Schools panel back to work

Morning Sentinel, February 28, 2007

(excerpt) It appears middle and high school class sizes won't increase as Gov. John Baldacci's budget would have required. But it's going to cost high school students their promised new laptops.

Education Commissioner Susan Gendron told the Legislature's Education and Cultural Affairs Committee Tuesday the governor's proposal to increase middle and high school class sizes has been withdrawn. The class size change was expected to result in about 650 teaching positions being cut.

Now that those cuts are not going to be made, the state has to look elsewhere to recover the $12.5 million a year they expected to save.

Prominent among the programs to be cut is a proposed expansion of the state's laptop program that would provide laptop computers to all Maine high school students.

Gendron said planned expansion has been dropped. So have plans to fund more scholarships for high school graduates to attend the University of Maine, the Maine Community College System or Maine Maritime Academy.