LePage and Technical Education: Cutting Square Corners off the Three R's:

During a visit to the Hancock County Technical Center in Ellsworth, Gov. LePage repeated his previously stated belief that Maine has placed too much emphasis on preparing students for 4-year colleges and not enough emphasis on career and technical education.

“What we are trying to do is make career and technical education mainstream instead of second-class education,” LePage said during yesterday’s visit. Beefing up the academic offerings at the state’s 27 vocational and technical centers so that students do not have to travel back to their regular high schools for the academic portion of their program is one way LePage hopes to accomplish this. He also cited the need for the state to show more flexibility in terms of vocational students and the state’s general graduation requirements.

LePage’s proposal makes sense on several levels -- including the common sense one. Maine has and will probably continue to have more jobs for those trained in trades and technical skills over jobs for those with a liberal arts education.

However, this proposal seems to fly in the face of other concerns previously voiced by LePage. His proposal also seems dramtically inconsistent with other current state and national education initiatives.

(1) LePage kicked off his recent focus on education with a complaint that the test scores of Maine students have been stagnating. However, any initiative which places an emphasis on technical education is almost certain to result in backsliding in terms of the core academic subjects of English, math, science, and social studies.

(2) The technical schools themselves have stated a preference for receiving students who have a solid base in the core academic subjects over students who are weak in reading, writing, and / or math but know, for example, how to write a computer program or how to frame a roof.

(3) National movements including No Child Left Behind and the increasing emphasis on standards-based education make it difficult for schools to clear time in a students schedule for extended blocks of vocational and technical education.

LePage Caught in Lie About Welfare

Paul LePage stated that Forbes Magazine had identified "welfare" as one of Maine's structural problems that needs to be cleaned up on Wednesday during a town hall-style meeting at Mt. Abram High School.

LePage's statement comes at a time in which he is trying to convince the legislature to cut more than a two hundred million dollars from MaineCare, Maine's medicare program.  LePage has not only been undeterred by claims that the cuts will eliminate everything from HeadStart programs for impoverished kids to assisted living programs for low-income elderly people, he has taken his campaign to the streets --- and has been misrepresenting the facts.

One misrepresentation is that a major cause of the current budget shortfall is welfare fraud.  The governor provided no facts or statistics to back up this claim that is clearly designed to appeal to the emotions of those who already feel their taxes are too high.

The more recent lie is LePage's statement implying Forbes Magazine told him that Maine had to reduce the size of its welfare program in order to improve from its current last place ranking among the 50 states in terms of climate for business.

Adrienne Bennett, the Governor's press secretary, raised the lie to the level of the absurd by suggesting her boss was referring to"Mainer's welfare" and not to the specific welfare program.

As reported in today's BDN, the conservative magazine took the rare step of correcting LePage for his mis-statement.  "“I certainly didn’t say anything about welfare costs, which has nothing to do with the ranking that we do,” said Forbes senior editor Kurt Badenhausen.  “I didn’t tell them they needed to reduce energy costs. I told them, basically, the best thing they could do, and that any local government could do, was just to try and create more jobs.”

The reader comments below the article show that Mainers are more than fed up with this kind of dishonesty from their governor.

Read more about LePage's campaign against welfare at: www.appalledbylepage.com

LePage-Speak -- A New World of Vocabulary

Conservation is a Ponzi scheme.  Political dialogue is "bullshit."  Our governor flew to Virginia to lay wreaths at the graves of the dead in the same week that he stated his intention to cut access to medical care to the still living.  This and more at www.appalledbylepage.com

Paul LePage's Approval Ratings Are Up . . .

 . . . But not for the reasons you might think.

It's called scapegoating.  You can read about LePage's "Operation Scapegoat" in our recent post at AppalledbyLePage.com 

LePage Education Plan for 2012 and Beyond

Paul LePage has some ambitions in terms of reforming education in the state of Maine.  That's a scary thing, since not so long ago, he hadn't seemed to have thought about it much.  His plan then was to promote home schooling, reduce federal mandates, and allow more control on the local level.

More recently, LePage has more ambitious goals such as changing the way teachers are paid, putting new requirements on teachers, promoting more technical and practical education in high schools, and promoting a 5the year of high school.  More details and commentary at:
Appalled by LePage -- Education Plan for 2012 and Beyond.

Paul LePage and ALEC: Suspected Connection Confirmed

The cozy relationship between Paul LePage, ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council, and the Koch Brothers (a major donor to ALEC) is brought to light in a recent Colin Woodard article in the Portland Phoenix. Most of the inner workings at ALEC remain covert, but Woodard reveals that the new corporate chair of ALEC for the state of Maine is Ann Robinson, a close advisor to LePage and also a corporate lobbyist at Preti Flaherty Beliveau & Pachios.  Continue reading at:  www.appalledbylepage.com

Open for Business: Sign of the Times

“Open for Business,” read the sign that was presented to Paul LePage on the day of his inauguration by the Maine Refounders, A Knox County Tea Party Group.  Last weekend, the sign was removed from its place along I-95 by pranksters or political activists in a covert late-night act reminiscent of the LePage-ordered removal of the mural from the Labor Building.  The sign is now gathering dust in someones barn or basement. 

I have wondered about the propriety of a governor putting up what is essentially a partisan sign (funded by a partisan group and representative of a partisan agenda) along a federal highway.   You and I don't have the right to do that.  Why does the governor?  

More at http://www.appalledbylepage.com

Maine is Open for Exploitation of Workers

Based on current legislation being proposed by Paul LePage, Maine is all about corporations and not at all about workers.  Just once, we would like to see Paul LePage stand on the side of workers and give corporations the cold shoulder.

But this week, it has been all about the corporations.  Changes in laws affecting health insurance coverage, removal of laws protecting Maine loggers from losing their jobs to Canadians, and elimination of collective bargaining rights for family care providers are three instances, just this week, in which LePage has come down on the side of corporations.  More at www.appalledbylepage.com

LePage Administration Brain Drain Continues

Today's news just confirms what many of us already know:  The LePage administration is a circus within an arrogance within a sham within a zealotry.

Today LePage lost two cabinet members, one apparently having made racist comments; another did not specify his reason.  A third was transferred to a new post due to allegations of conflict of interest.  This is after LePage lost his director of communications (Dan Demeritt) last week (financially overextended) and one of his top advisers (Tarren Bragden), formerly of the Maine Heritage Policy Center stepped down to move to Florida ten days before that.

More at www.appalledbylepage.com

New Website Launches -- Appalled Enough Already?

Appalledbylepage.com is a new site that aims to chronicle the abuses and blunders of the LePage administration.  (If you read about them in a book, you would discard the book as too absurd to be true.) 

Appalledbylepage.com also aims to provide links and resources for those who are ready to take action and aim to influence the course of our ship of state. 

And, finally, it is a site that aims to "think beyond Lepage."  He may be here for another 33 months; but we need to do more than just stand in his way.

And, all of this after a weekend in which LePage ordered 36-foot mural removed from a conference room in the state Department of Labor, despite state, national, and even international outrage.  And this was done in the dark of night.