Maine Back-to-School Tax Holiday Could Help Struggling Parents

Posted on Monday, August 18, 2025

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by Robert B. Charles

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2 Comments

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Schools nationwide, especially in Maine, are in critical trouble – on measures of accountability, outcomes (NAEP results), curricula (life skills), teacher pay and morale, industrial arts, administrative cost, and other indicia. Tax policy will not change that – but back-to-school tax holidays…will help parents. Maine and other states should adopt them.

Nationwide, teacher pay and morale are in the pits (Maine’s among the lowest), NAEP scores are shockingly low (Maine’s the “lowest…in three decades in reading and math), and cost-per-pupil is out of control, especially matched to falling outcomes, suggesting a failed education model.

In Maine, cost-per-pupil – attributable to fiscal mismanagement, state-level mandates, union fixation on money, and aging infrastructure – hit a record. Depending on the school district, even as Maine’s Democrat Attorney General sues to hobble Christian schools, the cost-per-pupil hit $65,863.

Of course, this cost – in combination with the cost of Democrat mandates on counties and towns – has driven Maine property taxes to astronomical levels. Maine is now in a property tax hurricane.

Taking everything back to basics, putting aside larger problems, who pays property taxes? Who has to wrestle failing schools, argue with school boards, protect their kids from indoctrination, block ideological insanity, like putting boys in girls’ sports? Parents. So, they need a break.

Today, only 17 states offer a “back-to-school tax holiday” for parents on all things tied to going back to school – clothes, books, school supplies, computers, printers, the works. Only Florida makes the back-to-school “tax holiday” an entire month.

So, bold idea: As school enrollment drops – especially in Maine, which saw a 73 percent drop in five years – and parents struggle to make ends meet and trust public schools, how about a hand up? Maine should offer a one-month “back-to-school tax holiday” for parents, encouraging school.

This small measure of respect for the unaffordability, strained trust, and overall failure of Maine’s Democrat-led government will not fix the educational collapse many see, feel, and shudder at, but it will help parents at wit’s end, wrestle with one less alligator, and cover one more unaffordable cost.

In Florida, the median per capita income is $68,703, while in Maine it is $39,718. If Florida can do it, Maine can do it. And Florida ALSO has no income tax, and is seriously considering rolling back property taxes. If Florida can help individuals, parents, and families, why not Maine?

Bottom line: Education reform in Maine is decades overdue and must occur. Tax policy reform is decades overdue and must occur. Spending, waste, and taxes must be cut. But for now, how about a simple, parent-friendly, school-promoting, one-month “back-to-school tax holiday”? 

Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, Maine attorney, ten-year naval intelligence officer (USNR), and 25-year businessman. He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (North Country Press, 2018), and “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024). He is the National Spokesman for AMAC. Today, he is running to be Maine’s next Governor (please visit BobbyforMaine.com to learn more)!