Hi, my name is Hannah, I graduated from high school in 2009 and I still have no idea what I want to do with my life. I joined the Maine Air National Guard at the age of 17, I completed all my training in Texas and was back home in early December. I went to school at UMM during the 2010 spring semester and took general requirement classes. I didn’t do well, I had little ambition and was down in the dumps because I felt as if I were the only person out of all my friends that didn’t have their future planed out as to what I’m going to do with my life. I’ve grown up in Maine my whole life, and I want to live here my whole life, but it feels like that every person thinks that if your a women and don’t attain a college degree than your going no where in life. I know that college opens doors of possibility, but I just don’t see the sense in going to college and getting a degree that’s going to cost me $100,000 and then decide that thats not what I want to do in life as a career. I live in Jonesport Maine and the norm is for men to either graduate high school or drop out and work in the fishing industry their whole life. Then for the women to graduate high school, go to college and get an education, and if you don’t go to college then your going no where. More and more people are becoming less supportive of people who are not going to college, this is wrong. I work and pay my bills on time, and I’m not on welfare, I want to go to college eventually just not now, but I’m sick of people thinking that I wont succeed just because I’m not going to college right now. Moody if you can show me that you support young people in my position than you will have my vote.
I am voting for SHAWN MOODYYYYYYYYYYYYYY