Speaking to elected officials and administrators about Gov. John Baldacci's “Local Schools/ Regional Support” plan to consolidate 126 school administrative offices into 26 regional offices, two major themes consistently come up. 1. The details of the plan have not been adequately disseminated and 2. What has been shared reveals a plan with many flaws.
    “We can do better,” a phrase that is being used to help sell the plan, is exactly how many people feel about the proposal and it's recommendations.
    There is little doubt that the state needs to do something to make education spending more efficient. Too much money goes to duplicated services and redundant responsibilities, while students fail to meet standards and consider post high school education at alarming rates.
    The media blitz this week by the State Dept. of Education was thick with testimonials about the need for something to be done, but there is an emerging sense that doing something was more important than doing it right.
    But as it stands the plan is just a proposal contained in a larger budget request. It will be up to the legislature to dig through that plan; to ask questions and to get answers.
    A first step will be to create more equitably populated school districts. The demographics and geography of Maine's regions are vastly different. And if present trends continue, the large southern Districts will only grow larger as those in the north lose more and more of their population.
    But that is only one of innumerable concerns about this plan.
    School regionalization can work. But not like this.
–Ward Peck