A task force has been created by Gov. Paul LePage to look at how to successfully implement a five-year high school program in the state. His vision, which samples concepts from the North Carolina school system, would give the opportunity for students to take college courses alongside high school level classes through the curriculum. This would require one more year of study. Each student who goes through that program would leave high school not only with a diploma, but also an associate’s degree.

On paper, this looks great. If I had the opportunity in high school to earn a degree, I might have taken it. During my senior year at Thornton Academy, I went through the University of Southern Maine’s Early Studies Program and earned 12 college credits before I graduated ”“ but I was the exception, not the rule.

Many of my peers weren’t as proactive in their education, whether they were struggling in high school level classes or not wanting to burden their personal lives with more “future career” worry. The issue with the five-year program is that the students who are already doing well and on the right track will take the opportunity, and the students who are struggling will just continue to fall through the cracks. The mechanisms for helping those students should be the priority.

Either way, this gets to a larger issue about what the problems are in our education system. The fact that politicians in Augusta are taking some time to actually ponder these complicated matters is a step in the right direction, but what is needed moving forward is just a simple conversation with students and business leaders.

Students do not see the connection between what they are learning in the classroom and the real world. That real world is finding a job in an economic climate that is already strapped for hiring new college graduates, let alone high school diploma earners. I completed multiple internships while in high school, but most students don’t and it’s not a requirement to graduate. True, there are some training programs working with schools or built right into the school itself, but not all areas have that. Skills pay the bills, and if young people don’t have the skills, then organizations will skip right over them to someone who does.

College preparation is important, but it is not the only aspect of education on which we should be focusing. There are students who graduate high school who can’t balance a checkbook, don’t know how to register to vote, can’t speak in front of groups, and, in the saddest of examples, can’t effectively read or write at their age level.

I haven’t even mentioned the potential costs of adding another year of education to a social program to which many like to make cuts year after year. What happens to the students who go to schools in northern Maine that can’t afford textbooks or laptops while students in southern Maine might have more opportunities based on the tax base?

Let’s start solving the curriculum problems and shoring up the educational disparities between northern and southern Maine before we simply leave a majority of students in the cold while the go-getters get another boost up. My first suggestion would be to actually include students in the task force. They are the ones being directly impacted and are in the classroom everyday on the receiving end of a school system that supposedly prides itself on not leaving children behind.

— Justin Chenette is a host of Youth in Politics, airing on WPME Sundays at 2 p.m. and WPXT at 8:30 a.m. He is a former member of the Maine State Board of Education, a graduate of Thornton Academy and is currently attending Lyndon State College, majoring in broadcast news. Follow him on Twitter @justinchenette, like him on Facebook.com/JustinChenetteOfficial, or visit his website at justinchenette.com.