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Maine Education 2050 Maine Citizens' Assembly on Education Priorities · 2026
The model

What is a Citizens' Assembly?

A structured way to bring informed public judgment to questions that matter.

A citizen assembly brings ba roadly representative group ordinary citizens together to tackle hard questions with the time and tools to do it well. The result is a thoughtful set ofrecommendations that legislators can actually use.


A proven format

Used worldwide. Now in Maine.

Citizens' Assemblies have been used in more than 800 cases worldwide — Ireland, France, Canada, the UK, and beyond — to bring informed public reasoning to difficult questions, from climate policy to constitutional reform. They're beind held in the US too, with projects in New Hampshire, Connecticut, Utah, and more.

Maine is developing its own model based on the assembly format for one of our most important questions: what should our elected leaders take action on to improve education in Maine?

What makes it work

Representative by lottery

Delegates are selected to broadly represent the public.

Informed & Structured

Delegates learn from balanced materials and expert panels before they engage in structured, moderated deliberation.

Deliberation over debate

The work is weighing tradeoffs and finding common ground, not winning a debate