Statute on school nepotism needs to be changed
Bangor Daily News, November 24, 2006

(excerpt) The first problem with the existing state statute is that it is ineffective at preventing nepotism, the stated reason for its existence. Nepotism is alive and well throughout our educational system because, in part, the state statute only restricts spouses of school board members. It does not prevent school administrators (principals, superintendents) from hiring their spouses. The MSMA’s decision to argue against changing the existing statute shows that their primary allegiance is not with their school board arm but with their school superintendent arm. Nepotism is not confined to spouses, so why is the statute? Most people would recognize a closer relationship between two people living together than between a person and his or her estranged spouse from whom he or she is separated. What about the closeness of the relationship of parent-child or sibling-sibling? What about the relationship between business partners? The statute is silent on all of these

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New contract would reward educators for research
Portland Press Herald, November 16, 2006

(excerpt) The three-year contract would reward teachers who take professional development courses or conduct independent research, Casasa said.

The proposal would also compress the number of pay raises based on years of experience. If approved by union members later this month, the new salary structure would take effect in September.

Under the new pay scale, the top teacher salary would rise from about $65,000 next year to around $78,000 and would no longer be reserved solely for those with a doctorate, said Joline Hart, the school department's human resources director.

Teachers would advance to a higher pay grade for every 225 hours of professional development work approved by school officials, Hart said.

The new contract calls for five merit-based pay categories and 10 yearly raises; the current scale has four merit grades and 31 yearly raises, Hart said.

A teacher at the lowest pay grade would have to perform 900 hours of approved work to reach the highest level, she said, though that would take at least 10 years.

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A New Tack to Help High-Schoolers At Risk: College
Washington Post, November 7, 2006

(excerpt) Some educators believe that the traditional high school, with its social pressures and focus on discipline, is a waste of time for a large number students.

Leon Botstein, president of Bard College in New York, which partners with an early college high school in Manhattan, contends that high school should end after 10th grade. Afterward, he said, students should be able to choose what they want to study, to motivate them to pursue their educations.

"High school is an outmoded, obsolete structure," Botstein said. "It is inadequate to deal with young adults who grow up in our society with an immense amount of freedom they don't know how to handle."

Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates, who is a champion of the movement through his foundation, also called high schools "obsolete" in a widely quoted speech to governors early last year.

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As Math Scores Lag, a New Push for the Basics
New York Times, November 14, 2006

(excerpt) For the second time in a generation, education officials are rethinking the teaching of math in American schools.

The changes are being driven by students’ lagging performance on international tests and mathematicians’ warnings that more than a decade of so-called reform math — critics call it fuzzy math — has crippled students with its de-emphasizing of basic drills and memorization in favor of allowing children to find their own ways to solve problems.

At the same time, parental unease has prompted ever more families to pay for tutoring, even for young children. Shalimar Backman, who put pressure on officials here by starting a parents group called Where’s the Math?, remembers the moment she became concerned.

“When my oldest child, an A-plus stellar student, was in sixth grade, I realized he had no idea, no idea at all, how to do long division,” Ms. Backman said, “so I went to school and talked to the teacher, who said, ‘We don’t teach long division; it stifles their creativity.’ ”

Across the nation, the reconsideration of what should be taught and how has been accelerated by a report in September by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, the nation’s leading group of math teachers.

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SAD 48 Airs Consolidation Plans
Bangor Daily News, November 10, 2006

(excerpt) The SAD 48 board voted Tuesday night to accept one of several options offered by M.E. McCormick Consultants of Dexter that includes constructing a new regional high school and consolidating four elementary schools into two.

But the key to the success of the consolidation, Dwayne Littlefield, building committee chairman, said Thursday, will be getting the public involved. "We really want a two-way discussion," Littlefield said. Over the next three months, directors will meet with selectmen and members of the public in each of the district's communities. They will also meet with local fire departments, service clubs and organizations, teachers and parent-teacher groups, the Sebasticook Valley Chamber of Commerce, senior citizens' groups and veterans' organizations. Focus groups will also be created and Nokomis Warrior Broadcasting will carry a full explanation of all decisions. The directors will explain McCormick's plan and then use the input from the people to make a final determination.

"It is important to remember that what the board approved was that we put a discussion out there," Littlefield said. "Nothing is etched in stone."

Currently, the district owns 10 buildings, and replacement, renovation and removal were all concepts discussed earlier this year. Some of McCormick's suggestions included the renovation of Nokomis High School into a middle school; conversion of the two existing middle schools into elementary schools; construction of a new elementary school for Plymouth, Palmyra and Newport; closing all existing elementary schools; constructing a new high school with a career-vocational center, sports complex and arts center.

This article has not appeared on the Bangor Daily News web site. Nevertheless I feel it is of great local interest. I offer this (~250 word) excerpt with the hope that such use of the BDN material falls within fair use guidelines.

Update: There's a related article in the Portland Press Herald here. Be sure to read the comments!

How the Schools Shortchange Boys
City Journal, Summer 2006

(excerpt) Since I started teaching several years ago, after 25 years in the movie business, I’ve come to learn firsthand that everything I’d heard about the feminization of our schools is real—and far more pernicious to boys than I had imagined. Christina Hoff Sommers was absolutely accurate in describing, in her 2000 bestseller, The War Against Boys, how feminist complaints that girls were “losing their voice” in a male-oriented classroom have prompted the educational establishment to turn the schools upside down to make them more girl-friendly, to the detriment of males.

As a result, boys have become increasingly disengaged. Only 65 percent earned high school diplomas in the class of 2003, compared with 72 percent of girls, education researcher Jay Greene recently documented. Girls now so outnumber boys on most university campuses across the country that some schools, like Kenyon College, have even begun to practice affirmative action for boys in admissions. And as in high school, girls are getting better grades and graduating at a higher rate.

As Sommers understood, it is boys’ aggressive and rationalist nature—redefined by educators as a behavioral disorder—that’s getting so many of them in trouble in the feminized schools. Their problem: they don’t want to be girls.

Take my tenth-grade student Brandon. I noted that he was on the no-pass list again, after three consecutive days in detention for being disruptive. “Who gave it to you this time?” I asked, passing him on my way out.

“Waverly,” he muttered into the long folding table.

“What for?”

“Just asking a question,” he replied.

“No,” I corrected him. “You said”—and here I mimicked his voice—“ ‘Why do we have to do this crap anyway?’ Right?”

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Vote vs. TABOR was no endorsement of status quo
Portland Press Herald, November 8, 2006

(excerpt) Question 1, the most contentious item on Tuesday's ballot, wasn't just about a mechanism for controlling government spending. For many voters, the proposal known as the Taxpayer Bill of Rights presented a more fundamental question about the nature of democracy.

While supporters argued that voters must take matters into their own hands because Maine's elected officials have failed them, many opponents believed that elected officials should be the ones to wrestle with complex tax and budgetary matters.

So the Legislature should not be too pleased that Question 1, also known as TABOR, went down to defeatTuesday night. Despite the divisiveness of the issue, there was wide agreement among voters that Maine's tax burden is too high, according to interviews at the polls. And many of those who rejected Question 1 now expect the Legislature to take bold action to lower the state's highest-in-the-nation tax burden.

Daniel Davis, a 27-year-old Portland man who voted against TABOR, said the issue is too complicated for voters. But he said high taxes are a real problem and elected officials are better equipped to create measures that will really work.

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