Articles of Interest

2008-09-04T16:00:00.003-04:00

Goodbye and Hello and Thanks!

By the lack of activity here you knew that something was up.

After about a year and a half and 460 posts, we're retiring "Articles"

This blog began on January 8, 2008 and ran until June 19, 2008. In that time we posted an average of more than 6 articles weekly. We had 2863 page loads, far fewer than our sister site, "Voters", which had 43,054 page loads over a period of two years.

Nevertheless, "Articles" was a helpful (we hope) current awareness tool.

As is the way in this world, our attention has turned in other directions.

Mel is continuing to blog, and continuing to blog about education, though with a somewhat different focus. You can see what he's up to over at DowneastSchoolhouse.com.

Thanks to all our loyal readers, for your time and your attention and your efforts to improve education in our communities.

The Editor’s Two Cents

2008-06-19T08:05:00.001-04:00

SVWeekly.com, June 12, 2008

(excerpt) That was the case at one area high school this year when a handful of seniors was denied the right to march with graduates. The school has yet to confirm or deny the report. Students were told diplomas would be mailed, but they would not march. To my knowledge, these were not students who had misbehaved, but simply would be granted diplomas for the length of time they spent at school; just short of the right credits to graduate, but apparently worthy enough to graduate. Someone wasn’t watching for “no child left behind” and no one noticed until it was too late that the proper credits weren’t achieved. Still they could graduate…but without the good memories. A quiet miss-step…overlooked and passed aside, but a sad habit of administrators everywhere looking only to move on and beyond errors that might mar the record.

SAD 59 open to merger talks

2008-06-18T08:52:00.001-04:00

Morning Sentinel, June 18, 2008

(excerpt) The SAD 59 school board Monday night voted to ask the neighboring Anson and Bingham school districts to explore collaboration for a possible combined regional school unit, school officials said Tuesday.

"The board elected to have (Superintendent) Michael Gallagher talk to SAD 74 and SAD 13 boards to see if they want to sign a notice of intent with us," SAD 59 school board Vice Chairman Troy Emery said Tuesday.

Emery also is chairman of the SAD 59 Reorganization Planning Committee. "And if they say yes," Emery continued. "We'll sit down with them, with the financial templates from the Department of Education and try to make this work.

"If they say no, then the board needs to have more discussion on what 59's next step will be."

Any consolidation into a Regional School Unit (RSU) would also include SAD 53 in Pittsfield.

Emery said it is too early to even discuss the prospect of closing one of the high schools in either SAD 74, 13 or 59 as part of the reorganization plan, once and if it is hatched.

Monday's unanimous SAD 59 board vote comes on the heels of the defeat June 10 of formal consolidation with the Pittsfield district.

Education Department praises budget votes

2008-06-13T18:30:00.000-04:00

Bangor Daily News, June 13, 2008

(excerpt) After reviewing a sample of Tuesday's election results, the Department of Education is satisfied that the new school budget validation process is working.

Communications Director David Connerty-Marin said the two-step approval process appeared to have worked smoothly and brought about the results the department was hoping for.

Connerty-Marin emphasized, however, that the department's opinion was based entirely on election results culled from newspaper articles. Of the 50 school districts that the department found reports on, residents in six of them voted against the proposed budgets. Despite that 12 percent rejection, Connerty-Marin said, the process was successful.

"I think it's been a success because more people than ever have been involved in the process," Connerty-Marin said Thursday. "The fact that some budgets have failed shows that there is greater participation in the process and that the voters are paying attention. Whatever is happening is good because the people are weighing in."

The two-step budget validation process was approved by the Legislature as part of the school consolidation law that called for shrinking the state's 290 school districts into about 80 regional school unions. Communities across the state are in the process of consolidating into RSUs in hopes of meeting the June 2009 deadline.

The two-step process mandated that every school district in the state use the same budget approval method. It required that the budget must first be reviewed and passed at a public district budget meeting — or, in the case of a municipality-controlled school system, at a public hearing — and then validated at the polls. Most of the budget meetings took place last month, followed by the validations on Tuesday.

Lubec voters nix school budget

2008-06-12T18:30:00.000-04:00

Bangor Daily News, June 12, 2008

(excerpt) The school board has to redo the proposed school budget after it was defeated Tuesday 144-136.

It has been a slippery slope for the school budget process. Lubec, like other communities in the state, took a major hit in its state school subsidy. The town's state aid went from $728,000 to $433,000.

School board members were faced with a dilemma: cut the budget or pass the increases on to property taxpayers.

When the school budget was first presented at a public meeting earlier this year, it looked as if the school board was trying to push through a nearly 21 percent increase from last year. Although most who spoke said they favored the increase, the majority of people who attended were silent.

The next day, school board Vice Chairwoman Diana Wilson, with help from school administrators, reduced the budget to an 11 percent increase from last year.

SAD 53/59 consolidation fails

2008-06-11T18:30:00.000-04:00

Morning Sentinel (update), June 11, 2008

(excerpt) A negative vote in Madison spelled failure Tuesday for consolidation between School Administrative Districts 53 of Pittsfield and 59 of Madison.

While the three SAD 53 towns gave solid approval to the plan, the SAD 59 vote means that school officials must renew their efforts. School districts with fewer than 1,200 students must consolidate by January, or the state will reduce their funding.

Though the other three SAD 59 towns passed the proposal, it failed in Madison, 269-334. It passed in Athens 40-25, in Brighton Plantation 3-1 and in Starks 37-21. Combined, SAD 59 towns rejected the measure by 32 votes.

2008-06-05T06:49:00.003-04:00

Nick Bearce: A grade for Bangor School Committee's budget

Bangor Daily News, June 5, 2008

(excerpt) A glaring omission in the budget is lack of spending comparisons with similar districts or state or national averages. In the past, comparisons were not done since the budget lines contained different expenses. The state is imposing a uniform chart of accounts which the administration doesn't like. While this may cause some confusion in the short run, in the long run budgets will be comparable between districts.

This article is not available online. It is excerpted here because of its local interest. We offer this excerpt in the belief that such use of this material falls within fair use guidelines. Back issues of newspapers are available at local libraries. Please support your local newspapers!

SAD 74 directors to discuss 1-year merger with SAD 13

2008-06-05T04:17:00.000-04:00

Morning Sentinel, June 4, 2008

(excerpt) A temporary merger of administrative services for schools in SAD 74 and the Bingham-based SAD 13 could come a step closer to reality tonight when the School Administrative District 74 board meets in regular session.

The meeting is set for 7 p.m. at Carrabec High School.

On the table tonight is a proposal for an inter-local agreement between the two districts, which would consolidate some of the work, but only as a test drive for one year, SAD 74 Superintendent Regina Campbell said Tuesday.

SAD 74 is made up of the towns of Anson, Solon, Embden and New Portland. SAD 13 is Bingham and Moscow.

"Both boards have been meeting over the past few months discussing possible consolidation of administrative services for next year," Campbell said.

Greenville residents: Fix school restrooms

2008-06-04T18:30:00.000-04:00

Bangor Daily News, June 4, 2008

(excerpt) In a rather unusual move during the annual school budget meeting Monday, residents added $50,000 to the spending plan and targeted those funds for replacement of the 75-year-old restrooms on the first floor of Greenville High School.

In making the recommendation, resident Kyle Pelletier said the restrooms are "in miserable shape, absolutely." A member of the school’s building committee, Pelletier said there have been discussions about moving elementary pupils from the Nickerson school into the high school to consolidate and to close the Nickerson school, but much work has to be completed before that can occur.

Report argues for incentives in struggle over school reform

2008-06-04T18:29:00.000-04:00

Bangor Daily News, June 4, 2008

(excerpt) A new report by the Maine Children's Alliance contends that the state's school reform effort is flagging but could be revived through a new focus on incentives for consolidation.

"A Case for Cooperation II," to be published later this month, was released Tuesday on the MCA Web site.

The report provides a detailed analysis of the school consolidation law enacted in 2007 as part of the state budget. It charts developments during the recent legislative session, which saw numerous attempts to modify drastically or even repeal the law. And it also looks forward to the 2009 session, when the Legislature likely will consider school reform measures.

Most school districts in Maine are supposed to attempt consolidation, reducing the number of districts statewide from 290 to 80. Only a few plans have been completed and only a handful of communities are ready to vote on them this month, according to report author Douglas Rooks.

Rooks said many local regional planning committees were spending the bulk of their time grappling with the implications of consolidation on their budgets and governing issues of how to manage the expanded school districts, instead of finding ways to consolidate.

"It’s not going well," Rooks said Monday. "People on the [committees] are having a hard time."

SAD 11 Brass: Budgeting Flawed

2008-06-01T13:26:00.000-04:00

Kennebec Journal, May 30, 2008

(excerpt) Voters increased the proposed School Administrative District 11 budget by $195,000 at a district budget meeting attended by about 120 of the district's 13,000 residents Tuesday.

The new total proposed budget of nearly $21 million goes to voters from Gardiner, West Gardiner, Randolph and Pittston in a referendum vote June 10.

Both the district budget meeting and the new form of referendum question going to voters June 10 were instituted as part of a state school reorganization law.

Voters Tuesday added $100,000 back into the budget for fuel costs plus another $95,000 in staff costs intended by voters to restore two elementary school guidance counselors' jobs.

Dick Rogers, chairman of the school board, said he thinks the school board may have some discretion in the manner in which the $95,000, added Tuesday, is spent.

But Rogers complained the new state process is "flawed," in that it allowed a small number of people to determine a school budget amount that will go to voters districtwide.

"Clearly the process is flawed, and the Legislature needs to look at this again," Rogers said. "It's unfair a turnout of 120 people can decide for 13,000 people. That's just not right."

Education Commissioner Fields Questions on Consolidation Law

2008-06-01T13:25:00.001-04:00

Ellsworth American, May 29, 2008

(excerpt) Ben Wootten, a member of the Blue Hill Regional Planning Committee, said the state was vague about what school districts need to do in order to meet the law’s criteria.

The regional planning committee in Blue Hill includes several members who are supportive of the repeal efforts.

“You say, ‘It doesn’t meet our standards,’” said Wootten.

“‘We ask, ‘What are your standards?’”

“You say, ‘We can’t tell you,’” he said.

There were many questions about a new provision allowing for the creation of an alternative organizational structure (AOS) as an option to the regional school unit (RSU).

Gendron said the AOS, among other things, gives districts more wiggle room in setting teacher salaries, particularly in instances where salaries vary widely from town to town.

“If in our particular case we can show that your recipe does not work, would you be willing to sit down and evaluate [an alternative] with us?” Wooten asked.

“There is nothing in the legislation that allows me to approve another plan” other than the two stipulated, Gendron said.

She methodically moved through a printed PowerPoint presentation and took questions as she went along.

Residents approve SAD 3 budget, add $65,000 more

2008-05-29T20:02:00.001-04:00

Morning Sentinel, May 29, 2008

(excerpt) Voters from the 11 towns in School Administrative District 3 finalized the school budget for next year and approved accepting and spending money for construction costs during a meeting Wednesday evening.

Nearly 60 residents faced the school board and approved a $19,815,880 budget that will go before voters on June 10. The amount was amended to $65,000 higher than the board recommended.

Money for items and programs for the new school under construction, including a snow melt system for school walkways, athletic enhancement money from Future MSAD 3, a wind-turbine electrical system, a power generator and an indoor/ outdoor physical education program, was approved.

The 19 articles for budget expenses passed with an additional $65,000 added to the "students and staff support" article.

After repeated pleas to increase the amount to keep certain positions intact, voters approved the extra money. Guidance counselors, health technology, library services, student assessments and improvement of staff training are included in the article.

Chirs Crittenden: Don't let the sun go down on Lubec schools

2008-05-28T10:53:00.001-04:00

Bangor Daily News, May 28, 2008

(excerpt) Fastidious and faithful readers of the BDN may have noticed a rare occurrence recently: two articles on different topics about a tiny school that sits as far Down East as you can go. One article (May 15) praises teacher David Finlay who won the National Agriculture Outstanding Teacher Award. He won the Maine Agricultural Teacher of the Year Award last year. Finlay earned a plaque from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He is quoted as saying that he’s incredibly honored and adds, "Hopefully, it will bring recognition for everything being done in Lubec."

This brings me to the second news item (May 1), which has a much different tone: "Town Struggles To Compensate For Subsidy Loss." Rather than celebrate, this article laments. For over 100 years the town of Lubec has taught its own kids, but common sense is on the verge of doom. The attitude in town is that the end is coming, even if they scrape by for another year.

In 2007 Lubec High School received a Best High School Award from U.S. News & World Report. Only 13 schools in the state were so honored. Also in 2007, a Lubec art teacher won a Maine Arts Teaching Fellowship, one of only eight granted.

I could go on listing the praises but you get the flow of the tide. Lubec boasts a gem that should be upheld by our leaders as an ideal of education. Instead, the pencil pushers in Augusta are destroying this precious exemplar by the sea, a beautiful school in a natural, remote area that fosters Finlay’s aquaculture program and a walking trail that meanders through a coastal ecosystem down to the beach.

Consolidation repeal petition unaffected by law changes

2008-05-27T16:01:00.002-04:00

Bar Harbor Times, May 27, 2008

(excerpt) Considerable speculation has been swirling around the citizen-initiated petition to repeal the school consolidation law since the legislature amended the law in April of this year. But Skip Greenlaw of Stonington, Chair of the Maine Coalition to Save Schools, said this week that Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap has written a letter to Bryan Dench, the coalition's legal counsel, confirming Dench's opinion that the coalition's petition is unaffected by the changes to the law.

Mr. Greenlaw acknowledged that there has been much confusion about the impact a change in the law might have on the validity of the petition.

"We had been led to believe by rumor or innuendo that the petition might be rendered invalid because of legislative action,” he said. “We were very pleased and excited to learn that we are incorrect."

Stephen Bowen: Loss of school choice a major concern

2008-05-27T08:26:00.001-04:00

Bangor Daily News, May 24, 2008

(excerpt) In an OpEd in the Bangor Daily News, parents Sandra Pyne and Janet Winchester detailed how district reorganization planners in SAD 38 are looking to eliminate school choice options there as part of a plan to merge with SAD 48 in Newport, "School choice must be preserved" (BDN, April 29).

They are not the only parents in Maine who should be worried about the loss of school choice. A new report from The Maine Heritage Policy Center details how school choice opportunities across Maine are being scaled back or eliminated as state-mandated school district consolidation efforts continue.

Like the planned merger of SAD 38 and SAD 48, the plan for the merger of Carmel-area SAD 23 and neighboring Hermon would eliminate the opportunity SAD 23 students currently have of going to a high school of their choice using a waiver granted by the school committee. In recent years, high school students from SAD 23 have attended as many as six different high schools using this system. Under the provisions of the reorganization plan, however, existing waivers will be "grandfathered." After that, no more waivers will be granted, thus eliminating school choice opportunities entirely for the almost 300 students in SAD 23 who have that option today.

State ed director to meet with SAD 5/50 on merger

2008-05-23T13:46:00.000-04:00

Courier Gazette, May 23, 2008

(excerpt) The state education commissioner is scheduled to meet next month with the committee that is trying to come up with a consolidation plan for School Administrative Districts 5 and 50.

The McLain School in Rockland
The Wednesday, June 4 meeting will be held as the committee continues to wrestle with how to devise a cost-sharing formula that will be acceptable to the two districts. As presently designed, a merger of the two districts would result in Rockland being required to raise at least an additional $700,000 in property taxes and South Thomaston an additional $200,000.

That shift in costs worries some committee members who fear it could result in the consolidation being defeated at the polls.

Susan Gendron has agreed to meet with the committee to discuss a variety of issues related to the proposed consolidation, noted SAD 50 Board Chairwoman Jamie Doubleday. The meeting is scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m. at the McLain School in Rockland.

The meeting scheduled this week by the committee to discuss the cost-sharing formula was postponed because of a lack of a quorum. Several members were unable to attend.

4-day week for schools rejected

2008-05-23T13:44:00.001-04:00

Bangor Daily News, May 23, 2008

(excerpt) Education Commissioner Susan Gendron said Thursday that several school districts have asked about a waiver to allow a four-day school week to help mitigate the skyrocketing costs of energy, but she has had to say no.

"There are no provisions in the law that allows me to grant a waiver," she said in an interview. "The law requires them to meet 175 days a year."

Gendron said other states have had schools move to a four-day school week in response to the increasing cost of energy. She said districts in Maine are facing a similar situation with some rural districts having high transportation costs on top of heating costs that also have been growing faster than anyone predicted.

"I suspect that we will have to revisit the law in the next session," she said. "I suspect we are going to have to look at doing a lot of things differently."

Gendron said energy costs are a growing part of the operational costs of schools across the state. She said some units are looking at schedule changes they can accomplish within existing law that would ease the energy burden.

"The last time we were faced with this some school districts took longer winter breaks," she said. "Instead of taking a week around the holidays, they took two weeks. They took longer breaks in the winter and did not take one in the spring, and they saved money by doing that."

Despite surplus, state officials pessimistic

2008-05-23T13:42:00.001-04:00

Portland Press Herald, May 23, 2008

(excerpt) State finance officials say gains by better-off taxpayers and by energy companies enjoying the effects of high oil prices have buoyed Maine tax collections, at least temporarily.

But the legislative budget writers on the Appropriations Committee were told Thursday that the longer-term view is generally pessimistic.

Some of the revenue negatives for the state:

Total taxable sales for the month of March, counted as April revenue, were down 5 percent from March 2007, and the annual rate of growth was 1 percent.

General merchandise sales -- described as primarily sales of goods sold in large department and discount stores -- were down 5 percent for the month and flat for the year.

Auto/transportation sector sales were down 6 percent for the month and flat for the year, while building supply sales were down 7 percent for the month and 3 percent for the year.

If energy prices stay high, they will drain away dollars available for discretionary spending, cutting into sales tax receipts.

Ellsworth: School consolidation plans in limbo

2008-05-18T16:12:00.002-04:00

Bangor Daily News, May 14, 2008

(excerpt) Representatives of Union 96 in eastern Hancock County, after voting several months ago to consolidate with SAD 37 and Union 103 in Washington County, have changed course and decided to revisit consolidation talks with the Ellsworth school district.

Union 96 Superintendent William Webster said Wednesday that members of the regional planning committee have agreed to sit down again with their counterparts in Ellsworth to explore the options of consolidating to the west.

Ellsworth interim Superintendent Wayne Enman confirmed that RPC members in Ellsworth plan to meet with the Union 96 RPC on Monday, May 19.

"It seems they want to take a closer look at all options," Enman said. "So far, we haven’t found anyone that wants to dance with us, so we’re glad to hear they want to meet again."

Voters approve school budgets

2008-05-18T16:10:00.002-04:00

Portland Press Herald, May 14, 2008

(excerpt) Voters in Portland, South Portland and the towns of SAD 6 approved 2008-09 school budgets on Tuesday in first-time referendums required under the state's new school consolidation law.

In Portland, 65 percent of voters approved $85.5 million in education spending for kindergarten through high school. The vote was 2,311-1,229, with 8.5 percent of the city's 42,000 voters going to the polls.

The tally was much closer in South Portland, where 51 percent of voters approved $39.9 million in K-12 spending. The vote was 753-717, with 9 percent of the city's 18,000 registered voters casting ballots.

SAD 6 residents of Buxton, Frye Island, Hollis, Limington, and Standish ratified a $40.3 million school budget by nearly a 2-1 margin. Each town approved the budget except Frye Island, where the vote was 6-3 against. The overall vote was 761-413, a 7 percent turnout.

In each community, voters were asked to approve or reject the portion of the school budget that is eligible for state aid. The ballot amounts reflected planned spending in 11 areas, including regular instruction, special education, administration and transportation.

SAD 46 spending plan to cut teaching jobs

2008-05-18T16:08:00.002-04:00

Bangor Daily News, May 16, 2008

(excerpt) SAD 46 directors voted 9-1 Wednesday to send a proposed $10.9 million budget to voters for adoption at a district vote at 6 p.m. Thursday, June 5, at Dexter Regional High School.

A public meeting on the spending plan will be held at 6 p.m. Tuesday, May 27, at the high school.

The proposed spending plan would eliminate 6½ special education technicians, an elementary teacher, a business education teacher and a high school social worker. It would reduce two high school teaching positions in English and science to half-time.

SAD 48 Budget will rely more on local taxes

2008-05-18T16:04:00.002-04:00

Morning Sentinel, May 17, 2008

(excerpt) Residents in SAD 48 will be asked to shell out an additional $618,000 to pay for education next year, based on a budget plan approved by the board of directors.

The overall district budget plan includes a meager 1.8 percent increase, to $19.5 million.

But $5.5 million of that total would be generated by local property taxes, which is a 12.5 percent jump from this year, said Kelley Carter, business manager for School Administrative District 48.

As a result, the mil rate for the local share of education would jump from $7.52 to $7.61 per $1,000 of valuation, Carter said. For the average $100,000 home, that represents a $9 increase to $761.

The budget could change over the coming weeks, however. This year, due to new laws associated with the state's consolidation effort, school districts are required to hold a budget meeting during which residents will be allowed to vote and must approve spending in 17 separate categories, Carter said.

The budget meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. May 27 at the Nokomis High School cafeteria.

"This meeting will be presided over by a moderator, who will be elected at the meeting," Carter said. "The results of this meeting will be forwarded to the polls for validation."

SAD 54 voters OK budget at hearing

2008-05-14T00:03:00.000-04:00

Morning Sentinel, May 13, 2008

(excerpt) About 80 percent of the $32.5 million School Administrative District 54 budget passed Monday night before the first question was asked.

Then, during discussion on article 9, spending for facilities and maintenance -- up over 13 percent -- John Keister, of Norridgewock, asked why football games are played at night, when powerful electric lights are necessary.

After the meeting, Keister said his children played sports also, but he said with energy prices high and expected to go higher, it seems to make sense to play more football games during the day. That question was one of only a handful posed as about 160 voters in the Skowhegan Area High School gym approved the $32.5 million budget almost as quickly as they could move the articles.

Low turnout reported for Portland school budget vote

2008-05-14T00:02:00.000-04:00

Portland Press Herald (update), May 13, 2008

(excerpt) Turnout for today's vote on Portland's proposed school budget is "extremely low," said City Clerk Linda Cohen. The first-time referendum on the school budget is required by the state's new school consolidation law.

The $89.5 million school budget proposal for 2008-2009 would eliminate 48 positions - 28 left vacant this year and 20 scheduled for cutting in the coming year. The total budget reflects a 4.5 percent increase in spending over the current year.

The ballot asks voters to approve or reject the part of the school budget funded by local and state taxes. It reflects spending in 11 areas, including regular instruction, special education, administration and transportation. That amount totals $85.5 million, according to school department officials.

Cape Elizabeth school budget: Too high or too low?

2008-05-14T00:01:00.000-04:00

Portland Press Herald (update), May 13, 2008

(excerpt) Cape Elizabeth residents are set to vote on the school budget on June 10. If it fails, town officials want to know why. Officials hope to pose a non-binding advisory question to residents on the same day. Voters will be asked whether the budget amount is "too high" or "too low," giving town councilors guidance on how to amend the budget, according to Town Clerk Ruth Noble.

Evolution fight shaping up in SAD 59

2008-05-13T06:43:00.000-04:00

Portland Press Herald, May 11, 2008

(excerpt) The Maine Department of Education disagrees with an Athens school board director who wants School Administrative District 59 to drop evolution from its high school science curricula.

Director Matthew Linkletter argues that evolution is an unprovable theory and shouldn't be taught as fact. He's urged the SAD 59 Board of Directors to consider his view during its May 19 meeting in Madison, with a goal of removing evolution from science classrooms.

But David Connerty-Marin, a spokesperson for the Department of Education, says evolution must be taught because, in the state's view, it's a proven science.

"For our students to be prepared for college work and life in the 21st century, it's necessary," said Connerty-Marin.

Connerty-Marin said the Maine Learning Results program mandates the study of evolution in public science classes.

"Evolution is not just a belief, or based on faith, it's based on scientific evaluation," he said. "The worldwide science community supports it."

Linkletter, the school board director, believes that neither evolution nor creationism belongs in a high school science curriculum, because they cannot be proved.

"You can't show, observe or prove (evolution)," he said.

Asked at random, two parents of Madison Area Memorial High School students expressed some support for Linkletter's position.

SAD 59 includes Madison, Athens, Brighton Plantation and Starks.

Voters to get school budget Tuesday

2008-05-13T06:40:00.000-04:00

Portland Press Herald, May 12, 2008

(excerpt) Joshua Tingley's message is for Portland residents who plan to vote against the proposed school budget in Tuesday's first-time referendum because they think it's too low.

The referendum, required under the state's new school consolidation law, comes on the heels of a difficult budget year for Maine's largest school district.

Tingley is a Deering High School junior who is an advisory member of the Portland School Committee. The $89.5 million school budget proposal for 2008-09 would eliminate 48 positions – 28 left vacant this year and 20 to be cut in the coming year. The total budget reflects a 4.5 percent increase in spending over the current year.

During Wednesday's televised committee meeting, Tingley urged voters to support the budget and make sure they go to the polls, which will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

"If the budget is turned down, we will be forced to cut more, which won't benefit anybody," Tingley said Friday. "It's already as low as it can go and still educate our children."

At Deering High, Tingley said, the staff cuts mean that several courses won't be offered, including certain Advanced Placement, seminar and elective classes that usually attract fewer students.

The ballot will ask voters to approve or reject the portion of the school budget that will be funded by Portland taxpayers, which is $85.5 million. It reflects planned spending in 11 areas, including regular instruction, special education, administration and transportation.

The ballot total doesn't include parts of the school budget that are funded by grants and individual donations, or programs such as the multilingual center, adult education and athletics, which are ineligible for state education aid.

Where are the voters?

2008-05-13T06:39:00.000-04:00

Kennebec Journal, May 12, 2008

(excerpt) The school-budget referendums are part of a new school budget-approval process signed into law last year as part of Maine's sweeping school-district consolidation bill.

Following budget approval by school board members, the law requires that each school district hold budget meetings where residents accept, reject or change the board's plan.

The law then requires a separate, town-wide referendum vote.

If voters reject the budget at any stage, planning starts again -- from the beginning.

A vote on Tuesday in Anson, Embden, New Portland and Solon -- the towns of School Administrative District 74 -- drew approximately 11 percent of voters. A majority of those who appeared at the polls accepted their school board's recommended budget.

In Auburn, fewer than 6 percent of voters showed up at the polls Tuesday to approve that school system's 2008-09 budget.

When Farmingdale and Hallowell voters on May 2 accepted their school board's proposed budget at the polls, just 4 percent of the school district's voters turned out.

"It was a very slow, very long day," Hallowell Deputy City Clerk Diane Polky said.

Superintendent Donald Siviski estimated the referendum cost the school system $3,000 to $4,000, as districts must reimburse towns for polling costs.

Prison time awaits a former H.S. vice principal

2008-05-13T06:36:00.000-04:00

Kennebec Journal, May 10, 2008

(excerpt) A former Carrabec High School vice principal and athletic director was ordered Friday to serve nine months behind bars for having unlawful sexual contact with a student while giving the boy a ride home from a basketball game last December.

Frank "Skip" Gleason III, 60, of Anson, pleaded guilty to the offense on Jan. 22. The case had been continued until Friday for sentencing.

The charge and subsequent guilty plea by Gleason, who was a respected school administrator and pastor of a local church, shattered the Anson community, District Attorney Evert Fowle said.

"If we can't trust this individual with the pedigree he had, there's nobody in this society you can trust," Fowle said.

Fowle said Gleason admitted kissing and fondling the boy after being presented with a recorded conversation between him and the victim that occurred the next day. The criminal offense occurred Dec. 21, 2007.

Getting school plan right is ‘one-shot deal’

2008-05-13T06:34:00.000-04:00

Bar Harbor Times, May 9, 2008

(excerpt) Members of the Reorganization Planning Committee (RPC) for Mount Desert Island’s schools want to move quickly to develop a plan for tweaking the Union 98 structure so that it complies with the state’s newly revised school consolidation law. But at the same time, they want to be careful and do it right.

“This plan is kind of a one-shot deal,” said RPC Chair Gail Marshall. “Once you draw up your plan, there’s no comprehensive mechanism for changing it as time goes on. We want to try to build as much flexibility into the plan as possible to grease the skids for our successors, who may have to deal with circumstances that aren’t what they are now.”

Last Wednesday, the RPC met for the first time since the Legislature passed and Gov. Baldacci signed the law under which communities can request a waiver from the state’s school consolidation model and establish “alternative school organizations.” That provision will allow Mount Desert Island towns to retain, for the most part, the Union 98 structure. But since school unions no longer exist under the law, MDI towns will have to create a similar entity through an “inter-local agreement.”

It is up to the RPC to develop a plan for exactly what the new school system should look like and how it should function.

“I think the consensus (of RPC members) is that we should attempt to build a system that functions as much like the one we have now as possible,” Ms. Marshall said.

She said they also would like to accomplish that as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Ex-teachers sue School Board, claim age bias

2008-05-09T07:35:00.000-04:00

Kennebec Journal, May 8, 2008

(excerpt) Two English teachers who retired from the Augusta school system at the end of the 2005-06 school year are suing the school board and superintendent, claiming they were stymied by an age-discrimination policy in their efforts to get rehired.

Mary Cluff, 62, of Winthrop and Jane Paxton, 64, of Chelsea say they were denied posts at Cony High School the year following their retirement because of their age and experience.

They are suing the Augusta Board of Education and Superintendent Cornelia Brown in a complaint filed in Kennebec County Superior Court.

The complaint says the board and superintendent violated the Maine Human Rights Act, which prohibits age discrimination in employment.

In the complaint filed by their attorney David Fontaine, the women are asking for an injunction barring defendants "from engaging in any further unlawful practices," plus back pay, and the monetary value of other benefits.

The lawsuit alleges the district adopted a policy of "No Over 10, " meaning that, where possible, only teachers with less than 10 years experience would be employed.

The policy favors those with less experience and adversely affects those who are older and more likely to have more than a decade of experience, the lawsuit says.

Brewer school budget worrisome

2008-05-08T06:55:00.000-04:00

Bangor Daily News, May 7, 2008

(excerpt) When the Legislature passed the new school consolidation law in June 2007, a transparent budget process was created that requires voter approval in communities all across the state.

That doesn’t bother school officials in Brewer, where the school budget for fiscal year 2008-09 is projected to increase by a mere 2.6 percent, but the wording of the ballot question does.

"The question in the booth is going to say our budget exceeds [essential programs and services]" funding limits set by the state, Superintendent Daniel Lee told the Brewer School Committee on Monday. "On your ballot you’ll see [the question] ‘Do you approve the school budget that’s over ESP."

A ‘yes’ vote allows additional funds to be raised for the school budget and a ‘no’ vote means additional funds cannot be raised.

Lee and school Business Manager Lester Young expressed concern that residents might be misled by the wording and will vote down the measure simply because the budget exceeds EPS.

Skowhegan: School budget rises 4 percent

2008-05-08T06:52:00.000-04:00

Kennebec Journal, May 7, 2008

(excerpt) School Administrative District 54's budget is up about 4 percent but will actually lower the average education cost.

Superintendent Brent Colbry said that despite the rising cost of teachers' salaries, health insurance, fuel, electricity and almost everything else, the average cost of education for the six district towns has either stayed the same or declined each year for the past five.

More education funding has helped make that possible, but Colbry said the school board is also changing the way the district does business to prepare for leaner times.

"We are trying to create a sort of downward glide path rather than falling off a cliff," he said.

Learning Results not well-thought out

2008-05-06T05:24:00.000-04:00

Kennebec Journal, May 5, 2008

(excerpt) Your contributor (Alan Haley, column March 14) rightly called the Maine Learning Results a disaster, but he ignored the heart of the matter: Maine's presumption that all high school students can and should achieve the same set of high standards.

"One set of high standards for all" is not a meaningful concept. There is tremendous potential in each 15-year-old, but there is also a wide range of ability.

A high standard for one student is another's easy hop. No individual standard is well-suited for all.

The so-called Learning Results Maine has adopted are too academically oriented and overly rigorous. To ensure that every student can "calculate a 90 percent confidence interval," we force students into courses they do not want or need, and we water down courses so that students forced into them have a reasonable chance of success. Almost every student is badly served by this model.

We insist students take "more" courses, often providing fewer choices. In one Maine technical school, students can no longer take a second year of welding. They must take more academic courses.

SAD 49: Jobs to be eliminated

2008-05-06T05:23:00.000-04:00

Morning Sentinel, May 3, 2008

(excerpt) Ten-and-a-half teaching positions will be cut in School Administrative District 49 in the upcoming budget to keep local property taxes in check, Superintendent Dean Baker said Friday.

In all, 18 positions are to be eliminated if voters approve the budget at the May 27 annual budget meeting, he said.

The proposed $23.49 million spending package must be approved by residents from Albion, Benton, Clinton and Fairfield.

A second vote, called a "validation referendum" will be held in all four towns on June 3, when residents will be asked if they support the action taken at the budget meeting.

The overall budget is up only 3 percent over the current year, or about $712,400 Baker said. Spending includes the purchase of two new school buses.

As for the cuts in teaching positions, Baker said half will come from the elementary level, with the other half coming at the secondary level.

"There are going to be significant staff reductions across the board," Baker said. "This is to control the amount of increase we ask taxpayers for. It's to try to create a livable budget."

Dianne Tilton: Funding formula the real threat to rural education

2008-05-06T05:22:00.000-04:00

Bangor Daily News, May 5, 2008

(excerpt) The chronic problem is the Essential Programs and Services funding formula, which determines how much the state pays and how much local communities pay. It is the EPS formula that assumes because Washington County and similarly watery areas in Maine have valuable land (an artificial measure of wealth), we must also have the money to pay a higher share of our education costs. It is the EPS formula that needs to be fixed.

I don’t know how EPS can be changed to bring more equity to poorer, rural school districts, but we must find a way. State revenue will continue to shrink, and more and more of our costs for education will be shifted to the local property tax payer. Until EPS is changed, our rural school districts will suffer, no matter how large they are, and any savings realized by reorganizing will be overwhelmed by the local money we are expected to raise, whether we can or not.

I hope the battle-weary champions of small schools and local control can regroup, soldier on and fight to change EPS, the most threatening enemy of all.

I Know What You Did Last Math Class

2008-05-04T06:56:00.001-04:00

New York Times, May 4, 2008

(excerpt) A profusion of online programs that can track a student’s daily progress, including class attendance, missed assignments and grades on homework, quizzes and tests, is changing the nature of communication between parents and children, families and teachers. With names like Edline, ParentConnect, Pinnacle Internet Viewer and PowerSchool, the software is used by thousands of schools, kindergarten through 12th grade. PowerSchool alone is used by 10,100 schools in 49 states.

Although a few programs have been available for a decade, schools have been using them more in recent years as federal reporting requirements have expanded and home computers have become more common. Citing studies showing that parental involvement can have a positive effect on a child’s academic performance, educators praise the programs’ capacity to engage parents.

In rural, urban and suburban districts, they have become a new fact of life for thousands of families. At best, the programs can be the Internet’s bright light into the bottomless backpack, an antidote for freshman forgetfulness, an early warning system and a lie detector.

But sometimes there is collateral damage: exacerbated stress about daily grades and increased family tension.

“The good is very good,” said Nancy Larsen, headmaster of Fairfield Ludlowe High School in Connecticut, which uses Edline. “And the bad can become very ugly.”

Shrinking classes shrinking small schools' hopes

2008-05-04T06:45:00.001-04:00

Portland Press Herald, May 4, 2008

(excerpt) Statewide enrollment has been dropping for decades. Steeper declines in rural areas underscore another problem: a lack of jobs for families.

"There is nothing here for them anymore. There is nothing to hold them here," said Chris Ingersoll, 26, of Moscow, a graduate of Upper Kennebec Valley Memorial High School in SAD 13.

Ingersoll said he has been all over the country, but he came back to Moscow because he loves the area. He doesn't want schools to close, but he also doesn't see the local economy giving young families a reason to move to the area or giving graduates a reason to stay.

It is a daunting problem, said town officials.

Without young families, school enrollments will drop, driving down state subsidies under the Essential Programs and Services formula and potentially causing school closures. Without schools, it will be harder for towns to attract young families, exacerbating the downward economic spiral.

Many school districts resuming merger talks

2008-05-03T06:30:00.000-04:00

Portland Press Herald, May 2, 2008

(excerpt) After months of waiting while the Legislature made changes to the school district consolidation law, most districts have resumed work on merger plans.

Some officials said the delay means they will not put proposals before voters this June as originally planned. They said they will now wait until November elections, taking advantage of the new deadline for voting, which is Jan. 30. The newly reorganized districts are supposed to start operating by July 2009.

"We have lost some momentum," said Falmouth School Superintendent George Entwistle.

Falmouth and School Administrative District 51, which includes Cumberland and North Yarmouth, have submitted one of only three proposed reorganization plans to win approval from the state Department of Education.

Guilford: Panel to review SAD 4 budget this month

2008-05-03T06:29:00.000-04:00

Bangor Daily News, May 2, 2008

(excerpt) A proposed 2008-2009 budget of $7,219,748 for the operation of SAD 4 schools will be up for adoption by directors at their May 13 meeting.

Locally, the district will need to raise $2,100,912 to receive $4,054,075 in state subsidy. The latter reflects an increase of $163,755 over the current year. In addition, taxpayers also will be asked to raise $518,510 in additional local funds not matched by state subsidy to meet the proposed budget needs.

The bottom line for taxpayers in Guilford, Sangerville, Abbot, Parkman, Wellington and Cambridge is the budget reflects an increase of $185,145 over the 2007-2008 budget and will require $53,751 more from local taxation than the previous year, according to SAD 4 Superintendent Paul Stearns. This amount includes the cost of adult education.

"The board feels they’ve come in with a budget that respects the taxpayers as well as the learners," Stearns said.

Greenlaw: School Consolidation Still Unacceptable

2008-05-02T05:43:00.000-04:00

Ellsworth American, May 1, 2008

(excerpt) LD 2323, An Act to Remove Barriers to the Reorganization of School Administrative Units, was passed literally in the closing hours of the legislative session. As predicted, a draft of this legislation surfaced on Monday, April 14, one week after the Governor vetoed LD 1932, which was the original school consolidation “fix-it” bill as amended by the Damon super union concept. The Governor didn’t like the name “super union,” and the commissioner did not like having teacher and staff negotiations done at the local school board level. In the place of super unions, school units may now utilize a provision in the municipal statutes called quasi-municipal agreements. It is my understanding that it is only a play on words and nothing substantive has changed from the super union concept.

Commissioner of Education Susan Gendron spent Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of the week beginning April 14 on the third floor of the Statehouse meeting with legislators and other constituencies trying to gain support for this revision of LD 1932. Judy Sproule, a member of the Trenton School Committee, and this writer met with the commissioner at the request of Sen. Dennis Damon (D-Hancock County) together with Brian Hubbell, Gail Marshall and Paul Murphy of the Mount Desert Island school committees. The commissioner is a very accomplished negotiator and advocate for school consolidation. She had an answer for every question posed to her. When we questioned her about collective bargaining at the regional level rather than local level, she told us that the department’s experience had been that negotiations done at the SAD level were less expensive than those done at other school levels. We’ll be interested to review information that substantiates that contention. We asked her why the provision for withdrawal from regional school units had been removed from this bill. Her answer was that she had been told to keep the bill “simple.” She said that the withdrawal procedure could be added next session. However, when Sen. Kevin Raye (R-Washington County) attempted to amend the bill to provide for a withdrawal provision, the Senate killed that amendment. It doesn’t make any sense to say that you would agree to a withdrawal procedure in the next session of the Legislature, and then defeat an amendment to that effect now.

Schools see savings in online buys

2008-05-02T05:41:00.000-04:00

Bangor Daily News, May 1, 2008

(excerpt) An online purchasing system that has saved a group of Maine school systems tens of thousands of dollars in its early stages will be expanding to school systems across the state.

Following a pilot period of development, the online purchasing portal pioneered and brought to life by SAD 36 in Livermore and Livermore Falls in collaboration with a private company from New Jersey has been purchased by Tyler Technologies and is being offered around the state.

Based in Dallas, Tyler already has a strong presence in Maine, providing financial management software to more than three-quarters of Maine’s public schools through its ADS and MUNIS Solutions, and now with the purchase of the portal. The company has offices in Falmouth and Bangor and employs more than 500 people in Maine, including the chief executive officer of the company, who works out of the Falmouth office.

"The purchase of the portal at this critical juncture by a company with such strong connections to Maine’s K-12 school systems is a strong boost to this effort," said state Education Commissioner Susan Gendron in a news release. "School systems around the state that have used this system have saved tens of thousands of dollars; they will reach hundreds of thousands a year in savings as more school systems come online."

The system was the brainchild of Superintendent of Schools Terry Despres and SAD 36 Technology Director Colleen Akerman, who worked with a New Jersey company already doing business in Maine to put it into action. Akerman has personally worked with hundreds of vendors to get them to participate in the portal which allows schools to seek the lowest bidder on laptops, cleaning supplies, text books and hundreds of other products for which their school systems have previously paid top dollar.

Feds OK the SAT for state test

2008-05-02T05:39:00.000-04:00

Kennebec Journal, May 1, 2008

(excerpt) Maine's use of the SAT college entrance exam as an achievement test -- part of a state effort to get more high school students thinking about college -- has gained final federal approval.

Maine has been using the SAT for the past three years to determine whether high school juniors are meeting state achievement standards.

Initially, the U.S. Department of Education withheld approval of Maine's use of the exam, citing concerns that it did not adequately test students on Maine's learning standards.

Maine education officials added 18 math questions to the test, and the change satisfied federal regulators.

Maine joins 29 other states with achievement tests now approved under the No Child Left Behind Act, a 2002 federal law aimed at making schools more accountable for students educational achievement.

Maine is the only state in the nation using the SAT. It was selected in the hope that more students would pursue a postsecondary education if they took the SAT before leaving high school.

Schools continue struggle with law

2008-05-01T05:56:00.000-04:00

Bangor Daily News, April 30, 2008

(excerpt) SAD 34 Superintendent of Schools Bruce Mailloux said the changes allowing merging schools to develop their own cost-sharing formulas were a step in the right direction. He added, however, that his district still was encountering difficulties as it attempts to consolidate with SAD 56 in neighboring Searsport. SAD 34 is composed of six communities, SAD 56 is made up of three.

"Right now we are working to come up with a way to try and make that cost sharing work, but at this point in time we really haven’t come up with anything that will work yet," Mailloux said Tuesday.

Mailloux said the consolidation planning committee had looked at combining a ratio of real estate evaluation, the number of students and community population to share equitably the cost of merging the two districts but was unable to find a way to make it work for all involved. The problem is, he said, that SAD 34 accounts for 75 percent in each category while SAD 56 represents 25 percent.

"It’s roughly the same split on all three criteria," Mailloux said. "It’s called distributed property mathematics, and the way it looks now is that there would be a significant shift in cost from SAD 56 to SAD 34 communities. People are not going to support that. It’s not going to fly.

School choice must be preserved

2008-04-30T06:04:00.000-04:00

Bangor Daily News, April 29, 2008

(excerpt) Maine has a long history of school choice, but there has been a steady erosion of families’ ability to choose the school that best suits their child. The current round of school consolidation may be the final chapter for school choice. Because of a combination of lack of involvement by voters and crafty maneuvering by those who are against school choice, families throughout Maine are likely to find that the opportunity for them to exercise school choice has been eliminated.

School choice is not popular with the education establishment. Monopolists offering an inferior product don’t like competition. School choice makes it impossible for schools to ignore the wishes of parents and the needs of students.

It was reported by the Bangor Daily News on March 27 that more than 25 percent of high school students in Etna and Dixmont choose to go out of district. Given that fact, it’s hard to claim that the default high school is able to meet the needs of every student. Parents clearly think otherwise, and it is parents who have the needs of their children closest to heart.

A survey published by The Economist on Nov. 8, 2007 found that only 32 percent of Americans are opposed to school choice (the survey used the word "voucher" instead of "choice"), and 59 percent of people gave their local school a grade of C, D or F. A survey is not needed to know that there is consensus on the fact that we need better schools, and school choice makes it easier to identify those schools that are most in need of improvement. Parents know which schools are serving their children well and which are not.

Study Suggests Math Teachers Scrap Balls and Slices

2008-04-29T05:42:00.000-04:00

New York Times, April 21, 2008

(excerpt) One train leaves Station A at 6 p.m. traveling at 40 miles per hour toward Station B. A second train leaves Station B at 7 p.m. traveling on parallel tracks at 50 m.p.h. toward Station A. The stations are 400 miles apart. When do the trains pass each other?

Entranced, perhaps, by those infamous hypothetical trains, many educators in recent years have incorporated more and more examples from the real world to teach abstract concepts. The idea is that making math more relevant makes it easier to learn.

That idea may be wrong, if researchers at Ohio State University are correct. An experiment by the researchers suggests that it might be better to let the apples, oranges and locomotives stay in the real world and, in the classroom, to focus on abstract equations, in this case 40 (t + 1) = 400 - 50t, where t is the travel time in hours of the second train.

Twenty-Five Years Later, A Nation Still at Risk

2008-04-29T05:40:00.000-04:00

Wall Street Journal, April 26, 2008

(excerpt) After decades of furthering educational "equality," the 1983 commission admonished the country, it was time to attend to academic excellence and school results. Educators didn't want to hear this and a generation later many still don't. Our ponderous public-school system resists change. Teachers don't like criticism and are loath to be judged by pupil performance. In educator circles, one still encounters grumbling that "A Nation at Risk" lodged a bum rap.

Others heeded the alarm, though, and that report launched an era of forceful innovation and accountability guided by noneducators – elected officials, business leaders and philanthropists.

Such "civilian" leadership has brought about two profound shifts that the professionals, left to their own devices, would never have allowed. Today, instead of judging schools by their services, resources or fairness, we track their progress against preset academic standards – and hold them to account for those results.

We're also far more open to charter schools, vouchers, virtual schools, home schooling. And we no longer suppose kids must attend the campus nearest home. A majority of U.S. students now study either in bona fide "schools of choice," or in neighborhood schools their parents chose with a realtor's help.

Enrollment slide, energy costs to drive city's school planning

2008-04-29T05:39:00.000-04:00

Portland Press Herald, April 28, 2008

(excerpt) State education officials are preparing new forecasts for statewide public school enrollments, and the results are expected to confirm earlier projections of continued declines until 2012.

That trend, combined with skyrocketing energy prices, is expected to drive up per-pupil education costs and keep the pressure on the city of Portland to move ahead with elementary school consolidation.

"It's pretty clear that the trend is there, and they're going to have to deal with it," said Jim Rier, policy director at the state Department of Education.

The Portland School Committee's decision last fall to close Clifford Elementary School and build a new school on Ocean Avenue highlighted the impact of declining enrollments on educational costs in the city. Many residents fiercely defend preservation of smaller neighborhood schools, while others argue that the city simply can't afford to keep as many buildings open with enrollments in decline.

School Committee Chairman John Coyne said the Portland district will study the new projections and draw on other forecasts as it prepares a comprehensive plan for all of its buildings. He said energy costs will play a significant role in that process.

Intent on addressing Maine's science teacher shortage

2008-04-29T05:36:00.000-04:00

Portland Press Herald, April 27, 2008

(excerpt) The Maine Mathematics and Science Teaching Excellence program, started in September 2000, provided nearly $1 million in scholarship support spread among 219 students.

Before the program began, the UMaine system had 237 teacher candidates. That number had jumped to 382 when the initiative ended in 2006, a 70 percent increase.

NATIONAL PROBLEM

Despite that increase in teaching candidates, the Maine Department of Education still lists math and science as subjects with teaching shortages.

David Connerty-Marin of the education department said Maine's situation reflects a national problem.

Eberle said one of the challenges in recruiting science and math students into the teaching profession is competition from private industry.

Typically, he said, such students can earn a much higher salary outside the classroom as engineers, chemists, computer programmers and surveyors, among other occupations.

That competition is expected to increase as the demands of the economy call more and more for people with advanced technical skills.

New law is victory for MDI schools

2008-04-28T07:44:00.001-04:00

Bar Harbor Times, April 23, 2008

(excerpt) “This language in the law was crafted by our (RPC) lawyer,” Ms. Marshall said.

Having rejected the local RPC’s original plan and vehemently opposed the idea of school unions in any form, the commissioner was cooperative and even conciliatory in negotiating with the MDI school delegation. That may have been the result of a meeting in the governor’s office a few weeks ago that Mr. Hubbell attended. After hearing an explanation of how Union 98 functions, Mr. Hubbell said, the governor told Commissioner Gendron to “find a way to make this work for Mount Desert Island.”

Two weeks later, in a meeting with the RPC members, the commissioner referred to the Union 98 model as “the gold standard,” Ms. Marshall said.

“At that point, we began looking at how we could craft the law in a way that would allow us to continue to function as we do and allow other communities to retain a more decentralized governing structure.”

She said Commissioner Gendron not only allowed Mr. Spencer, the RPC’s lawyer, to write part of the bill, but she agreed that the Department of Education would pay for his work.

“He would write the language, it would go to the department and get altered a little bit and then come back to him,” Ms. Marshall said. “Anytime he or we presented a challenge to the way they were crafting it, it got changed. So it was clear that, if it wasn’t going to work for us, it wasn’t going to work.”

Once a deal was struck, Ms. Marshall said, she asked Commissioner Gendron if she could envision any circumstances under which she would not grant MDI permission to form an alternative school organization.

“She threw her hands up in the air and said, ‘Oh, no! You will be given a waiver,’” Ms. Marshall said. “I think we have every reason to anticipate we will have a collaborative relationship going forward.”

Clerks foresee problems in budget balloting

2008-04-28T07:43:00.001-04:00

Portland Press Herald, April 25, 2008

(excerpt) Portland's city clerk sees a problem looming with absentee balloting for the school budget referendum May 13.

Linda Cohen said Maine's new school consolidation law sets deadlines and imposes other requirements that will create confusion, lead to invalid ballots and prevent some voters from getting their ballots in on time.

She said about 60 Portland voters who are living overseas, including soldiers on duty in Iraq or on other military assignments, will be disenfranchised by unrealistic deadlines.

"These school processes may work in a small town," Cohen said. "They don't work in big communities, and they especially don't work now."

Other clerks in Maine say they're also anticipating problems with the referendums in their communities. They say the new law is at odds with efforts to encourage voter participation.

"Clerks spend all their time trying to enfranchise the voter, and this kind of goes against everything we've been working on for the last few years," said Patty Brochu, the town clerk in Old Town and president of the Maine Town and City Municipal Clerks Association.

The Magnificent Seven

2008-04-28T07:40:00.001-04:00

Ellsworth American, April 24, 2008

(excerpt) At issue was legislation that would have restored early retirement benefits, reduced during a state budget crisis in 1993, to a group of state employees and teachers. The measure had been a top priority in this legislative session for both the Maine Education Association (MEA) and the Maine State Employees Association (MSEA), and both unions brought intense pressure to bear on legislators in their bid to secure its passage.

The original proposal, which would have applied to all state employees and teachers, would have cost Maine an estimated $305 million over 20 years. But in negotiations between the House and Senate, it was scaled back to cover only those employees who were hired when the more lucrative benefits were in place, at an estimated cost of $200 million. The final bill, which had been approved without a roll call vote, also included an amendment, attached by Sen. Peter Mills (R-Somerset County), that would initiate an effort to modernize the entire retirement system.

But when push came to shove on the Appropriations Committee, which must ultimately approve all legislation that includes a fiscal component, some members balked at the oft-stated union claims that restoration of the retirement benefits in question could be accomplished at no cost to the state.

Senate OKs school consolidation changes

2008-04-18T15:33:00.001-04:00

Associated Press, April 18, 2008

(excerpt) Billed to happen at the start of this year's legislative session, a package of revisions to Maine's sweeping school system consolidation law has won final approval as the session draws toward an end.

The new measure is designed to preserve local cost-sharing agreements and allow for creation of smaller-than-standard units in special circumstances. It also would allow the state education commissioner to approve alternative organizational structures not written into the original law.

Time short for reforms to school consolidation law

2008-04-16T12:32:00.002-04:00

Portland Press Herald, April 16, 2008

(excerpt) Time might be running out for Education Commissioner Susan Gendron and Maine's sweeping school consolidation law.

The measure, enacted last year as a cost-cutting measure, is meeting resistance from local school districts that are required to merge and want more say over how costs are determined.

Most agree the law needs to be amended, but legislators have refused to back changes proposed by Gov. John Baldacci.

With the legislative session expected to end this week, the pressure is on Gendron to devise a compromise and get lawmakers to take it up immediately.

The lack of agreement is problematic because some school districts say they cannot proceed with their merger plans unless the law is made more workable.

Maine House repeals school consolidation law

2008-04-10T16:37:00.001-04:00

Bangor Daily News, April 10, 2008

(excerpt) With some lawmakers still angered by the governor’s veto this week of a bill containing changes to the state’s controversial school consolidation law, the House voted Wednesday night to scrap the law altogether.

The repeal vote was 73 to 59.

"We are the people’s house and we will speak for our citizens," said Rep. Rob Eaton, D-Sullivan, sponsor of the repeal. "We can do better than what we have today."

The vote to repeal was bipartisan, as was opposition to repeal. Supporters argued the law forces consolidation of school administrations even when "common sense" would indicate consolidation will not work.

"If we have another opportunity I think we can do better for the students in our state," said Rep. Peter Edgecomb, R-Caribou.

Veto sets stage for renewed battle over school consolidation law

2008-04-10T06:09:00.000-04:00

Bangor Daily News, April 9, 2008

(excerpt) The governor’s veto of the changes to the school consolidation law on Monday and the quick vote in the Senate that sustained that veto have left some in Augusta and beyond scratching their heads. It also has set the stage for another battle over changes to the law as the legislative session winds down.

"I fully expected the governor’s veto," said state Rep. Rob Eaton, D-Sullivan. "What I didn’t expect was the large turnaround in the Senate and the number of people who had voted in support of the bill who suddenly switched and voted to uphold the veto. That was significant."

Earlier Monday, the Senate had voted 21-14 in support of the bill, LD 1932, which contained amendments proposed by Gov. John Baldacci’s administration as well as changes added by the Legislature during the past three months. When the governor vetoed the bill, the Senate quickly voted to sustain that veto with just 12 senators voting to override the veto.

"It’s like a complete flip," said Lawrence "Skip" Greenlaw, chairman of the Maine Coalition to Save Schools, which has worked since fall to repeal the consolidation law. "I thought I understood the legislative process. But I just don’t understand this."

Pressure's on to reverse school vote

2008-04-10T06:08:00.000-04:00

Portland Press Herald, April 9, 2008

(excerpt) City and state officials are pressuring three Portland city councilors to reconsider votes that killed a plan to build a new elementary school using $19.6 million in state aid.

They say the councilors -- David Marshall, Kevin Donoghue and Mayor Edward Suslovic -- not only defeated the Ocean Avenue project, but also jeopardized future state funding for a host of school building projects that the city cannot afford.

"It sends an unfortunate mixed message about Portland's needs," said House Speaker Glenn Cummings, D-Portland. "School building needs across the state are severe. It would be a while before Portland would be eligible for school funding again."

The three councilors defend their positions and say they won't change their votes unless there are significant changes in a project that's been in the works for three years.

Their stated concerns include the location of the new school, the long-term cost of the project and the lack of a comprehensive plan for school facilities. "There are too many unanswered questions," Suslovic said Tuesday.

The council surprised many when the school project failed Monday on a 6-3 vote; it takes seven votes to authorize bond issues. The state would reimburse the money.

Baldacci vetoes fixes to consolidation law

2008-04-07T19:00:00.001-04:00

Kennebec Journal update, April 7, 2008

(excerpt) The bill, L.D. 1932, would have allowed consolidating school districts to devise individual cost-sharing formulas to base individual towns’ tax contributions to their regional district on measures other than property value.

The bill also would have allowed districts that currently receive a minimum special education subsidy to continue to receive it when they consolidate and would have created a single budget format for all districts.

Legislators had also amended the bill to allow a “super union” school-district structure, a provision Baldacci opposed.

In a statement, Baldacci said such a structure “would encourage more bureaucracy and allow for the expansion of an inefficient means of school governance. Maine would likely end up with more school districts, not fewer.”

CONSOLIDATION Senate to vote today on bill

2008-04-07T18:56:00.000-04:00

Kennebec Journal, April 7, 2008

(excerpt) Senators today are expected to vote on L.D. 1932, a bill that would allow local districts to forge their own cost-sharing agreements and apply other financial fixes to the original consolidation bill legislators passed last year.

The bill passed the House a second time last week, but includes a provision allowing an alternative school district structure that would lead Gov. John Baldacci to veto the legislation.

The cost-sharing provision has drawn no legislative opposition.

As districts around the state have waited for L.D. 1932 to pass, consolidation planning has largely come to a standstill, Department of Education spokesman David Connerty-Marin said.

Just nine of approximately 70 districts planning to consolidate met a March 28 state deadline to submit updated consolidation plans. The majority of districts -- 48 -- sent letters to the Department of Education explaining why they have been unable to move forward, Connerty-Marin said.

Legislature meets deadline after approving $190 million supplemental budget

2008-04-01T18:18:00.000-04:00

Kennebec Journal, April 1, 2008

(excerpt) The budget is a mix of cuts and savings found in various state agencies.

For example, the budget includes $9 million in revenue from the sale of unclaimed securities by the state treasurer.

But the bulk of the money -- $170 million of the $190 million -- comes from cuts, including $65 million from the state Department of Health and Human Services. Earlier this year, hundreds of people came to the Statehouse to protest against proposed cuts to services that totaled more than $90 million.

And while the Legislature rejected some of those cuts and reduced the impact of others, a large portion of the savings needed were found in human services.

The budget also cuts $34 million in general purpose aid to education, although only $23 million of it will directly impact money that goes from the state to local school districts.

Dropout numbers on rise

2008-04-01T18:15:00.001-04:00

Kennebec Journal, March 30, 2008

(excerpt) Using the new counting method the following year, Maine's dropout rate doubled. Some 5.4 percent -- 3,337 of the 61,593 students enrolled in the state's public high schools during 2005-2006 -- dropped out, according to the latest figures reported by the state Department of Education.

The jump is due to a new uniform reporting system enacted by the state that requires school districts to count as dropouts all students who leave school but go on to receive a degree through adult education.

Some educators are hailing the new system as the most accurate accounting to date of Maine dropouts -- they hope the statistics will focus attention on the dropout problem.

But others call it a one-size-fits-all system that fails to take into account differences in students' life circumstances or learning styles that make it impossible for some students to succeed in traditional, four-year high schools.

"We really prided ourselves on being able to transfer (students to an alternative program) and they would still get a Westbrook High School diploma," but now those diplomas count as dropouts, said Stan Sawyer, superintendent in Westbrook, where the high school dropout rate more than doubled to 8 percent under the new accounting.

Fight over school unions headed for a showdown

2008-04-01T18:12:00.000-04:00

Portland Press Herald, March 31, 2008

(excerpt) Not all the drama in Augusta this year is swirling around the budget. There is still at least one more battle to be fought on school district consolidation,

While area school districts have been doing the hard work of finding partners and merging, as required by a law passed by the Legislature last year, opponents of the law have been working to gut the measure.

A bill that would exempt districts from consolidating into regional districts if they organized themselves into "super unions" has passed the House and Senate by large margins and is headed to Gov. Baldacci's desk.

He has promised to veto the measure, setting up a showdown between the executive and legislative branches of government. Members of the House and Senate who voted to enact this important reform measure last year should back off and prevent a successful override of the expected veto.

Board eyes closing 2 schools

2008-03-29T15:48:00.001-04:00

Sun Journal, March 27, 2008

(excerpt) Kendall said he was motivated to consider a different way of addressing the budget after a few schools had to close because their roofs caved in from heavy snow. Other schools had to double up on facilities.

"I know this has been done in other school districts in Maine and the country," he said. "I am trying to give us an alternative to consider that I believe has merit, that preserves what Auburn has provided for educational experience to children, which has been a superior educational experience in my estimation," he said. "We need a different solution than cut, cut, cut and see where the chips fall."

What if, Potvin asked, next year the federal and state revenue picture looks better, meanwhile Auburn has closed two schools. Wouldn't the action look silly to residents who have lost schools, Potvin asked.

Will the Commissioner Keep Her Word?

2008-03-27T18:24:00.002-04:00

Ellsworth American, March 27, 2008

(excerpt) Last spring, during the debate on the budget bill, Sen. Dennis Damon raised the following question, quoted verbatim from page S-914 of the Senate legislative record of June 6, 2007: “If two existing administrative units make a good-faith effort to consolidate and the result of that effort ends up costing more than it saves, will those two units still be penalized for not consolidating?” Sen. Damon reported that there was no response to the question from his legislative colleagues.

However, Maine Education Commissioner Susan Gendron was sitting in the Senate chamber that evening when Sen. Damon posed that question. She wrote him a response as follows: “If the regional planning committees make a good faith effort at consolidation and can document that there are no cost savings, then those units will not have to consolidate.”

During the March 7, 2008 meeting of the Maine Small Schools Coalition in Orono, SAD 24 Superintendent Clayton Belanger of Van Buren reported about one aspect of the work that the planning committee for Regional School Unit 1 (RSU 1) had completed. RSU 1, which would consolidate four SADs and two municipal school units, covers 676 square miles of the St. John River Valley in Aroostook County. The regional planning committee asked all the central administrative staffs to meet and develop a plan for one central administrative office for the proposed RSU 1. The cost of the new office with one superintendent will exceed the costs of the six existing administrative offices by $210,000 per year.

Other regional planning committees in the state are predicting various levels of added costs. None find any cost savings during the first three years as verified by the testimony of the Department of Education consultants who are advising the committees.

Consolidation updates due Friday

2008-03-27T18:20:00.002-04:00

Kennebec Journal update, March 27, 2008

(excerpt) Updated plans showing progress from Maine’s 290 school districts working to reorganize into 80 units are due Friday.

The Department of Education is asking the proposed regional-school units to submit revisions by Friday to the plans they last filed in December with the department. School districts are reorganizing to comply with a law passed last year aimed at shrinking the number of Maine school districts to cut administrative costs.

While a number of districts intend to file updated plans, other units that have not taken major actions since the December submission are sending letters to the department instead explaining why they have been unable to act.

School law change has House OK

2008-03-27T18:19:00.000-04:00

Bangor Daily News, March 26, 2008

(excerpt) "We are still opposed to the amendments included in this bill," said David Farmer, spokesman for Gov. John Baldacci. "We think it is unfortunate that the noncontroversial, technical changes that the bill started out with have been encumbered with these controversial items that undermine the law as it was passed last year."

Although Baldacci has not said he will veto the bill with the school union amendment, Farmer said Tuesday that he "expects that will be the case" when the bill reaches the governor’s desk.

The vote in the House was 104-41. The Senate passed the bill last week by a vote of 26-8. Approval in both houses was by more than two-thirds and therefore enough to withstand the expected veto. The bill still faces final votes in the House and Senate before it goes to the governor for his consideration.

The school union amendment is a major change to the law that, according to Education Department officials, would result in a substantial increase in the number of school districts above those mandated in the original consolidation law.

The amendment allows for regional school unions in addition to the regional school units required in the law. While a school union still requires a central administrative office to handle functions such as accounting, transportation and core curriculum development, the union governance structure would allow local committees to make decisions regarding local operation of their schools, including adopting a school budget and hiring staff.

Portland should reopen teachers' contract

2008-03-25T05:58:00.000-04:00

Portland Press Herald, March 24, 2008

(excerpt) The city and its teachers' union should reopen the current labor contract and find a way to compensate teachers fairly without weakening the schools' ability to teach children

Under the current labor contract, a typical Portland teacher can expect to see a 6.7 percent increase in salary and benefits this year.

About one-third of the overall increase comes from teachers who become entitled to "lane changes" by engaging in professional development activities.

That can mean taking courses toward a higher degree or taking on professional tasks that would enhance their skills.

The problem with this approach is that it puts the decision-making in the hands of the employees and gives the School Committee little control over how to manage its budget.

In a tight budget year like this one, the administration might prefer to cut back on professional development and use the salary budget to keep more staff members on the payroll.

Seeking a kinder word for failure

2008-03-25T05:56:00.000-04:00

Boston Globe, March 22, 2008

(excerpt) To soothe the bruised egos of educators and children in lackluster schools, Massachusetts officials are now pushing for kinder, gentler euphemisms for failure.

Instead of calling these schools "underperforming," the Board of Education is considering labeling them as "Commonwealth priority," to avoid poisoning teacher and student morale.

Schools in the direst straits, now known as "chronically underperforming," would get the more urgent but still vague label of "priority one."

The board has spent parts of more than three meetings in recent months debating the linguistic merits and tone set by the terms after a handful of superintendents from across the state complained that the label underperforming unfairly casts blame on educators, hinders the recruitment of talented teachers, and erodes students' self-esteem.

While many educators support the largely symbolic changes, others call them sugarcoating and unnecessary, feeding into the sentiment that children are coddled. Debating the terms, they say, wastes time when the board should be coming up with a plan to fix the state's 114 low-performing schools. Changing the labels seems to be intended to appease overly sensitive educators, critics say.

Consolidation foes set to descend on Statehouse

2008-03-25T05:55:00.000-04:00

Kennebec Journal, March 24, 2008

(excerpt) Opponents of the school-district consolidation law will be at the Statehouse on Wednesday to try to convince lawmakers to repeal the measure.

Skip Greenlaw of the Maine Coalition to Save Schools put out an e-mail last week urging like-minded supporters to come to Augusta to lobby legislators. Greenlaw gathered more than 40,000 signatures to try to call for a citizen vote for repeal, but fell short of the 55,000 needed to get it on the ballot.

Greenlaw is now hanging his hopes on a minority report that calls for repeal that will be attached to a "relatively innocuous education bill."

"We're hoping to get people to vote on it," Greenlaw said.

Slated cuts hit private schools

2008-03-25T05:53:00.000-04:00

Bangor Daily News, March 24, 2008

(excerpt) Proposed cuts in the state education budget would reduce funds to private high schools in the state, although a compromise in committee would lessen the blow somewhat.

Gov. John Baldacci’s latest state budget proposal calls for a $34 million reduction in education funding including a one-time elimination of the insured value factor for private high schools.

The insured value factor allows some private high schools to add a 10 percent surcharge onto the maximum allowed tuition rate they charge districts that send students to their schools. The surcharge is earmarked for capital construction projects, according to Department of Education spokesman David Connerty-Marin.

The current maximum tuition rate is about $8,000 per student, Connerty-Marin said Friday, which, if the proposed cut stands, would mean private schools would receive about $800 less per tuitioned student next year.

A compromise worked out between the Legislature’s Education and Appropriations committees, however, would put back half of the insured value factor surcharge and allow the independent schools to charge 5 percent above the maximum tuition rate.

Schools detail grant-funded jobs

2008-03-21T08:33:00.000-04:00

Portland Press Herald update, March 20, 2008

(excerpt) Portland school officials have released a full accounting of all grant-funded positions in the district.

The school department has the equivalent of 99 full-time positions that are paid by grants this year, according to the latest 2008-09 budget proposal. That's in addition to the equivalent of 1,149 full-time jobs funded by Portland taxpayers.

The district received about $6.9 million this year in federal grants that pay for 91.5 positions. It also received about $500,000 in state and local grants that pay for 7.5 positions.

States’ Data Obscure How Few Finish High School

2008-03-21T08:32:00.001-04:00

New York Times, March 20, 2008

(excerpt) When it comes to high school graduation rates, Mississippi keeps two sets of books.

One team of statisticians working at the state education headquarters here recently calculated the official graduation rate at a respectable 87 percent, which Mississippi reported to Washington. But in another office piled with computer printouts, a second team of number crunchers came up with a different rate: a more sobering 63 percent.

The state schools superintendent, Hank Bounds, says the lower rate is more accurate and uses it in a campaign to combat a dropout crisis.

“We were losing about 13,000 dropouts a year, but publishing reports that said we had graduation rate percentages in the mid-80s,” Mr. Bounds said. “Mathematically, that just doesn’t work out.”

School funding debate looms

2008-03-21T08:32:00.000-04:00

Kennebec Journal, March 20, 2008

(excerpt) A debate about whether the state should continue to work toward funding 55 percent of the cost of education -- a mandate approved by voters in 2004 -- is brewing at the Legislature.

Rep. Henry Joy, R-Crystal, is sponsoring a bill to cut the level from 55 percent to 49 percent. He said the state can't afford it and voters didn't understand how it would work when they approved it.

Joy said with the state facing a $190 million budget shortfall, which might grow even larger, and it's time to revisit the 55-percent expectation.

"The hole in the budget brings desperate times and it brings about desperate measures to solve it," he said.

But others disagree with his approach.

SAD 68 says school official abruptly quit

2008-03-21T08:31:00.000-04:00

Bangor Daily News, March 20, 2008

(excerpt) In a surprise move, John Dirnbauer resigned last Thursday as SAD 68 superintendent of schools.

When directors learned of his resignation for personal reasons, they held a meeting that day to accept Dirnbauer’s resignation, according to board Chairman Jennifer Chase.

"It was a surprise," Chase said this week. She said Dirnbauer’s contract with the district ran until 2009. Dirnbauer started with the district on July 1, 2002.

Towns weigh school unit Vassalboro, China, Winslow consider consolidation plans

2008-03-21T08:30:00.000-04:00

Morning Sentinel, March 20, 2008

(excerpt) Vassalboro wants to explore whether going back to the future will satisfy the state-mandated school consolidation initiative.

Lori Fowle, chairman of the Vassalboro School Committee, sees reforming the School Union 52 towns of Vassalboro, Winslow and China as a regional school unit (RSU) as a reasonable -- and possibly preferable -- option to the eight-community RSU once planned.

That larger school system combined Union 52 with Waterville and the four towns of School Administrative District 47 (Oakland, Belgrade, Sidney, Rome).

But Waterville already has pulled out of the proposed RSU and even SAD 47 has kept open the option of remaining a four-town school unit.

"I think early on it was something we wanted to do," Fowle said of sticking exclusively with Winslow and China, "but we didn't know what the cost factors were."

Fowle, however, said she and the rest of her board now have a better understanding of the costs and see reforming Union 52 as an RSU as a viable option.

"We meet the criteria of an RSU," she said, "as far as our student population and that we have a high school."

Quest for data on school grants stymies council

2008-03-20T06:21:00.000-04:00

Portland Press Herald, March 19, 2008

(excerpt) When the council's finance committee pressed Whynot-Vickers for grant information again last week, she promised to come through by the end of March. She said it would be impossible, however, to give them an accurate, year-to-year comparison of grant-funded positions over the last decade, as councilors have requested.

Councilors said they want the grant information before they ask voters to consider the 2008-09 school budget in a first-time referendum on May 13, which is required under the state's new school consolidation law.

The council reviews the school budget and sets the bottom line.

City Budget Director Ellen Sanborn, who has been overseeing school finances since August, said the grant documentation that councilors want doesn't exist, has been lost or is inaccurate.

"I wouldn't trust it," Sanborn told committee members.

Mayor Edward Suslovic said he found Sanborn's revelation "a bit shocking. Hopefully, it tells how far we've come."

The district's failure to track grant-funded positions came to light during the budget crisis, which led to the resignation of the schools' superintendent and finance director.

MEAs take shaky step into computer age

2008-03-20T06:20:00.000-04:00

Bangor Daily News, March 19, 2008

(excerpt) Some eighth-grade students have had difficulty taking the online version of the Maine Educational Assessment tests, and their schools have reverted to the pen and pencil version.

The problems that have occurred have not been widespread, according to state officials and steps have been taken to remedy those issues. But the snarls have caused some frustration for students and teachers and some concern for administrators about the eventual results from the tests.

"We’re taking a low-key approach right now," said Jim Boothby, superintendent for SAD 26 and Union 92. "But we are watching it closely. It is a concern."

The problem, according to Trenton Elementary School Principal Gary Bosk, is that the computer erases work that the students have done on the test.

U.S. Eases ‘No Child’ Law as Applied to Some States

2008-03-20T06:18:00.001-04:00

New York Times, March 19, 2008

(excerpt) Under the new program, the federal Department of Education will give up to 10 states permission to focus reform efforts on schools that are drastically underperforming and intervene less forcefully in schools that are raising the test scores of most students but struggling with one group, like the disabled, for instance. The No Child law, which President Bush signed in 2002, was intended to force states to bring all students to proficiency in reading and math by 2014. In six years it has identified 9,000 of the nation’s 90,000 public schools as “in need of improvement,” the law’s term for failing, and experts predict that those numbers could multiply in coming years.

The rising number of failing schools is overwhelming states’ capacities to turn them around, and states have complained that the law imposes the same set of sanctions, which can escalate to a school’s closing, on the nation’s worst schools as well as those doing a reasonable job despite some problems.

The nation’s largest teachers union as well as some research groups who study the law welcomed Ms. Spellings’s announcement. “This is something good, something we’ve been advocating,” said Reg Weaver, president of the National Education Association, the teachers union.

SAD 54 works on budget

2008-03-18T20:24:00.000-04:00

Morning Sentinel, March 18, 2008

(excerpt) Compared to some of its neighbors, School Administrative District 54 stands to realize a pretty good increase in state funding.

Tentative figures from the governor's and the education committee's proposed budgets both show SAD 54 getting an increase in state funding of more than $1 million, Superintendent Brent Colbry said Monday. He is somewhat skeptical that number will hold.

"I'm just leery of that," he said. "There are so many communities that are losing money. We're certainly appreciative of that, if it's true."

Even if it is true, that would represent a decrease in the amount that went to the district last year. Throw in a loss of Medicaid revenues amounting to $400,000, and the school board is facing some tough decisions.

"My sense is, there will be some significant changes in how we do business here," Colbry said. "Even with these numbers, we'll have to make cuts in order to come up with a budget the board will support. They're very concerned about taxes."

Schools still awaiting word from state on funds

2008-03-17T06:28:00.000-04:00

Kennebec Journal, March 16, 2008

(excerpt) The proposed school budget could either lead to a small tax increase or decrease for city taxpayers, depending primarily on how much funding comes from the state.

Augusta, and other schools statewide, received three different estimates of what its total state funding will be from the Department of Education.

The first estimate, Superintendent Cornelia Brown said, was issued with incorrect special-education funding figures and was recalled.

In Augusta's case, both remaining budget scenarios are increases over the funding the school system received from the state last year.

The budget package favored by Gov. John Baldacci would increase state aid to Augusta schools to about $14.6 million -- an increase of about $602,000, or 4.3 percent, from last year, according to Brown.

The other state budget scenario for education funding, favored by the Legislature's Education Committee, would send Augusta's schools around $14.4 million -- an increase of $436,000, or 3.11 percent.

If the higher figure is adopted by the state, and nothing changes in the city's currently proposed school budget, local taxpayers would be asked for about $68,000 less to fund schools.

If the lower state figure is adopted, and nothing else changes in the local budget, taxpayers would be asked to pay about $97,000 more to support schools.

A model for school consolidation

2008-03-17T06:26:00.000-04:00

Kennebec Journal, March 16, 2008

(excerpt) Three local school districts' efforts to get the word out to voters about consolidation are winning plaudits from the state Department of Education.

The Maranacook Area Schools have traditionally relied on their "Chalkboard" newsletter to get news to residents about the district's six schools. The Winthrop school system has used "Ramblings."

As the two school systems look to merge into one regional unit, along with Fayette, their collaboration has led to the "Ramblin' Chalkboard" newsletter.

Education Commissioner Susan Gendron this week encouraged school officials around the state to use the "Ramblin' Chalkboard" as a model for similar publications in their communities.

"I think you will be impressed, as we were," Gendron wrote in an e-mail, "not only by the excellent and impartial explanation of the reorganization effort and legislative activity that might affect them, but also by the focus on the educational strengths of each of their schools and school systems. The newsletter helps to introduce people of all the communities to the educational philosophies, interesting programs, and the human and other resources that are in the school systems."

Learning Results a complete, disastrous failure

2008-03-16T15:57:00.001-04:00

Kennebec Journal, March 14, 2008

(excerpt) In 1997, Maine's Learning Results initiative promised to set standards for promotion within Maine schools. Thousands of teachers across the state embarked on an eight-year journey to identify the standards they were going to insist upon, the tests they were going to use to measure achievement and the system they were going to install to make sure that all students graduated with certain skills and abilities.

By 2005, this initiative had completely failed.

The reasons for this failure were many. Passive resistance from teachers who opposed a standards-based environment, refusal from communities to fund the enormous costs of reteaching students who fail to meet standards, unrealistic expectations from the DOE and most disappointing of all, test results that showed the majority of Maine students either failing or only partially meeting standards.

Statewide test scores in 2003 showed that slightly less then half of Maine's 11th-grade students met or exceeded reading standards; only 26 percent met or exceeded math standards.

By 2005, the benchmarks the DOE had established in the 1990s were all being postponed or watered down to the point of ineffectiveness, and, by 2006, the department was in complete retreat although it were reluctant to admit the failure, and talked of "restructuring" and "redefining" the standards.

State trash talks school unions

2008-03-10T19:15:00.000-04:00

Bar Harbor Times, March 7, 2008

(excerpt) On its website, the DOE wrote, “The school union structure is Maine’s highest cost form of school governance with only mixed results on performance…Maine spends $24 million more per year than necessary on the education of 26,719 students educated in school unions, and with no added academic benefit. That’s because school unions as a group spend more per student than in other types of school units with no better test results.”

The DOE went on to claim that 62 percent of the 50 most expensive K-8 school administrative units (SAUs) in the state, regardless of size, are in school unions, and that per pupil costs are higher in unions.

“In any structure that allows a Regional School Unit or regional union board to delegate to local school committees the authority to hire, fire, negotiate, or raise funds, the costs will be higher,” the DOE stated. “The higher costs in unions are part of the basis of EPS calculations and thus also raise the statewide cost of education.”

Messalonskee closes for another day as workers clear large snow buildup off roof

2008-03-10T19:13:00.000-04:00

Morning Sentinel, March 7, 2008

(excerpt) Messalonskee High School teachers and students on Thursday got to stay home for a second straight day even though the sky was bright and the temperatures warm.

This time, the issue was snow removal -- namely shoveling five feet of snow off the back side of the high school.

"I have a 10-man crew up there this morning," School Administrative District 47 Superintendent James C. Morse Sr. said, "and they are shoveling to beat all."

Morse said the shoveling was a pre-emptive move, not an emergency response to falling ceiling tiles or any other sign of roof collapse or leakage, an issue that has become increasingly more common among school buildings in Maine this winter.

Coast, country to lose education aid

2008-03-08T07:27:00.000-05:00

Bangor Daily News, March 7. 2008

(excerpt) Schools in general will fare a little better under Gov. John Baldacci’s latest proposal, announced Wednesday, to reduce state expenditures. And while some districts will receive increased state aid this coming year, others will get less. In some cases, the aid will be substantially less than the current year and could force school committees to consider cutting positions and programs.

"If you’re a large system in an urban area, you’re OK," said Robert Webster, superintendent of schools at Union 76, which includes Deer Isle and Stonington. "But rural and coastal areas with high valuation that [typically receive little state subsidy] will take a hit."

Valuation and student population are the driving forces in the state’s formula that determines the general purpose aid for education, or GPA, according to Education Department spokesman David Connerty-Marin.

"Most of it has to do with enrollment declines and valuation increases," Connerty-Marin said. "We always see a shift."

That formula creates some striking disparities among the districts that will see the largest increases next year and those who get hit with the largest cuts. For example, based on the governor’s proposal, Veazie would see an increase of $213,497, or 20 percent; Bangor, an increase of $962,596, or 6 percent; SAD 34 in Belfast, an increase of $889,552, or 11 percent; Augusta, an increase of $417,603, or 3 percent; SAD 68 in Dover-Foxcroft, an increase of $431,321, or 7 percent; and Portland, an increase of $1,967,486, or 16 percent.

Districts that will see large decreases include Jonesport, down $267,018, or 92 percent of its subsidy; Penobscot, down $86,603, or 65 percent; Greenville, down $227,738, or 63 percent; Sedgwick, down $199,944, or 63 percent; Deer Isle-Stonington CSD, down $376,793, or 38 percent; SAD 19 in Lubec, down $293,322, or 40 percent; and Eastport, down $357,914, or 33 percent.

David Trahan: School funding gimmick courts disaster

2008-03-08T07:26:00.000-05:00

Bangor Daily News, Match 7, 2008

(excerpt) LD 1 also included, however, significant changes in the definition of education in Maine known as Essential Programs and Services. The intent was to identify the cost of educating students statewide before splitting this cost 55 percent state and 45 percent local. Unfortunately, by leaving this, "cost of education" undefined, it left plenty of wiggle room for our elected officials to use it as a tool for spending shifts.

Before these changes in the EPS formula, the Department of Education and the Maine Legislature paid for new programs such as laptops for junior high students ($11.4 million per year) through a dedicated account. Other programs, such as Jobs for Maine Graduates ($1.6 million) and the Maine School for Science and Mathematics ($1.7 million) as well as the Governor Baxter School for the Deaf ($6.5 million), were paid through the state’s General Fund.

Through legislation initiated in recently approved state budgets, the Legislature and the administration, through 2008-09, will have added 19 programs to the EPS formula since it was created in 2005. These programs were previously funded 100 percent by the state and now will be a shared cost on the backs of property tax payers.

The gimmick does two things. First, because of statutory language passed in LD 1, all new ramp-up education money through 2009 is exempt from the state’s spending cap limitation. This maneuver makes spending look less than it actually is.

Second, the shift from the General Fund to EPS artificially inflates the new education ramp-up money. In fiscal year 2008, more than $35 million in General Fund spending was added to EPS. This type of fiscal maneuvering accounted for $123 million of the four-year ramp-up. This money is not new subsidy, but simply a shift into EPS of existing programs to give the appearance of new money.

Many towns across Maine have not benefited from so-called new education money. In the 2006-07 fiscal year, more than 70 school units received less in school subsidies than in the previous year. In this fiscal year this trend continues and grows to 85 units.

Validation ballots draw officials’ ire

2008-03-08T07:25:00.000-05:00

Bangor Daily News, March 6, 2008

(excerpt) The ballot for the Union 93 town of Blue Hill, for example, reads: "Do you favor the Blue Hill School Department budget for the upcoming school year that was adopted at the April 5 Town Meeting and that includes locally raised funds that exceed the required local contribution as described in the Essential Programs and Services Funding Act?"

The instructions to the voter, which are required to be included on the ballot, note that "A yes vote allows additional funds to be raised for K-12 public education" and that "a no vote means additional funds cannot be raised for K-12 public education."

That wording makes it sound as if voters are being asked to approve spending more local money than was approved at the town meeting, and that is not the case, Wittine said. The language seems designed to encourage residents to vote "no" on the validation question.

"If you read that question, how would you vote? You’d vote ‘no’ because you’d say that they want more local money and you’ve just approved spending local money at the town meeting," he said.

The language is designed to encourage defeat of the budget in the validation vote, said Robert Webster, superintendent of schools in Union 76.

Statehouse: 70 jobs to be eliminated...

2008-03-07T06:02:00.002-05:00

Kennebec Journal, March 6, 2008

(excerpts) A new round of budget cuts proposed Wednesday by Gov. John Baldacci would eliminate more than 70 state jobs, 48 of which are currently filled.
...
Cuts in the state Department of Health and Human Services are to include 14 management positions in the mental health intensive case management division, two team leaders in child and family services, and one superintendent at the state's two mental health hospitals.
...
When it comes to state office closures, Baldacci's proposal to close a Maine Revenue Services office in Houlton would eliminate 15 jobs.
...
The third largest area of job cuts target the Department of Corrections, where staff would be reduced at two facilities that serve juvenile offenders, said Rebecca Wyke, commissioner of the Department of Administrative and Financial Services.

The Mountain View Youth Development Center in Charleston and Long Creek Youth Development Center in South Portland are not filled to capacity, so 16 positions will be eliminated at those facilities, she said.

Since Baldacci took office in 2003, his administration has cut about 660 state jobs. The number would be more than 760 if the new cuts are approved.

Education, Medicaid targeted in new round

2008-03-07T06:01:00.001-05:00

Kennebec Journal, March 6, 2008

(excerpt) The departments of Education and Health and Human Services would bear the brunt of the cuts in the latest budget revision, which would trim spending at those two agencies alone by a combined total of $61.6 million.

The Department of Education faces a $34.1 million cut in funding for local education next year, including a $23.1 million reduction in direct state payments to local schools, which were scheduled to get about $1 billion from the state next year. That would slow completion of the state's move toward a requirement that it pay 55 percent of funding for local schools.

The University of Maine System, Maine Community College System and Maine Maritime Academy, which escaped unscathed in the first round of cuts, were not so lucky this time around. Baldacci wants the Legislature to cut $7 million from the UMaine System, close to $2 million from the community colleges and more than $300,000 from Maine Maritime Academy.

Palmyra school imperiled

2008-03-07T06:00:00.001-05:00

Morning Sentinel, March 6, 2008

(excerpt) The projected deficit stems from a combination of factors, Braun said. Federal Medicaid reimbursement for special education, which brought in $550,000 to the district this year, will be cut entirely next year. State Department of Education funding toward educational services for students in foster care, which reached $190,000 this year, has been cut. There is an above average number of foster students in the district, Braun said.

"This year we got the kids but we get no money," he said.

The district will have less money to carry over to offset costs next year, leaving the district about $840,000 behind, and that is before factoring salaries and insurance increases and the soaring costs of heating fuel and diesel.

"In order to fill that hole that's probably going to be close to $2 million, you're going to have some significant reductions," Braun said. "We have to have a significant discussion about every school and every program."

State: New high school requirements should be suspended

2008-03-06T06:01:00.001-05:00

Kennebec Journal, March 5, 2008

(excerpt) The Department of Education urged members of a legislative committee Tuesday to table until the Legislature's 2008-09 session a bill that would revise the state's high school graduation requirements.

Commissioner Susan Gendron told Education Committee members at a hearing Tuesday it would be unreasonable this school year to introduce a new set of high-school graduation requirements.

School systems across the state are grappling with lower-than-anticipated state funding as they budget for the 2008-09 school year. They are also in the midst of working out plans to consolidate to cut administrative costs and reduce the number of districts in the state.

"The timing is not right," Gendron told panelists.

School union intact despite Waterville's pull-out

2008-03-06T06:00:00.004-05:00

Morning Sentinel, March 5, 2008

(excerpt) School officials from the three towns of Union 52 have no plans to abandon what once had been a planned eight- community consolidated school system.

That proved to be the overriding message of Winslow, China and Vassalboro school board members Tuesday night at a special meeting at China Middle School.

Such resolution comes less than three weeks after Waterville Public Schools announced its intention to pull out of the planned regional school unit.

Union 52 joins School Administrative District 47 (Oakland, Belgrade, Sidney, Rome) in keeping open the option of forming a school unit that would boast nearly 5,500 students from seven towns.

Still, Union 52 officials made clear they have some issues with the proposed unit.

Topping the list is a substantial increase in salary and benefit costs for teachers for the unit -- more than $2 million with Waterville still in the mix, nearly $1.3 million without Waterville.

"You won't offset that $2.1 million in salaries and benefits (with cost savings from consolidation)," Union 52 Assistant Superintendent Gary Smith said. "That just won't happen."

But several members of the audience argued that such a sizable hike in salaries and benefits should not be a given.

They said the increase is based on an assumption that every teacher in the unit should immediately be boosted to the highest salary and benefits packages among the member towns.

Poll calls for less spending rather than tax increase

2008-03-05T12:03:00.001-05:00

Portland Press Herald, March 4, 2008

(excerpt) A poll released Monday found that a large majority of Maine adults favor cutting spending in order to close the state's budget gap -- and an even bigger majority of those who responded oppose raising taxes.

The results sparked immediate outcry from groups lobbying against major cuts to education and social service programs as lawmakers try to close a budget hole expected to exceed $200 million over two years.

The poll's findings also ignited a partisan squabble in Augusta, with the top House Republican arguing for large spending cuts and the top Senate Democrat saying the poll ignored the effect that such cuts would have on Maine communities.

The telephone survey, conducted by Market Decisions, a Portland-based polling firm, asked respondents for their opinions on various broad approaches to closing the budget gap. Four hundred people were surveyed from Jan. 28 to Feb. 25, and the poll had a 4.9 percent margin of error.

Forty-five percent of those surveyed said they strongly support spending cuts, while another 26 percent said they are somewhat supportive of that approach.

Maine gets low score for government

2008-03-05T12:02:00.001-05:00

Portland Press Herald, March 4, 2008

(excerpt) Utah, Virginia and Washington state have the most effective state governments in the country, according to a scorecard released Monday by The Pew Center on the States.

The center ranked the states based on how well they manage their budgets, staffs, infrastructure and information.

Maine received one of the lowest grades, a C.

New Hampshire got a D+, the lowest score. The state is not closely monitoring its costs and performance, Pew said in a press release.

The states with the highest scores have made accountability and innovation a priority, the report said.

Breaking the bank

2008-03-05T12:01:00.001-05:00

Kennebec Journal, March 4, 2008

(excerpt) The governor's new plan may hike some as-yet unspecified fees to avert public safety cuts that would otherwise have to be made, Farmer said.

Baldacci's latest plan will seek additional spending cuts that would affect virtually every aspect of state government, as well as local schools and Maine's public colleges and universities, Farmer said Monday.

"You're going to see stuff everywhere," Farmer said of the upcoming cuts, including reductions at the departments of Education and Health and Human Services, which together account for most state spending.

That is noteworthy because Baldacci's previously announced social-service cuts, which would affect foster parents, the elderly, mentally ill Mainers and others, have come under attack from affected groups and raised concerns in the Legislature.

That initial plan called for more than $60 million in social-service cuts, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

"I think folks who try to convince the public this can all be done without pain are doing a disservice to the public," said Sen. Joseph Perry, D-Bangor, who co-chairs the Legislature's Taxation Committee.

"I think the public is looking for a balanced approach" that blends spending cuts, savings withdrawals and new revenues, Perry said.

State tells school officials they must justify withdrawal from merger talks

2008-03-05T12:00:00.001-05:00

Morning Sentinel, March 4, 2008

(excerpt) The school system may make a great case for why it has withdrawn from consolidation talks with other school systems, but the decision ultimately rests with the state.

"Just because they said they want to withdraw doesn't mean that they can," state Department of Education spokesman David Connerty-Marin said Monday. "The commissioner has to review that and one of the things she's going to be looking at is the question of sustainability."

Waterville recently notified the state that it stopped discussing merging with School Administrative District 47, based in Oakland, and School Union 52, based in Winslow.

Waterville Superintendent Eric Haley said that no matter which way he worked the figures, he found that merging would cost the city a lot of money.

State law requires regional school units to have 2,500 students except where circumstances justify an exception. Waterville has about 1,900 students.

Cracked support beam forces school to close in Hiram

2008-03-03T19:38:00.002-05:00

Portland Press Herald, March 3, 2008

(excerpt) Vacchiano said heavy snow that accumulated on the roof of the 41-year-old building this weekend is likely to blame for the cracked support beam.

A storm dropped about 7 inches of snow on parts of western Maine on Saturday, the latest in a series of snowstorms that have battered the state this winter.

Vacchiano said the school district does not clear roofs after heavy snow.

AUGUSTA: Schools could partner with Georgetown

2008-02-29T06:02:00.000-05:00

Kennebec Journal, February 28, 2008

(excerpt) The school superintendent's office here may contract to provide some services to the tiny school system in the coastal community of Georgetown, maybe even sharing the superintendent herself.

The idea of a contract for Augusta to provide services, for a fee, to Georgetown could unite two school systems unable to find consolidation partners in the ongoing state school reorganization effort.

While it would not be a consolidation, it could centralize some services, such as payroll, in Augusta. And it could give Georgetown more options as it prepares for the impending July 1 termination of its current School Union 47.

Ripley spending plan up only slightly from last year

2008-02-29T06:00:00.000-05:00

Morning Sentinel, February 28, 2008

(excerpt) Ripley voters will consider a spending plan slightly more than last year's $532,500 -- about $232,000 of which is for the municipal budget -- when they assemble at 10 a.m. Saturday for a town meeting at the Ripley Grange Hall.

"It may go slightly over," said Town Clerk Vernal Sinclair. "The new middle school in Dexter is going to hit us. They have started the ground work."

Sinclair said the mill rate is expected to climb from $11.45 per thousand dollars of valuation to as high as $14 per thousand, when the town adds the school work and the cost to maintain 26 miles of road.

Voters raised $95,000 last year for roads. It's expected that costs will run over because of the increase in fuel and surcharges, according to Sinclair.