Labbe & Brinkley: School reform risks loss of community to region

Bangor Daily News, February 7, 2007

(excerpt) For this diversity to be respected, communities of comparable size should be linked together. Towns should not be lost in school districts that are dominated by urban centers like Bangor, Lewiston or Portland. Fiscal management should be so designed that individual communities can fund the kinds of innovation in which Hermon and other towns have taken the lead, and they need to be able to innovate without asking permission from the region as a whole or the electorate of the region as a whole. The Department of Education’s work should never be defined by hierarchical bureaucratic management but by facilitation among the regions and, where appropriate, within the regions.

We often think of ways to balance the private and public sectors in our society, but the balance between these sectors can only be provided by communities of active citizens whose interests both the private and public sectors exist to serve.

If regionalization leads to a kind of centralization that only gives more authority to Augusta through a regional bureaucracy, regionalization is a bad idea that should be opposed. If regionalization leads to networks of empowered communities that foster economic and cultural prosperity for the people of Maine, then regionalization can be a good idea that should be supported because the money saved (money that needs to be saved) will also be well-spent.