Education, Truth, and Accountability

Real educators want the truth. Political actors, masquerading as educators, do not. If something is seriously off, unfocused, not working, or undermines learning in math, reading, writing, science, history, or the trades – real educators stop it. Real administrators support them. Politically absorbed actors just push themselves.

Maine – like many blue states – has both real educators and those pushing themselves and schools as a political training ground for activists, much as the Soviets pushed leftism in schools with “Komsomol” and “Young Pioneers.”

Instead of teaching truth, seeking it as the objective, encouraging young minds to inquire, think critically, question, think for themselves, use logic, act unemotionally, how to develop mental toughness by making hard choices, they do the opposite. Pushed from above to follow “the party,” they soften, excuse, and indulge.

So, three questions: What are the real facts? How do parents get administrators and teachers to focus on facts, abandon the obsession with politics? What can we do?

First, facts. All states fell behind in education after State COVID restrictions in schools, a profound error in judgment. The State cancelled school, moved to “Zoom school,” then a hybrid, no accountability, endless excuses, and “fly by the seat of your pants” educating.

The Maine Governor and her legislative handmaidens, along with “Teachers’ Unions” – cash cows for themselves – pushed the mandates, California to Maine.

The downstream effects of this profound misjudgment are obvious. As national scores show, the Maine shutdowns, slow reopening, and matrix of anti-constitutional mandates that Democrats pushed –  devastated kids’ learning.

Maine saw the most extreme restrictions, denial of rights. Democrats, acting as anti-democratic as autocrats, were only checked by the U.S. Supreme Court.

They declared a “state of emergency” on March 15, issued a “stay at home” order on April 2, lifted the emergency late – on May 31, later than other states. They ordered “face coverings” (masks, zero proven health benefit) like a dictator.

“Under penalty of law,” they restricted public gatherings, church services, and family events – to 10 people, forced a “mandatory quarantine” after travel, and halted all “non-essential retail.” This was another profound blow.

Maine was more disrupted, has suffered ever since. Maine is in its sixth year of suffering from Democrat abuses of power, remote protocols, student, parent, and teacher exhaustion, bumbled rules, and pushing fear of the flu-like virus.

Missing was a calm, reasoned, listening approach by Maine’s elected leaders, a historical perspective, giving people the facts, and allowing them to exercise judgment.

Maine’s governor and legislature – damningly dominated by reckless Democrats – set in motion a series of horrific outcomes. On the business side, bankruptcy filings tripled, retirements accelerated, young people left school undereducated, fearful, and were given years of entitlement checks, conditioned to sloth.

Today, 100,000 working-age Maine citizens are on entitlements, not working. Hundreds of businesses have fled, and new regulations, mandates, and spending gush from Democrats, who think government exists to spend money.

Key: On the education side, the horror no one wants to talk about continues. It grows annually. Maine students in 2024 had the lowest test scores in the nation, the lowest in three decades for reading and math, according to NAEP.

Non-partisan observers call Maine’s education system “grim” for good reason. Two-thirds of Maine’s 4th graders cannot read, and nearly the same percentage of 8^th graders cannot do basic math.

When state administrators are confronted, they dodge my questions, imagining to me that the NAEP scores are an “unrepresentative sample,” “only special needs children,” that “emotional learning” is more important.

Schools are supported by property taxes – and until recently – a predictable state allotment, but the State mandates handicapped, healthy Maine kids.

Finally, accountability: Beyond NOT teaching what matters, and infecting young minds with grotesque ideas over gender, forcing girls to be physically hurt and emotionally abused by administrators pushing boys into their sports, locker rooms, and bathrooms, there is this.

As of last year, suicides are the second leading cause of death in Maine, the first drug overdoses. Much of that anxiety, depression, dislocation, loss of work, education, and opportunity – is traceable to those Democrat mandates. 

Like it or not, Maine is in big trouble. More broadly. The inability to seek truth in schools comes down to denying facts. Real educators – and most Mainers – quietly know it. Time to stop that denial, look truth in the eye. You cannot fix what you deny exists; it exists.

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).