Why is Gov. Paul LePage treating the Department of Education like a version of SimCity?
The state’s governing body on education is not a game for a person to build, craft and control a simulated environment to suit the imagination. It’s a billion-dollar policy and funding engine responsible for licensing teachers and delivering education to every child in this state.
It is definitely not a toy.
There is no reality in which it makes sense to appoint someone to run the DOE who has no experience in education, and yet that’s exactly what happened this week when LePage appointed former state Sen. Debra Plowman of Hampden as “temporary deputy education commissioner.” She is now empowered to exercise all of the powers and perform all of the duties of the commissioner of the DOE.
One of her first acts was to re-appoint William Beardsley as deputy education commissioner, which means we now have two highly-paid deputy managers running that shop instead of a statutorily required single commissioner.
In his 2016-17 State of Maine Biennial Budget Briefing, in which he outlined 20 percent of all state funding is spent on education, LePage asserted that “A good education is the best tool for future prosperity.”
He’s right.
But, a good education doesn’t happen naturally. It has to be managed under the right policies by qualified people.
Plowman is an accomplished woman. A wife and mother, she has decades of experience managing a household while also building a garage door business, which she and her husband nurtured from four employees to 50 people working from six locations across the state. That’s very impressive, but she has no practical education policy, management or funding experience. None.
That’s a great departure from past chiefs of the DOE, including Beardsley, who came to his position from Husson University, where he served as its longtime president. He is also a former member of the state Board of Education.
Plowman does have some political experience with education, having served as the legislative liaison to DOE for the past several months, so maybe LePage sees that as enough for the current SimCity experiment with education.
But let’s not be naive. The real reason Plowman was named to the position was gamesmanship.
Months ago, LePage nominated Beardsley for the education commissioner post but later withdrew that nomination in fear Democratic lawmakers would not support confirmation. Then, LePage appointed himself acting commissioner and named Beardsley acting deputy commissioner, essentially to do the job of commissioner.
The problem is that such “acting” appointments are limited to six-month terms. So, LePage needed another temporary appointee. Enter Plowman.
Sadly, six months from now we’re going to play this game again.
As the governor persists, here’s a tip directly from the SimCity guide: “The key to keeping your sims healthy, happy, and preventing crime is Education. Education. Education.”
Good education.
That strategy is paramount to winning the game.
But the SimCity game with the DOE was not the only one afoot this week.
On Thursday, the Department of Health and Human Services started treating SNAP benefits like Monopoly money.
When DHHS discovered it had overpaid $2 million in food stamp benefits to elderly and poor people because of a computer error, it sent letters to more than 3,000 people ordering them to pay back the money.
In this game, a player’s orange Chance card would read: Another DHHS computer error. Pay back 10 percent of your benefits.
For a desperately poor person who gets, on average, $116 a month, that’s a steep punishment for a mistake made by DHHS.
SNAP is a federally funded program, so if a person doesn’t pay back the benefits DHHS has the authority to garnish Social Security benefits or federal income tax returns.
A person who is poor enough to qualify for SNAP benefits is also likely scraping by for other necessities. Dutifully paying back the overpayment is not unlike paying the dreaded $15 poor tax on the Monopoly board, leaving that much less for rent, utilities and other bills in the game.
DHHS has had a long and painful history of poor computer application and function, which has often led to slow or no payments to people who qualify for much-needed help. The poor are paying for the state’s mistakes, and — as often gets said when a game goes awry — that’s not fair.
The game of life is not a board game. It’s all too real.
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