Thomas B. Fordham Institute - Advancing Educational Excellence

The Fordham Report 2006: How Well Are States Educating Our Neediest Children?

November 1, 2006

The Fordham Report 2006: How Well Are States Educating Our Neediest Children? appraises each state according to thirty indicators across three major categories: student achievement for low-income, African-American, and Hispanic students; achievement trends for these same groups over the last 10-15 years; and the state's track record in implementing bold education reforms. It finds that just eight states can claim even moderate success over the past 15 years at boosting the percentage of their poor or minority students who are at or above proficient in reading, math or science. In addition, most states making significant achievement gains--including California, Delaware, Florida, New York, Massachusetts, and Texas--are national leaders in education reform, indicating that solid standards, tough accountability, and greater school choice can yield better classroom results.

View the press release for this report

Contents

Maine

 


 


 

Stubbornly Straight-laced

Maine's citizens aren't afraid of taking chances-when necessary. The state's lobster fishermen risk life and limb to snare their spiny crop when weather conspires against them. The founders of L.L. Bean, frustrated by their store's slow sales, bet everything that a catalog business could work. This spirit of measured risk taking carries over into the policy world. Of late, the state has wrestled with issues that federal officials would just as soon avoid: prescription drug pricing limits, universal health coverage, and public financing of political campaigns.

In the realm of education, however, Maine remains stubbornly straight-laced and old-fashioned. It has adopted no charter school law.  Its school governance is still fiercely guarded by local communities. Consider the fact that although the state has 12,000 fewer students than the city of Philadelphia, Maine has some 280 more administrative units, or districts, to oversee its young charges than the City of Brotherly Love. "It's a conservative state," says Judith Jones of the Maine Association for Charter Schools, "in the sense that people tend to be very satisfied with the status quo."

For now, the state isn't feeling much pressure to change. Minority population numbers hardly register in Maine. The state exams look to be telling the truth to its citizens about student achievement. Maine's state test, the Maine Education Assessment (MEA) is ranked number 1 for rigor in defining "proficiency" on its reading and math components. (The standards to which the MEA is aligned rate only a dim D-, however.) While low-income students' academic performance could be much better, their scores look decent compared to other states.

But nothing stays the same. The state's population of minority students is rising, most notably in the small city of Lewiston, which attracts a growing number of Somali families. Educating their children, however, is proving especially difficult. "They haven't been to school-they aren't literate in their own language," says James Carignan, chairman of the Maine State Board of Education.

Moreover, state leaders are beginning to challenge local control. As part of a compromise agreement in 1996, students take not only the MEA, but also the assessments that local districts develop. The practice has proven unpopular. So in 2006, Governor John Baldacci called for a year-long moratorium on these local assessments. 

The state is also pushing to reduce local control in two other ways. First, the government wants to reduce the number of school districts from the current 282 to just 35. And second, the Pine Tree State would like to bring all teachers under one collective bargaining agreement.

Such changes will not come easily. Sue Gendron, the state education commissioner who has long been concerned about Maine's graduation rate, has pushed for changes to the high school core curriculum. She has also supported efforts to create a statewide high school exit exam. Both ideas have foundered on the shoals of local control.

Charter advocates have also been swimming upstream. The State Board of Education has tried to pave the way for charters by asking the Department of Education to allow a 10-year pilot program for charters in a few select areas. Nothing happened. Another proposal to allow up to 20 charter schools to serve at-risk students was defeated in the state senate this year.

Again, many residents see no need for charters. Says Jones, "There's already this huge outlet for dissatisfied parents." That outlet is the state's "tuitioning" program, which dates from the mid-19th century.

As in Vermont, towns that don't have a large enough population to support a public middle or high school must provide tuition for parents to send their children to the private school of their choice or to public schools in other towns. (The amount of tuition is capped.) Religious schools are not allowed to participate in the program, though that rule is currently under court review. Of the state's 205,000 students, some 17,000 are making use of the tuitioning program.

The one reform initiative that Maine's citizens have embraced is a statewide program for putting laptops into the hands of school children. It makes sense in a state with a significant rural population, and there's some evidence that it's effective.

Whether Maine will embrace education reform that raises standards, permits charters, and tightens high school course requirements remains to be seen, however. This is one public policy issue on which the state's citizens may find it beneficial to act before it becomes absolutely necessary to do so.

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