From Bradley Beckett, MSAD 50
Dear Sen. Rand,
I am forwarding you this letter that I recently wrote
to Rep. Wendy Pieh and Sen. Chellie Pingree.
I am a Maine veteran teacher of 23 1/2 years.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Bradley Beckett
Dear Wendy,
I just wanted to drop you a line to express how
infuriated and frustrated that I am with Public Law 110,
which, of course, beginning in 2000 mandates all teachers to
be fingerprinted and checked for any criminal backgrounds.
Smacking of McCarthyism and even the Holocost theme, here again
is another instance where teachers are found to be
society's scapegoat, this time for displaced anger with the
Columbine scenario. Furthermore, the law does LITTLE or
NOTHING to resolve the problem of making schools safe.
Primarily and understandably, the rationale behind
the law is the issue of sexual perpetration of young
children. But because 80-85% of child molestation takes
place in and around the home, perhaps a law should be
enacted to fingerprint and check the criminal background
of every mother and father of every newborn child?! Then
during the child's kindergarten registion, the
fingerprinting and background check should repeat itself for
the primary childcare giver and the significant other (and
in many cases, insignificant another). Once again under this
proposed law, when the child becomes ten and 15 years of
age, the process would still continue. Likely, this would
attack the problem more directly, but as we ALL KNOW that
this approach would not fly with the public, as much of the
public would be offended; yet it makes much more sense than
P.L. 110, which, not only offends teachers, but again does
not solve the problem.
As a group, it is well known how teachers have never
truly resisted any of the incalculable restrictions placed
upon them from all directions of society and government:
National Teacher Exams, the follies and impositions from
Maine Education Tests, Maine Learning Results, etc. After
all, much of our time is directly devoted to actual
TEACHING. Even the Maine Education Association/NEA
traditionally has been as mild as milk toast in defending
its teachers; as a result, the overall irony is that those
in the teaching profession has been HARASSED and ABUSED for
years! But clearly P.L. 110 tops them all, grinding
teachers and their individual civil rights directly into the
ground. (Also, for the record, I have no instance in my
personal background to worry about, unless there is another
Bradley Beckett out there for whom government bureaucracy
could mistake me.)
Once more for the record, I would like to state that
I vehemently oppose everything about the Maine State
Legislature's new law--not only the $49 charge, but also the
mass humiliation of the fingerprinting line-up, as well as
the general invasion of privacy from the background checks.
I could go on and on, but I would like to know how you feel
about P.L. 110, and can you and will you do anything in the
legislature to rescind it?
Many thanks.
Cordially, Bradley Beckett
P.S. I'm sorry, but this is not my best writing as I have
been basically working here at school since 7:30 A.M., and,
as you can easily note above, I am sitting here writing
this to you over 11 hours later; and I've got to get home
for a late supper...
Again, thank you for your consideration.
Copies to be forwarded to:
Senator Chellie Pingree
Robert Jean, Pres., SAD 50 MEA
SAD 50 staff