Wanted: Doll for School Board

The biggest laughs and most audience interaction during this weekend's screening of the movie Lars and the Real Girl at the Opera House came when it was noted that Lars's girlfriend--a life-size, anatomically correct blow up doll named Bianca, whom Lars ordered from the internet--had been elected to the school board in his far northern, tiny rural community.

"We need to get us one of those!" someone shouted one night.

"When can she move here?" asked an audience member loudly on another night.

And on the third night, there was simply a raucous chorus of laughter.

Interesting, right? That of all the jokes, both subtle and crass, in this movie about one community's open-armed acceptance of the delusional first love of one of their members, it's the one about school committee membership that most strikes home.

The point being: a blow up doll ordered from the internet would be better than what we've got.

As a veteran of local school committee meetings and of consulting with the schools, I am sad to say that I concur. While each school committee member is a well meaning and hard working member of our community, their individual efforts are so subjective, inconsistent, unrelated to educational research, and often hostile to actual educational improvement for our kids that it would be preferable to vote for Bianca--or someone most like her.

To wit, as we move toward town meeting, election, and school budgeting season here on the coast of Maine, a few more serious things to consider:

1. With two seats open on the school committee this election season, vote for a person who can
a) keep the big, long term picture of educational improvement in his or her sights, and not be distracted by the usual short term fears of angering the tax payers, and b) can learn to respect the guidelines for what is appropriate behavior for a governing board member of our schools. For instance, shaking one's head negatively during reports of programs approved previously by the board as part of the schools' budget is not appropriate behavior. Neither is badgering citizens who attend school committee meetings (note that none do, unless their child or the basketball program is threatened, as it is such a remarkably unpleasant experience); nor ignoring the priorities set for the current year to launch off on one's own agenda. A good school committee member, like the board member of any effective organization or profitable company, is there to govern: which is defined as establishing policy; hiring and evaluating the administration; and ensuring the funding of agreed upon programs as proposed and recommended by these administrators. It is not the role of school committee members, who have no education or expertise in educational matters, to determine on their own which programs have value and which do not. Neither is it the role of an effective school committee member to treat administrators, staff, and the public rudely or with belligerance.

2. Vote for individuals who either respect the administrators and educators they've hired, and their decisions; or move quickly and legally to let go those not meeting the standards of their job descriptions.

3. Urge your school administrators to do a thorough and proper job on the budget prior to submitting it to the school committee for approval. It is not the school committee's job to establish an abstract budget cap, based on what they imagine voters will pay, and then chew the budget up accordingly. It is the administrators' jobs to review all budget requests; match them up against the priorities established in a school's strategic plan; and bring to the school committee only the budget for what they agree, as administrators, is needed in the coming year.

4. Require that both the administrators and school committees do their jobs and fund continual educational improvement in our schools, by establishing a budget that meets the educational priorities and needs of our students and then researching and developing a variety of funding sources to meet that budget. The school committee is exceptionally lazy in its reliance on tax dollars: many of Maine's and the country's best performing schools receive supplemental funding for needed programs (on our island, think: foreign languages in K-8; a real music program at the high school level; and technology and technology integration that works) from both interested, generous individuals and foundations. The biggest, most valid job of a school committee member is to be able to ensure the funding of continuous educational improvements for our children. Vote for someone who is willing and able to do this.

5. And finally: don't allow anyone -- school administrators, teachers, or especially school committee members who are not subject to term limits but only to the lack of boundaries of their own egos -- to bludgeon your school budget with a sob story of what the taxpayers will or will not pay for. Au contraire, in our community we have proven time and again that people WANT to pay for the education of our next generations. That said, such support does not magically exist. Needs must be communicated to the community, and support organized--right up to the Get Out the Vote effort on the night ballots are cast.

You'd think only five steps shouldn't be so difficult, but these steps have proven to be nearly out of reach for voter and for our local schools. Vicious cycles breed vicious cycles, and the state of our school committee and schools are such that few who are truly qualified want to run for these positions. It's a shame, and our kids are hurt by it. This alone is the biggest argument in favor of school consolidation in Maine: not only are the long term benefits quite clear (the costs of negotiating ONE union contract vs. negotiating several--which, as all successful companies learned long ago, is incredibly cost ineffective), but so are the political and social benefits for our children of busting up the incredibly ineffective system of local school committees.

In the meantime, I'd vote for Bianca in a drop dead minute.

Next edition: What is Real Local Control?

The Perfect Winter Storm

Our local daily newspaper, the Bangor Daily News, is very good, and its editorial and op ed pages, in particular, are the best kind of this genre: a source of never ending conversation and infuriation.

Last week, in the midst of our second major snow and ice storm of the not-quite-here-yet winter, columnist Kent Ward from up in the County decided to use some newsprint inches by pooh-poohing, alongside a few seemingly “sacred cows,” global warming. He did so from a very particular, traditional Maine viewpoint, one which greatly informs our Down East island fishing culture and is therefore worth further consideration.

This viewpoint has several predominant characteristics, all of which Ward ably illustrated. The first and most obvious here in our own community is a pragmatic “what you see is what you’ve got” approach to the world. Ward’s expression of this characteristic sounds like this: we’ve had more major snowstorms, ice, and cold in the first days of December than at any other time in recent memory; therefore, there is no such thing as global warming.

The second and related characteristic of our rural Maine communities which Ward exemplified in this column is a separation of the human world of cause and effect from the natural world. Snowstorms and cold weather are forces that effect human beings, creating inconvenience and pain; yet their causes are disconnected from any human action.

The third and most important characteristic of Maine communities illustrated in Ward’s column is a natural resources-based fatalism. If “what you see is what you’ve got,” and the natural world is a force of its own, separate from human causation, then there isn’t a damn thing you can do about global warming. Just like the past ballyhoo about a potential “nuclear winter,” Ward writes, concerns about the negative effects global warming are just another creation of the “professional doom-and-gloomers of the world” (the polar opposites, if you will, of the cheery, optimistic, traditional folk in northern Maine).

Our local version of these characteristics sounds like this: the fish aren’t here this year; this has happened before; we don’t know why and we can’t control it; maybe they will be back when they’re ready. Or perhaps an angle like this: property values are increasing; we can’t afford our homes or taxes; “the economy" is a large, natural phenomenon and there is nothing we can do about it.

There is a lot of wisdom in this type of fatalism, which has its deep and understandable roots in rural experience and traditions that for centuries had no way of measuring human impact on our own environment; and in problems that seem so much bigger than we are that they are unsolvable. Fish DO come and go in natural, often unpredictable cycles—just like the weather. Fish and weather are natural elements of our world, with lives and spirit and meaning of their own; they are rightfully mysterious to us.

This traditional Maine viewpoint, however, also helps us to avoid taking responsibility for ourselves and our actions. It’s one thing to believe in god, or to recognize that the world is a bigger and more powerful spirit than our own individual self; it’s another thing to use this knowledge and respect to abrogate our individual responsibilities, as part and parcel of this world.

Luckily for our fisheries, most of our local fishermen are, in their own words, “waking up” to the fact that the demise of ground fish, and potentially lobster, are the direct result of fishermen’s own management of the resources; and they’re working to turn that management around.

What are our similar responsibilities for global warming or escalating property valuations? The tragic aspect of both phenomenon is that they are NOT “natural” or inevitable. They are a direct result of how we, in the richest and most developed country in the world, consume resources.

Our fierce ice and snow storms are a part of, not separate from, global warming. Our high property taxes are a direct reflection of how little we choose to involve ourselves with core community issues via land use ordinances and economic development initiatives.

It’s true, each of these is a very complex ecosystem, in and of itself; and, as individuals, we are small in the face of these much larger issues. But together we are powerful. The earth has born witness to both glacial and tropical ages throughout the millennia and, with our help, is quickly entering another tropical age. Our oil-and-consumption based economy is quickly entering a recession. If we’re unwilling to take both small and large actions to stem the effects of these very human phenomenon—rising tides, droughts, the loss of farms and fish and jobs and the polar ice caps—then at the very least, in another good Maine tradition, we need to be willing to let them go without complaining.

There's No House like the Opera House

Just in time for the holidays, and travelling with a snow and ice storm since Ohama, we've arrived home to our island and Opera House. From my office window at dusk on Saturday afternoon, I can watch the Island Fisherman's Wives in the parking lot on the commericial fish pier, pouring punch and welcoming Santa Claus and excited families. Behind them, the tiny Isle au Haut ferry, green port lights glowing in the near dark, makes its last trip in to shore.

Tonight we will host a benefit for the Island Food Pantry: 15 to 20 musicians from Northern Maine playing old time country classics, right after a bean supper hosted at a nearby church. Today's melt is turning the roads icy: it is supposed to be bitterly cold tonight and tomorrow. The musicians from Northern Maine are a group of folks who simply like to play music in their houses. We have dubbed them "North Country Country," and this is their second appearance with us. They embody a long tradition on the island: regular folks who love to make music. With luck, some people will brave the icy roads and join us so we can help support the Island Food Pantry. Tomorrow night we present a single showing of Penobscot Theatre's hysterical "Santaland Diaries" -- a more modern and cynical take on the holiday season.

Ho ho ho and see you at the Opera House!

Power to the People

Here is Inushkuk, sitting atop the binocular stand, viewing Niagara Falls on a cold December day. I had not been to Niagara Falls since I was a kid, on a family trip that included both grandmothers; and the only others there with us this past week were a group of Tibetan Buddhist monks, smoking and taking pictures.

The power of the Niagara River is stunning, as is the geological history that created them. Perhaps most interesting is that the falls started considerably further down river than they presently are; and "walked" back to their present location as they eroded the underlying ledge, creating a giant whirlpool, gorge, and more.



The power is stunning and apparent, and it didn't take long for European settlers to begin harnessing this power. The falls' power has been channeled into the first A/C power distribution network since the late 19th century, when Nicola Tesla won the support of George Westinghouse; faced off with Thomas Edison, the famous inventor of D/C electrical appliances; and created a distributed power system for Buffalo. To this day, the hydroelectric generating capacity of the Falls is magnificent and sets an underutilized example for other places in the country.

Our trip through the plains took us through multiple horizons of wind farms; Niagara, a gateway back east, boasts hydropower. The residents of California, Idaho, Wyoming are proud of their wind farms, as, historically, are those of Niagara. As they should be. The production and use of alternative forms of energy should be, as one of our OHA board members said in viewing the wind farm atop Mars Hill in Northern Maine, a point of national pride. It's too bad we don't see more such innovation in New England; which is small enough that almost every such opportunity devolves into a Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY) battle.

Reading Neruda en route to Detroit

It’s cold and blustery, but thankfully not snowing, and we are zipping past the steaming steel mills of Gary, Indiana on route to Detroit—and ultimately, tonight, to Niagara Falls. The madness of steam and wires, tracks and trucks that envelopes the south end of Lake Michigan, is somehow very cheery: we’re still manufacturing steel here! This place is still a working, industrial zone! The mess of a Calumet River slides beneath us, turgid with the greasy output of this manufacturing, and still I cheer it on. A recession is coming, the radio has been warning as we struggle east and homeward, and as the gas burns beneath our tires we feel the weight of this pronouncement begin to bear down on us. Thus the steaming factories and mills of Gary are a cheerful sight . . .

Reading Neruda on route to Detroit—thanks to the sweet roadtrip-gift of his Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair from our friend Jennifer—is amusing in its ironies. “Let your deep eyes close,” Judith reads as I struggle to stay awake, mile after monotonous mile of American fast food culture blurring by us. “There the night flutters./Ah your body, a frightened statue, naked.” Michigan appears to have a greater saturation of Adult Video / XXX Superstores / Exotic (insert Asian-sounding name here) Health-Massage Clubs than any state through which we have yet traveled.

Dearborn. Flint. Motor City! How did this quintessentially American industry—the birth of the assembly line, the manufacture of the automobile—end up just across the border from Canada? Was Henry Ford from Dearborn?? The vaguely rolling terrain is dotted with a crust of snow that seems to have endured since last year; the strawberry and cherry orchards almost invisible against the leaden gray sky and this brownish-white crust. Why is Michigan known for fruit and cars, and not corn and cattle, the way Iowa is? It’s too simple to say “geography” since it is hardly ever the only lever of American economics. Why fruit, why Ford; and is Kellogg Michigan’s Neruda? Inquiring minds on the road--especially when the highway is closed down due to another snow storm!--want to know. We are making our way slowly, slowly back to New England.