Dear Mr. Lockman, you may be a representative from Amherst, Maine, and you may think you think you have a good pulse on the education system of the state of Maine, but you are wrong. Dead wrong. If a bunch of Cony kids want to come up with a survey to assess their school and make that survey public, so what? I teach at Cony High School and the kids who conducted this survey (using a majority of the student body, making the survey statistically correct) are top notch. These are the kids who will be solving our problems and curing our kids of illness, to name a couple of positives.
Your first mistake is thinking that today’s schools should only be concerned with math, science and English.
Today’s schools are just as worried about behavior, work ethic, social skills and being a better person. In the same edition as your column, the newspaper published two others exclaiming the importance of early childhood education. Early childhood education teaches children who are not getting the necessary parenting the tools to be successful in the future. Tools that include social skills, work ethic, being a good person, and realizing the world does not revolve around them. The same can be said for all students.
So as you thank the governor for starting the discussion concerning grading schools, why don’t you take a class with him concerning what is really wrong in the education system? In the past 30 years, teachers have become better, colleges are producing better teachers and parenting has taken a step back. And if it takes five years to get rid of bad teacher, you are guaranteed a certain number of years because you were elected. What’s wrong with that?