The Liberated Centrist

On Thursday, Feb. 14 the legislature’s education committee will hold a public hearing on a bill, LD 464, that would  greatly affect the landscape of options for special needs students  in Maine. If you are a parent of a special needs child and you are not satisfied with how your home school district is providing your child’s education, you have recourse referred to as a “unilateral special education placement.” Under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), parents may move a child from their local public school district to a non-public school in order to ensure a “free appropriate public education” for the child. Parents may request a hearing with the home district to attempt to recover the costs of a unilateral placement. Federal law allows for this to occur as long as parents file a complaint within two years asserting that a free appropriate public education had not been available to their child. LD 464 , sponsored by Rep. Teresa Pierce of Fal...

Recently, State Representative Michael Brennan of Portland introduced a pair of bills concerning the future of virtual schooling in Maine. One of these bills, LD 513 proposes to cap enrollment at Maine’s virtual charter schools. If passed, these schools would not be allowed to accept any more students, nor expand to new grade levels beyond their current charter. The other bill introduced by Brennan, LD 576 would direct the state Department of Education to develop and implement an online learning platform, and report to the Education Committee on its findings. These two bills, both of which Brennan is the prime sponsor, should raise red flags for school choice advocates across Maine. Virtual schools connect students in disparate rural areas with lectures, lessons, interactive activities, certified faculty, and other students in similar situations. They provide a crucial educational outlet which would be otherwise unattainable for many students. There are only two virtual char...

Today’s world in many ways is at a crossroads, especially as technology continually reshapes the economy and specifically models of service delivery. Think Uber, Khan Academy, and even Bitcoin. New and exciting ways to innovate and disrupt capture our collective attention as we  wonder what the future could bring. It causes one to wonder: how long can some industries insulate themselves from the coming storm and resist competition? How long can public services survive in a world where private, digital solutions move faster than government by orders of magnitude? There were other Americans in history who faced this challenge, but the major players are still the same. Would the visionaries of the 19th century (considered by some at the time to be crackpots) have been able to fight the inertia of today’s massive bureaucracy? The story of Lysander Spooner comes to mind. In the mid-1800s, he endeavored to provide a more efficient method of delivering mail than the early Post Off...