Amid a pandemic that has dramatically changed the state’s educational landscape, a number of current and former educators are stepping forward to run for the state legislature, increasing the possibility that those with experience in schools will play a significant role in the legislature’s COVID-19 response and in debates over education funding and teacher bargaining rights.
John Kosinski, government relations director at the Maine Education Association — a union that represents more than 23,000 educators around the state — said there are 17 current MEA members running for the state legislature and another 12 who were part of the organization but retired or changed their career.
“I don’t think we have ever seen that many step up,” Kosinski said in an email.
Some of the current MEA members on the ballot include Charles Galemmo, running in House District 5; Rep. Henry Ingwersen, running for reelection in District 10; Rep. Allison Hepler, running for reelection in District 53; Nathan Burnett, running in House District 70; Lydia Crafts, running House District 90; Rep. Jan Dodge, running for reelection in House District 97; Lillie Lavado, running in House District 147; Rep. David McCrea, running for reelection in District 148; and Joe Rafferty, running for Senate District 34.
Grace Leavitt, president of the MEA, said she’s optimistic that many of the group’s members will win their races.
Leavitt added that educators are well-suited to represent their communities in the legislature. She said due to the nature of their job, they have widespread interactions with a multitude of people, which would allow them to be responsive to constituent needs.
“Educators are really active members in their communities and really understand their communities,” she said. “And so that gives them great knowledge and skills to deal with what legislators have to deal with.”
Upcoming session
Charles Galemmo, the department chair of culinary arts and hospitality at York County Community College and the Democratic candidate in the House District 5 race, agreed that having a large contingent of MEA members in office for next year’s legislative session would make a huge difference.
“I think it’s vital,” Galemmo said. “The largest single part of the budget is education, and we need people with practical experience who’ve been on the front lines forming what the policy should be.”
Galemmo said if elected, one of his biggest priorities would be to change the way education is funded. Currently, he said, much of the money comes through property taxes.
“Property taxes, in my mind, are the worst way to collect taxes,” he said. “It’s highly regressive, it really hurts seniors, it hurts working people and it hurts even small businesses because if they have a rough year, the property tax bill is still there.”
Instead, Galemmo said tax cuts for the wealthy implemented under former Gov. Paul LePage should be repealed and education should be funded through a progressive income tax on the rich. Such an initiative to make the wealthy pay their fair share toward education was approved by Maine voters in 2016 but was subsequently repealed by LePage and members of both parties as part of a 2017 budget deal.
Charles Galemmo campaigning before the pandemic. | Courtesy Charles Galemmo
Galemmo said he’d like to see the legislature take up a bill to fund education through progressive taxation in the next session.
However, the Bangor Daily News recently reported that amid the budget shortfall caused by the pandemic, many legislative leaders are leaning toward spending cuts rather than fair taxation policies.
And Senate Minority Leader Dana Dow (R-Waldoboro) is quoted in that article as saying that education is one area that could see spending cuts.
But Lydia Crafts — an MEA member who works in special education and is running in House District 90 as a Democrat — said cutting funding from education is not the right solution to the state’s budget problem.
“We talk a lot about deficits and the economic stress our state is facing, which is real and is huge,” Crafts said. “But we also know that cutting funding for schools creates other forms of deficits, and that carries over into the future.”
Crafts also noted that cuts to education spending are being considered even though the state still has not fulfilled a longstanding requirement of citizen-approved referendums that it cover 55 percent of the cost of K-12 schools.
Dodge, an MEA member who is running for reelection in House District 97 as a Democrat, said that refusal by the state to fund education at the 55 percent level approved by voters is what motivated her to run for office in 2018.
Jan Dodge
Dodge said she saw the negative impact that funding shortfalls for education had on her students during her 30 year career as a teacher in the Down East area.
Given that, she said fixing the deficit caused by the pandemic will require not just budgetary know-how, but also taking into consideration how the legislature’s decisions will impact Mainers.
“We need people with brains and heart to make the crucial decisions that we are going to have to make,” Dodge said.
Leavitt, the MEA president, said the organization continues to support candidates for the legislature who favor the 55 percent funding level for education from the state. But she said given Maine’s current budget crunch, it’s essential that the state receive further help.
“We desperately need the additional federal funding, and that hasn’t been forthcoming,” she said.
Along with education funding, Leavitt said addressing issues of racial bias in education, funding for institutions of higher education and inequalities around access to the internet are priorities for MEA during the upcoming legislative session.
That inequality in broadband access is a big part of why Nathan Burnett, a Democratic candidate in House District 70, is running.
Burnett, an MEA member who has been a math teacher at Sacopee Valley High School for the past nine years, said he had to keep going into his office to send out materials to his students when the pandemic closed down schools in the spring because the internet at his house wasn’t strong enough.
Nathan Burnett
Burnett said it’s essential that the legislature take action to expand broadband in Maine, which ranks among the worst states in the country in internet access.
“[Broadband] is something that we’ve seen with the pandemic is incredibly important and is incredibly lacking in our rural areas,” he said.
Bargaining rights
Another issue that educators cited as a motivating factor in running for office is LD 240, a bill that would have given teachers the right to bargain over planning and preparation periods. The bill was passed by the legislature in 2019 but was vetoed by Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat.
Mills also pledged to veto LD 900, a bill that would have granted public employees, including teachers, the right to go on strike, as a multitude of teachers around the country have done in recent years.
Leavitt said reintroducing the teacher bargaining bill is one of MEA’s top priorities in the next session.
“Giving educators a big, strong voice in decisions that impact them and their students is a goal that we will continue to work on,” she said.
Burnett said before the pandemic, he didn’t worry as much about the planning and prep periods in his school district specifically. But now, he said, it’s clear that many teachers are struggling as they deal with unprecedented working conditions due to the pandemic.
“The new requirements that this distance learning and remote learning have put on everybody are just unsustainable, and I think we’re going to see teachers getting burnt out at a tremendous rate,” he said, adding that being allowed to bargain over planning and prep periods could be extremely beneficial for teachers.
For Galemmo, who said he would certainly reintroduce LD 240 if elected as long as “one of my colleagues hasn’t beaten me to the punch,” the measure is a no-brainer.
Galemmo said all it would do is force municipalities and school districts to work together with their employees on a level playing field.
“I don’t see why that should be such a concern,” he said.
Photo: Lydia Crafts talks with a voter. | Courtesy Lydia Crafts.
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