Realmscapes

The Knowledge Gap

Education is one of my "Big Issues". It is a problem that is often misrepresented by elected officials at the federal, state, and local levels. Students in the freest country on earth somehow fail to measure up to other students worldwide. The stated cause is lack of funding (in general) and infrastructure and logistics (specifically).

The real culprit is the liberal teacher unions and the lack of education tax credits. Public schools have no incentive to improve because they get their money regardless if a taxpayer sends their child(ren) to the school or not; unions refuse to hold bad teachers accountable and support increased nationalisation of education and the cherry-picking of knowledge. And last Tuesday, Jason Lewis identified another Democrat party/teacher union fail-safe: the code of certification. All of these, one way or another, work to discourage competition, choice, and quality in education.

If I was the Governor I would attempt to remove the requirements of teacher certification from public schools. Despite if I was blocked there or not I would withhold a % of state funding to municipalities that showed poor education results in Year 1, and all state funding without significant improvement in rsults in Year 2; increase grants to private primary and secondary schools; allow families to choose the public school if they wish to go that route; provide tax credits to parents who choose to home educate or a private school and do not receive a property tax credit from their city/town.

There is no excuse for the lack of quality of education in a state of this great Union and someone needs to be a standard-bearer on this issue.

RE: Mainers hammer trade agreements

From the Bangor Daily News:

BANGOR, Maine — A panel seeking to learn how international trade agreements are affecting the lives of Mainers got an earful Thursday night.

Mainers from different towns, different occupations and different backgrounds spoke out about one thing all seemed to have in common: a strong desire to change the way the United States does business with other countries.

During the hearing before the Legislature’s Citizen Trade Policy Commission at Husson University, participants told personal stories of mill shutdowns and hardships for local businesses.

“When I first started [at Great Northern Paper in Millinocket], 3,000 people were employed there,” said Terry Whirty of Millinocket. “It was a town of 11,000. We had everything going for us. Now, the mill’s defunct. There are 5,000 people in town. We don’t even have a decent restaurant.”

Whirty, who spoke with emotion and the conviction of hard experience, told the lecture hall packed with state legislators and others, that he supports U.S. Rep. Mike Michaud’s Trade Reform, Accountability, Development and Employment Act, which would require the government to review and renegotiate existing trade pacts and would state what future agreements must do.

“I don’t think even that is enough,” Whirty said. “We’re not on a level playing field. We’re not level at all.”

As usual, people are allowed to blame the wrong people or issue. The trade agreements aren't the problem. The real culprits were sitting in that meeting, being the Maine legislature who could make Maine more attractive to businesses, both in the state and outside.

Maine is ranked 40th out of the 50 U.S. States in terms of a favourable business atmosphere thanks to our high corporate taxes and other state regulations.

I wish I had known of this meeting...