who blogs at Dirigo Blue and Kennebec Blues
and would like to use the BIG eraser below.
Governor Paul LePage just cannot seem to stop treating public career professionals like discount store retail clerks*. In his latest “I’m such a smart boss” move he mailed the following cartoon to a number of Maine’s high school principals:
His handwritten note on the cartoon reads, “Folks. We can do better and need to do better! Let’s put our students first. Governor Paul R. LePage”
This isn’t the first sample of the Paul LePage as Governor apparently penning a note to make a pointed statement. There have been several including a dressing down of a Maine State Representative.
LePage has mentioned the jobs angle of a vocational educational on a number of occasions but this message appears to go a step beyond highlighting a career training education option into the realm of putting down a liberal arts educational choice and the value it can impart. The Governor’s agenda has not been one that broadly supports public education and all students. It pushes the winners and losers philosophy of charter schools, online learning companies with questionable connections and intentions, and school choice that re-appropriates tax dollars from local schools to those without intended local oversight.
Missing is any intelligent insight into the varied paths to career and life fulfillment. Omitted are any factual references to lifetime earnings based on education levels for reasonable consideration. And lost is any semblance of real leadership based on understanding educational challenges.
One of Paul LePage’s first acts upon election was to hire his just out of school 22 year old daughter to a $41,000 position to her first regular job as an assistant despite a mismatched educational background. His own first big employment break came from his first father-in-law. So what motivates the Governor today to madly dash off such pithy missives is unknown but he has done so in a fact-free, zero-context, and know-it-all boss manner. Once again he has spoken out on education in a way that indicates he still needs one.
* LePage's paying job before being elected Governor was managing a chain of stores specializing in discounted salvage goods. He was also mayor of a small Maine city where he made a habit of overstepped his mostly ceremonial role.