We have good reason in South Portland to be proud of our public schools. Our test scores, K-12, are in line with other Maine communities. The number of seniors who head off to college after graduation is skyrocketing. We boast a fleet of brand new or newly renovated elementary schools. Our middle schools and high school are slated for upgrades in the coming years. And we’re served by an administration that responds to the concerns of parents. Just think of how they resisted the economic incentive to consolidate our schools into several, generic, mega-learning centers.

We are, however, missing two crucial linchpins in our city-wide education system: guaranteed access to higher education and ongoing access to job training. If we want to foster opportunities for our kids here, in our community, then we need to ensure that they’re prepared for the future. How? I believe we should be directing more of our resources at college preparation, and beyond. We should be guiding our kids to the best colleges and graduate schools, promoting education in technical and professional schools, and actively rewarding our graduates for coming home and setting up shop here. We also need to recognize that the job market is changing rapidly and our workforce needs access to knowledge that keeps pace with the times. We should be working hand-in-hand with our business leaders to shape the technical curricula in our schools. We should also tie the tax incentives we hand out to the willingness of new businesses to offer apprenticeships and in-class donations of time. Education is a community investment. And fostering a life-long commitment to it is the right thing to do.