Public education is in trouble, profoundly in Maine. The decline in performance nationally and in Maine is arresting, an SOS flare, a call for major reform. It is time.
Nationally, we lag in the 2025 global rankings. The top nine countries are South Korea, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Slovenia, Japan, Germany, Finland, and Ireland. The U.S. now ranks 31st of 78. That is devastating but correctable, and President Trump is on it.
Closer to home, Maine schools are in decline, and the impact is felt everywhere. The National Center for Educational Statistics is projecting continued declines in enrollment and outcomes after Maine. We are now near the bottom, in their book.
Last year, the U.S. News & World Report put Maine “dead last,” 50 out of 50, for education. Reasons are many, worth exploring, and solutions.
Only 1.9 percent of Maine’s public schools were in the top quarter by assessment of “Kids Count Data Book.” Maine was assessed at 34th in the country. That survey indicated 71 percent of Maine’s 4th graders cannot read at or read to level.
Think on that. A child who cannot read is forever handicapped, made to fail. Not entrepreneurship, no job at Bath Iron Works, handicapped. We owe them more.
Another analysis by the Maine Policy Institute tracked Maine’s slide from top in the country for our public schools in 1992 to bottom in reading, grades both 4 and 8, and math scores not far behind.
Causes are poor incentives for improving outcomes, low teacher pay, low teacher morale, deemphasis on priority topics, including math, reading, science, history, languages, instead favoring irrelevant subjects, reduced requirements to placate unions, measuring success by money not outcomes, prioritizing political activism, DEI, CRT, waiving homework, focus on social experimentation, things like gender change and political distraction. That is a fail.
There is more. “Core curriculum,” initiated with “No Child Left Behind” under Bush, has turned into a disaster. Federal mandates miss local needs, produce bureaucracy, and take away teacher freedom.
In Maine, we have other problems. Kids need to be cared for, from those in Foster Care to those with not have enough to eat. If facing abuse, hunger, cannot concentrate, feeling uncared for, with teachers afraid to violate regulations, how do we give kids the chance to succeed we got?
As in other areas, we see miscarriage after miscarriage. We could admire the problem forever, so much opportunity lost. Reality check: We can fix this. Kids in K-12 get one childhood, and up to us with our vigorous guidance to make it work for them. Their lives and futures – depend upon it.
We HAVE TO fix Maine schools, from restoring motivation and life skills like Industrial Arts (IA or shop, making future welders, mechanics, carpenters, plumbers, those good with hands) to restoring reading, writing, math, language, history for life and civic service – that is on us, now.
Other solutions include a governor and head of state education who care enough to be in ALL the high schools, part of the solution, inspiring, enabling proficiency, encouraging kids to reach high, work hard, and aspire.
We need to reward top schools and teachers, and kids. Every day should begin with the Pledge of Allegiance, freedom to learn, expectation that kids will learn, not be on cell phones, not indulge in social eccentricities or misbehaving, not allowed to be wild, but taught what counts.
We do not need more mandates, any more than a field commander in the military needs to be told by HQ how to do his job. The mission is clear, empowerment is needed, and outcomes are key.
We do not need unions holding court, their top eight staff in Maine over $200,000 per, riding high on money taken from teachers, while teachers start at $40,000, barely get by. With the money that those union staff make, we could buy teachers or elevate their salaries.
What else do we need? Freedom and options. Maine should make competitive schools; I was raised in an unaccredited one, which got me to a good college. We should adopt vouchers, school choice, allow parents to send kids to Christian schools, as the US Supreme Court directed– and homeschoolers should get $1000 per pupil or more, a far cry from per pupil statewide.
There is so much more, restarting rewards for teachers and students, civic-minded afterschool programs, incentivizing achievement, bringing back Junior Achievement, ties to 4-H, Scouting, patriotic undertakings. The sky is the limit, but to get there, we have to care.
Bottom line: Maine’s Democrat leaders for 30 of the last 32 years, Democrat-dominated legislature, cozy bureaucrats, administrators, and contractors, have ALL FAILED the kids of Maine. Failed. They get an F. They do not care, and unions have not bothered to change.
Mainers know we are in deep water. Excellent work has been done by groups like Dirigo Public Affairs and the Maine Policy Institute. We need to saddle up and ride, save our kids, not duck, run, or hide. Their futures depend on us, as they do nationally. It is time. And it is on us.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC. Robert Charles has also just released an uplifting new book, “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024).
RBC,
Virtually everything you discuss pertaining to the state of America’s public education system has been a steadily growing issue for several decades. It is a nationwide problem, not merely one localized to the state of Maine.
The Left has dominated the universities and colleges of this country since at least the late 1960s. Look at the make-up of your typical faculty and you would be hard pressed to find more than a small handful, if even that, of so-called non-progressive (meaning neither Socialists nor overt Marxists) professors, mostly in the STEM majors, that actually focus on teaching as opposed to political indoctrination. Even now, the STEM majors in most colleges are being rapidly taken over by the Left. In effect, being brought in-line to the already corrupted standards, that are prevalent in the Humanities and the bulk of other college majors today. Which will of course end America’s dominance in technology over time, as those now poorly educated graduates will lack the proper foundation to maintain the United States’ dominance to deal with future challenges.
The Left has dominated the K through 12th grade public system, since the creation of the Department of Education allowed the Left to dictate all manner of “national teaching standards” and curriculum focus, thus pushing a core curriculum to the states that closely mirrored the indoctrination process the Left already successfully employed at the university and college level.
Our educational standing relative to the other major economies of the world has been steadily declining ever since. Chalk up another “win” for bad Democrat policies left nearly unchallenged for more than four decades. Pushing leftist tinged dogma and dumbed-down curriculums, over teaching young people how to critically think and reason properly, does indeed have a negative outcome the longer we allow this travesty to continue. That is why the children of both the political class, as well as the well to do ALL send their children to private schools, of one form or another, in order for them to receive a proper education that equips their children for success in the future.
The answer to the problem is to return American schools to the traditional, American, Classical education that served our country well until it was replaced with the current, failing system.
NO Unions
School Choice
More Voc Tech Ed
Adult Ed
Teaching any topic to any age group, especially grade school through high school, age 6 to 17, will be better for all concerned if the students have an understanding of how they are going to be able to use the information being taught in the place they have chosen to be after school is completed ,after graduation. There is no way to determine how many at 16 are going to be doing what is of interest to them at 16 a few years down the road .There could be several changes made in that time period. Of great help would be to have an understanding of why certain subjects are important in certain areas . Finding out , determining what it is that is of interest to the students and making it clear that something like civil engineering requires being strong in mathematics and physics and that knowledge of history and being very good in grammar all come together for designing and building things like bridges, tunnels, various kinds of buildings, airports . As you wrote RBC – ” We need to saddle up and ride,save our kids, not duck, run or hide.” And that applies to every state in the Nation.
There is no educational system that pertains to education. Our kids are learning about correct garbage sorting, social justice and injustices of the past, sins of their great grand fathers, systemic racism and victimhood of the black man, who is not to be blamed for anything, it’s the system. They learn about the workers paradise under peoples democratic republics and hell that American worker suffers. None of the “educators” would swap places voluntarily, like true heroes of the cause they press on. Our children graduate from those learning institutions and it shows If that does not change nothing will.The roots of this malignancy are deep.
Marxiam is having its desired affect and effect. The sooner we get ride of the DoE and the quicker we move forward on privitization of education, the better off we will be. The rigged search engines make it difficult to analyze but it seems apparent that home-schooling is significantly more effective than public schooling.
I’m for returning the Education System back to when Prayer and Christianity had place in School. Then focus on, back to the basics: Reading, Writing and Math. Instill Christian Moral Values. Have a dress code, where all are seen equal. Parents have a voice, are respected and School Transparency is always at the forefront. Teachers are in charge and not students. If a student acts up/acts out there is no toleration but strict discipline agreed upon by the School and Parents, period. Children are the future so we must invest in them wisely!
Maine will not improve until a state government is elected that can tell a difference in men and women.