Don Tarbet Testimony
Testimony Before the Committee on Education and Cultural Affairs
By Don Tarbet, Bradford
Wednesday April 11, 2001 -- State Office Building, Augusta
Senator Mitchell, Representative Richard, and Members of the Committee. My name
is Don Tarbet. I live in Bradford and am a member of the MSAD 64 Board of
Directors. Thank you for allowing me to speak to you regarding LD 1765. To
summarize briefly, LD 1765 has put you in a dilemma from which there is little
hope of escape.
On the one hand, the Legislature needs to know whether the fingerprinting program
is really doing anything to protect our children. So far this measure has
ben supported only by anecdote, innuendo, curiously timed 'leaks' and
information releases, and outright misinformation. Every bit of creditable
evidence, from statistics, to advice by the US Congress, to logic suggests
that the fingerprinting of school employees to protect children is a well-meaning
but misdirected effort.
Indeed, reports by the New York Times (8/30/2000) and by Maine Times (3/1/2001)
suggest the possibility that the various fingerprint schemes popping up around
the country may be more about building a national database and about successful
lobbying by the biotech industry than about any public service these schemes
are touted to perform. The schemes, it appears, rarely, if ever, work as
promised. If you fail to recommend passage of LD 1765, the perception among
those following the issue will be that you are stonewalling and that there really
is nothing behind the fingerprinting craze but politics and the abuse of
reason.
On the other hand if you do recommend passage of LD 1765, you will be seen as
having committed a grave breach of faith. It was on the basis of total
confidentiality that this measure was found even marginally acceptable by
some. If you violate that guarantee of confidentiality, what does that say about
the government of our state?
Recently I sat at a rural schools partnership forum with three members of this
committee. There we heard the sad and increasingly familiar tale of major
difficulties in the recruitment and retention of quality teachers. I am sure each
of you is aware of the scope of the problem. Visit the web sites of Maine
Educators Against Fingerprinting (MEAF) and Parents Against Fingerprinting to
read the credits of teachers being driven out of the profession by the fingerprint
law. It is not a list of malcontents; it reads more like a who's who, including
the current State Teacher of the Year in a critical shortage area.
To justify continued funding -- even the continued existence -- of a piece of legislation
that worsens to any degree the already severe shortage of teachers in Maine
requires far better information than we have yet seen. We need something
more than anecdotes, red herrings, convenient leaks (which as leaks are not
subject to in-depth analysis), and errors. But you cannot provide that information
without betraying a trust.
It will neither solve the problem of teacher shortages, nor restore confidence
in government as responsive to evidence and reason if you recommend repeal of
fingerprinting of school employees, but it will be a step in the right direction
on both counts. And it will get you out of your current dilemma. I see nothing
else that will.
Thank you for your time.
Don Tarbet, PhD
Board of Directors,MSAD 64
Atkinson RD., Bradford ME 04410
MEAF Website http://www.slipperyslope.org -- info@slipperyslope.org