Initiative to boost economy through education rolls out
The Maine Coalition for Excellence in Education, along with a group of business and other partners, today launched the Prepare Maine Initiative aimed at strengthening the state's educational system and work force training.
The Augusta-based coalition held three events in Bangor, Portland and Skowhegan to announce the initiative, focused on improving access to quality education and tackling educational reform needed to enhance the state's economy, according to a press release from the coalition. The event at Bangor's United Technologies Center included a tour of the center's building construction and management program, where industry leaders talked about ways to raise the state's graduation and college attendance rates and creating ties between the technical and college education.
Steve Pound, associate director of work force development at the Cianbro Insitute, and Mike Shea, president of Webber Energy Fuels, highlighted businesses' need for skilled workers and the importance of community partnerships to support education in the building trades. Without a focus on strengthening the state's educational system, "then all the talk about developing Maine's economy is just talk," Pound said at the event, according to the release.
Yellow Light Breen, the chair of the coalition and a vice president at Bangor Savings Bank, one of the coalition's corporate supporters, told Mainebiz that today's event is the first of several initiatives planned this year to roll out a policy agenda and focus attention on educational preparedness and performance.
"We're trying to get people to talk about education in the long term," he says. "We're trying to recapture the energy and focus around education, a lot of which was absorbed by the attention on school consolidation and the challenge of the state budget."
Breen says the coalition intends to make sure every gubernatorial candidate is aware of its message and to intensify its outreach after the primaries.
Nonprofit partners in the Prepare Maine initiative include the Maine Development Foundation, the Maine State Chamber of Commerce, and both the Portland and Androscoggin County regional chambers, as well as the Davis Foundation and the Nellie Mae Education Foundation. In addition to Bangor Savings Bank, major corporate supporters include Bank of America, Unum and Cianbro.
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