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What skills and capacities do our youth need from their education to thrive in the Maine of 2050?


Ed Forum and Educate Maine are partnering to ask this question and others to help us create a common vision for the future of education in Maine. Only if we have a clear vision of where we are going can we design a system of education to get us there.


Maine ED 2050 is a statewide project to bring communities, educators, and youth together to discuss how education and schooling can be designed for personal, civic, and economic thriving in the next few decades. We have clear goals in our Maine Economic Development plans for 2030, but we don’t yet have a clear connection between our goals and how our system of K-12 education will help us achieve them. And, the youth mental health crisis here in Maine tells us we need to be looking deeply at how we can design school to center wellbeing while preparing all youth to matter in their communities.



Knowing where we are going will help us make the right investments now.

Let's create the Maine of 2050 together, through an education system designed for it.


In January 2022, we began hosting conversations with youth, community members, education professionals, and our heritage industry leaders to discuss what the future holds for Maine:

  • What do our communities need from our education system in order to thrive in the future?

  • How will the youth of today influence Maine’s tomorrow?

  • What do educators see as the future of education?

  • How can our education system prepare our youth for the workforce of tomorrow?

  • What skills and capacities are most needed for the next generations to succeed—in Maine—personally, professionally, and civically?


We are hosting 150+ conversations in communities in every county to find answers to questions like these and to inspire sustained collaboration between major education stakeholders to carry a vision for pre K-12 education into the future—beyond elections, beyond changes in administrations.

We are partnering with Cortico-LVN to provide analysis of the conversations.

Cortico's mission: We believe civic life can be revitalized when we hold space for disagreement and diversity, recognizing that traditionally under-heard voices and marginal experiences can yield powerful understanding. From our fragmented public sphere, we can construct a mosaic of democracy. Together. Learn more about Cortico here.


Analysis and Sense-making


Cortico-LVN (through MIT's Media Lab) will provide analysis of the conversations using AI (artificial intelligence), a public dashboard to keep the whole state informed of evolving topics and themes, and ways for the public to contribute to sense-making activities online. We will provide additional analysis to share through our website and Educate Maine’s, as well as white papers for legislators, the Department of Education, and university teacher preparation programs.


Education Summit 2022


In November 2022 we will host a summit gathering for major education stakeholders, co-sponsored by Maine Resilience Building Network. Our aim is to create a shared vision based on the learnings from the community and industry conversations and to begin a coordinated plan to realize goals along the way to realizing that vision.


The Future


We expect the community and industry conversation aspect of the project will continue through all of 2022 and into 2023, with a final report published in May 2023. This work will then be repeated in a few years to make sure we are on track. This is long term work, and we are excited to collaborate with the great variety of Maine organizations working for the best education system for Maine’s future.


Join Us!


This project is inclusive of the whole state and needs community partnerships in every county. Reach out to us if you’d like to discuss how you can be involved. You can also contact us at 2050@edforumofmaine.org.