Leaders apprehensive about school law

Bangor Daily News, November 21, 2007

(excerpt) The law requires reorganization of Maine’s school districts which will reduce the number of districts from 290 to 80. In conjunction with the law, the state education budget for the next fiscal year was reduced by $36.5 million. The state also reduced its allocation in four areas under the Essential Programs and Services formula: 5 percent in transportation, facilities and maintenance, and special education, and a cut of almost 50 percent in the per-pupil allocation for central office costs.

Despite those reductions, according to Rier, the overall amount of state support for education has been increased by $43.5 million, or 4.4 percent.

He acknowledged that not all districts will see a 4.4 percent increase in their subsidies. Some school officials, as they work on reorganization, anticipate the overall impact of the law will be a reduction in those subsidies, and in some cases, significant cuts.

Based on the estimated impact on existing budgets, RSU 10 on the Blue Hill Peninsula would lose about $500,000 for the new district’s nine towns. SAD 28 in Camden-Rockport is predicting subsidy cuts of $900,000 in special education alone, although Superintendent Patricia Hopkins noted that loss will be eliminated if the Legislature adopts the department’s proposed law changes.

The impact will be less in some districts such as Bangor, which, according to Superintendent Robert Ervin, already has achieved low system administration costs, and is not required to consolidate because of its sufficient student population. Their per-pupil costs for system administration, for example, are about $213, very close to the new subsidy levels, and Ervin said he does not anticipate a large impact on the school system.

Study Links Drop in Test Scores to a Decline in Time Spent Reading

New York Times, November 19, 2007

(excerpt) Among the findings is that although reading scores among elementary school students have been improving, scores are flat among middle school students and slightly declining among high school seniors. These trends are concurrent with a falloff in daily pleasure reading among young people as they progress from elementary to high school, a drop that appears to continue once they enter college. The data also showed that students who read for fun nearly every day performed better on reading tests than those who reported reading never or hardly at all.

The study also examined results from reading tests administered to adults and found a similar trend: The percentage of adults who are proficient in reading prose has fallen at the same time that the proportion of people who read regularly for pleasure has declined.

Susan A. Gendron: Saving money does improve Maine education

Bangor Daily News, November 17, 2007

(excerpt) But it is also vitally important to recognize that saving money is about improving education, and its purpose is to ensure that as many resources as possible go into our students’ classrooms — first and foremost to supporting teachers and professional development. Why wouldn’t we want our resources going to the people having the greatest impact on how our students learn?

There are several mechanisms already in place to make combining teacher contracts possible in a way that won’t harm school systems financially, and will contribute to educational improvements. More than half the state’s school administrative units do not spend as much on teacher salaries as is recommended under their Essential Programs and Services allocation. Those units could pay their teachers more if they would shift the funds from nonclassroom line items.

There are several adjustments to the state funding formula that can supplement teacher salaries. For example, additional money is included for K-2 instruction to allow for fewer students in each classroom. And there is a labor market adjustment for each region of the state.

Administrative reorganization and streamlining in noninstructional areas will save new units money which can be put into teaching salaries and professional development.

Letter: Government blogs work

Bangor Daily News, November 15, 2007

(excerpt) Online blogs by government officials are ultimately beneficial to the public because they function as an additional outlet of information about our government, whether or not the information is "honest or accurate."

In a BDN article on Oct. 22, Michael X. Delli Carpini, dean of the Annenberg School for Communications at the University of Pennsylvania said that in blogs, public officials are usually promoting policies and not offering honest reflections of what is going on. This skepticism should exist regardless of the medium in which the information is communicated.

The public can comment on the blogs of Michael Chertoff and Mike Leavitt, the first two members of President Bush’s Cabinet to post blogs. I agree with Carpini when he says this feature encourages public discourse; people interacting with the government in a unique way. In addition, the more information outlets the public has access to, the less media monopolies and agenda setting will affect what we understand about our government.

Even if this form of communication between the government and the public does not contribute to forming a more democratic society, the support of blogging in general is democratic, as established in the Constitution.

Study Compares States’ Math and Science Scores With Other Countries’

New York Times, November 14, 2007

(excerpt) American students even in low-performing states like Alabama do better on math and science tests than students in most foreign countries, including Italy and Norway, according to a new study released yesterday. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that students in Singapore and several other Asian countries significantly outperform American students, even those in high-achieving states like Massachusetts, the study found.

“In this case, the bad news trumps the good because our Asian economic competitors are winning the race to prepare students in math and science,” said the study’s author, Gary W. Phillips, chief scientist at the American Institutes of Research, a nonprofit independent scientific research firm.

The study equated standardized test scores of eighth-grade students in each of the 50 states with those of their peers in 45 countries. Experts said it was the first such effort to link standardized test scores, state by state, with scores from other nations.

Bad Behavior Does Not Doom Pupils, Studies Say

New York Times, November 13, 2007

(excerpt) Educators and psychologists have long feared that children entering school with behavior problems were doomed to fall behind in the upper grades. But two new studies suggest that those fears are exaggerated.

One concluded that kindergartners who are identified as troubled do as well academically as their peers in elementary school. The other found that children with attention deficit disorders suffer primarily from a delay in brain development, not from a deficit or flaw.

Experts say the findings of the two studies, being published today in separate journals, could change the way scientists, teachers and parents understand and manage children who are disruptive or emotionally withdrawn in the early years of school. The studies might even prompt a reassessment of the possible causes of disruptive behavior in some children.

“I think these may become landmark findings, forcing us to ask whether these acting-out kinds of problems are secondary to the inappropriate maturity expectations that some educators place on young children as soon as they enter classrooms,” said Sharon Landesman Ramey, director of the Georgetown University Center on Health and Education, who was not connected with either study.

Baldacci's Maine school consolidation idea unravels

Portsmouth Herald, November 9, 2007

(excerpt) But in southern York County, it ran into problems almost from the start. Kittery, which pays its teachers much less than York and is facing a major construction project with the probable replacement of the Frisbee School, was not an attractive partner. York looked north to the Wells-Ogunquit Consolidated School District. School Administrative District 35, with more than 2,500 students in South Berwick and Eliot, should have been immune altogether.

Last September, the state asked York and SAD 35 to take another look at Kittery. They did, and said no thanks again, a stance they reiterated in past few weeks. Every time they crunched the numbers, taking into account the mandates built into the law, it made little sense to make Kittery a partner. Meanwhile, Kittery could potentially face penalties for being an orphan despite its good-faith efforts.

We have heard school superintendents and school committees from all three districts say for months that the consolidation plan was not well thought out, and leaves gaping holes. They say they get no answers from the Department of Education, although they ask. Confusion has added to confusion.

Other parts of Maine have also crying foul. When bills were filed this fall for the upcoming legislative session that starts in January, no fewer than 68 dealt with the school consolidation law, everything from tweaking it to outright repeal. A citizen initiative to put repeal on the ballot is also underway.

And the Department of Education, we learned this week, is submitting its own bill. Gone will be the special education mandate. Gone at least in part will be the state subsidy mandate. In other words, all that money the state was going to save up front may soon evaporate. At least we think so. It's hard to get definitive answers from the DOE.

This is not the first time we have expressed high hopes for a Baldacci initiative, only to be disappointed later on.

Rural schools fight merger plan

Morning Sentinel, November 8, 2007

(excerpt) An effort to repeal the state's school consolidation law by petition is getting strong support in rural areas, where many worry it will mean the closure of beloved educational institutions.

Passed earlier this year, the law requires school systems to meet an aggressive timeline to form school districts of at least 2,500 students by July of 2009, although 1,200 students, or even less, is acceptable in some circumstances, including geographic isolation.

Where there is plenty of grumbling about the law from school districts of every size, support for the effort to repeal the law seems strongest in rural areas where even some superintendents publicly support it.

Lawrence "Skip" Greenlaw, chairman of the Maine Coalition to Save Schools, said the petition effort is getting "incredible support" from rural school board members and superintendents who fear the law will mean the eventual closure of beloved community schools.

Crew to break ground on new SAD 46 school
Bangor Daily News, November 6, 2007

(excerpt) SAD 46 directors have recommended a Benton firm be hired to do the groundwork for the new kindergarten through eighth grade elementary school.

The recommendation to hire Nitram Excavation and General Contractor Inc. was forwarded Monday to the state Bureau of General Services, the agency that has oversight of new school projects.

The Benton firm bid $4,338,539, the lowest of four bids, to do the groundwork with the exception of razing the building on the property, according to SAD 46 Superintendent Kevin Jordan. The other bids ranged from $4.6 million to $5.4 million, he said Monday.

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SAD 74 votes on consolidation

Morning Sentinel (update), November 5, 2007

(excerpt) Superintendent Regina Campbell said Monday that the SAD 74 Board of Directors will consider Dennistown, Pleasant Ridge and Kingsbury plantations in a revised notice of intent to the state. SAD 74 already has included SADs 12 and 13, as well as Greenville, Beaver Cove, Shirley, Caratunk, The Forks Plantation and West Forks in consolidation plans.

State's high school teachers getting hooked on free laptops

Portland Press Herald, November 5, 2007

(excerpt) In 2006 the Legislature extended the program another four years, and the state Education Department renewed a contract with Apple Computer to supply the laptops. The $41 million contract covers the costs of 38,000 new laptops, training and technical support, including the $2 million needed to extend the program to high school teachers.

Technology has invaded public school classrooms over the past decade. Teachers now keep track of attendance and grades electronically and depend on e-mail to communicate with parents.

The new computers make those tasks easier and also allow teachers to collaborate with each other in new ways, said Bette Manchester, who oversees the program for the state Department of Education.

Teachers are hungry to learn more about how to use technology in their classrooms, said Craig Dickinson, business manager for the Association of Computer Technology Educators of Maine. "They are really trying to work smarter," he said.

Three years ago, only 200 teachers showed up at his association's conferences. This year, 850 educators attended. Membership has doubled from 365 two years ago to 750 members today.

But the laptops are causing some headaches.

Schools key to rural community

Bangor Daily News, November 5, 2007

(excerpt) While Union 60 also has an option to become an independent school, local officials hope a statewide effort to abolish the governor’s regionalization plan is embraced. If it’s not, Sens. Peter Mills, R-Cornville, and Douglas Smith, R-Dover-Foxcroft, have filed special legislation that, if approved, would allow the three communities to form an RSU with the Unorganized Territory in the Moosehead Lake region, which would add about 70 more students to the unit.

"It appeals to me because it’s a workable solution to the Greenville area," Smith said Saturday of the special legislation. "The law, such as it is, does not contemplate the kind of problems Greenville has to reorganize itself and to get under the minimum number of students required under the new law."

If the state plan is not abolished, Gould believes, the special legislation would be best for the three communities. While the governor’s plan itself will not close schools, the closures could easily come once a regional school unit is formed and the town’s clout is diminished by a larger community, he said.

"It’s been very disappointing that this has been from the top down and very little effort has been made to work with us," Gould said.

The governor’s plan is the exact opposite of past practice, according to Perry.

"We locally run our school. We locally support them, and taxpayers vote to support our schools pretty much on our own," Perry said. As a minimum receiver, Union 60 gets only 10 percent of its budget from the state. Last year, the state paid $250,000 of the $3.4 million budget, she said. Despite the low subsidy, the community chooses to spend about $11,000 per high school student, according to Perry.

Stephen Bowen: Linking laptop use to improved writing may be a stretch

Bangor Daily News, November 3, 2007

(excerpt) The report begins, for instance, by analyzing what it calls "self-reporting" data, which means that analysts used survey instruments to ask students and teachers if they thought the laptops had made the students into better writers.

The report’s own data suggest they are not so sure. Only half of the students surveyed said they "agreed" or "strongly agreed" that they "do more work with the laptops" or that the "quality of [their] work has improved" since using laptops, and less than 40 percent "agreed" or "strongly agreed" they were "better able to understand their school work" when using laptops.

Teachers tended to agree with them. Only half "agreed" or "strongly agreed" that the quality of student work "increases when we use laptops," and about 30 percent, less than a third, "agreed" or "strongly agreed" that "students are better able to understand when we use laptops." Fully a quarter of the teachers disagreed entirely with that statement.

The report goes on to suggest that data from the eighth-grade Maine Educational Assessment test prove the laptops have had a positive effect on the writing skills of students. The report’s authors looked at MEA testing data from 2000, before laptops were implemented, and then from 2005, after the program had been in place for a couple of years. They report that the state average score on the eighth-grade MEA writing test grew from 534.1 to 536.5 over that period, and that the percent of students rated "proficient" in their writing on the exams rose from 29 percent to 41 percent. It sounds like a lot of progress, and it is, but are the laptops responsible?

Nick Bearce: Looking to rectify the problems in Bangor schools

Bangor Daily News, October 31, 2007

(excerpt) How good are the academics in Bangor schools? The Communique and other public relations pieces of the Bangor system regularly tout the statistics of the high achievers in our system. According to the last Communique, 95 percent of Bangor High School seniors go on to college. What would this number be if it included dropouts? How are we defining college?

Recently at a school board meeting I attended, a report was given on the results of the standardized test taken in a number of grades. The results of this test were compared with national averages or norms. We were higher than the national norm, which I would expect. More appropriate but not given was how do we compare to cities with similar socioeconomic demographics? This would give us a better understanding of the quality of our schools.

For schools, cheaper not always better

Bangor Daily News, October 31, 2007

(excerpt) The Maine Heritage Policy Center has released a report claiming that bigger school systems may be cheaper to operate, but that the state’s smallest schools regularly outperform them.

The report, "Is Bigger That Much Better: School District Size, High School Completion, and Post-Secondary Enrollment Rates in Maine," was written by Stephen Bowen, a former Republican member of the state House of Representatives from Rockport. Bowen examined Maine’s 15 largest and 15 smallest school districts that provide high school education.

"School reform should focus on getting the best possible outcomes at a value to taxpayers," said Bowen. "Unfortunately, Maine policymakers seem more focused on district size than on working to make successful learning models more affordable."

David Connerty-Marin, communications director for the Department of Education, discounted the report’s findings. Connerty-Marin said the school consolidation law was not designed to create larger districts as a way to save money; its primary focus was to improve instruction and results.

Yarmouth set to opt out of school consolidation

Portland Press Herald, October 31, 2007

(excerpt) Yarmouth has been the belle of the ball among Portland's northern suburbs, with communities ranging from Falmouth to Pownal courting the high-performing school district as a partner under Maine's new school consolidation law.

Now it appears that Yarmouth will choose to remain independent rather than merge with other school districts. Residents at a community forum on Monday indicated strongly that they prefer Yarmouth go it alone.

About 400 residents attended the forum to discuss the town's options under the new law, which is designed to reduce Maine's 290 school districts to about 80.

In both straw and paper balloting, nearly 100 percent of those attending the meeting showed support for Yarmouth remaining separate, school officials said.