Jonathan Fulford has my vote for state Senate for many reasons, but high on my list with his support for raising the minimum wage, fighting for locally owned farms, and expanding health care for veterans and families, is his position on public school education. I am an educator with forty years of experience, and I know the impact a quality education makes in a child's life.

Our schools need help – they are already underfunded by more than $200 million a year. Unlike Mr. Thibodeau and the LePage Administration positions he promotes, Jonathan Fulford will work to reinstate revenue sharing by closing offshore tax havens, loopholes for those who can afford to pay their fair share, and use those funds to restore 55 percent funding to the education budget that Mainers approved in referendum in 2004. This makes sense.

Mr. Thibodeau, like the governor, endorses virtual charter schools, for-profit enterprises that often outsource their management to multinational corporations. Beholden to shareholders, the costs are billable to taxpayers in the communities where students participate, possibly to the tune of $7,000-$9,000 per pupil. I don't think so.

In these difficult economic times, four years of college may not be suitable for everyone. I like Jonathan Fulford's vision for developing trade school and apprenticeship programs. This plan, in combination with Jonathan's work to strengthen Maine's Community Colleges, would truly offer students a more affordable education with an array of alternative choices. I like this prospect.

Jonathan Fulford has cobbled together a history that demonstrates empathy for the working class families and small-scale farmers of Maine. As a small business owner, carpenter and farmer himself, it's in his DNA. I believe a vote for Jonathan Fulford for Senate is a vote for our children's future, for our communities and for Maine. I urge Waldo County voters to join me in electing Jonathan Fulford to the state Senate on Nov. 4.

Mj Crowe lives in Belfast