WE,  your Memorialists, the Members of the One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Legislature of the State of Maine now assembled in the First Regular Session, most respectfully present and petition the President of the United States, the United States Congress and the Secretary of Education as follows:

WHEREAS,   the administration of President Barack H. Obama has made it known that it wants to rely more on the use of competitive grants to award federal education aid to states, and it is likely to incorporate competitive grants in its proposal to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, known as the No Child Left Behind Act; and

WHEREAS,  the shift to competitive grants as opposed to formula allocations will hurt rural states like Maine that lack the people or the capacity at the state and local levels to devote to the grant-writing process; and

WHEREAS,  Maine currently receives an estimated $200,000,000 in federal money annually, distributed largely through formula allocations, that supports programs for the State's neediest children; and

WHEREAS,  changing federal aid to a competitive grant system would jeopardize that funding at a time when the State needs it most, in these serious economic times, and it would hurt the education of children who need it most; and

WHEREAS,  the Maine School Boards Association and the Maine School Superintendents Association, which represent school districts across the State, have formally adopted positions opposed to this move toward competitive grants, now, therefore, be it