Former IBM CEO Louis Gerstner had an interesting piece in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, in which he suggests a handful of education reform options:

"- Abolish all local school districts, save 70 (50 states; 20 largest cities). Some states may choose to leave some of the rest as community service organizations, but they would have no direct involvement in the critical task of establishing standards, selecting teachers, and developing curricula.

- Establish a set of national standards for a core curriculum. I would suggest we start with four subjects: reading, math, science and social studies.

- Establish a National Skills Day on which every third, sixth, ninth and 12th-grader would be tested against the national standards. Results would be published nationwide for every school in America.

- Establish national standards for teacher certification and require regular re-evaluations of teacher skills. Increase teacher compensation to permit the best teachers (as measured by advances in student learning) to earn well in excess of $100,000 per year, and allow school leaders to remove underperforming teachers.

- Extend the school day and the school year to effectively add 20 more days of schooling for all K-12 students."

This is an interesting mix of approaches, some more promising than others. The idea that the state can run schools more efficiently than smaller districts can is questionable, to say the least. I can't think of anything the state does efficiently. I expect national standards to get a big push, though - it is popular on both sides of the aisle. Why? Because it is clear that the Feds made a mistake in allowing each state to set their own achievement benchmarks.  As a result, there is enormous variation from state to state with regard to what constitutes "proficiency" in reading, for example. National testing will likely follow national standards. The NAEP test, administered by the U.S. Department of Education, is generally seen as an effective national test, against which many states benchmark their own state tests.  Extending the school day and year makes sense - we trail many nations in the amount of schooling we ask kids to do - but only if the schools become more effective at what they do. Having kids spend more time in bad schools makes no sense at all.

Gerstner's fourth suggestion, related to teacher quality, is, in my mind, the key piece.  None of the rest of it matters if you do not have top-quality teachers in the classroom. It is also the most controversial piece of the puzzle, as it would require the recently-elected Obama administration to take on the recalcitrant teachers' unions, who are reflexively resistant to any attempt to tie teacher pay to student outcomes, or to make it easier to remove ineffective teachers.  Whether President-Elect Obama is willing to move forward on teacher quality issues in defiance of the unions will determine the extent to which he is serious about making the kind of profound changes to our schools that leaders like Gerstner are suggesting.

Who he selects as an Education Secretary may tell us a great deal about the answer to that very question.

The Bangor Daily News was good enough to publish an op-ed I wrote on the subject of school choice.  It will be interesting to see what kind of a response it generates...

Over on our school choice website, http://maineschoolchoice.ning.com, Karen Balas-Coté, who helped lead the effort to preserve school choice in Orland, provides a quick overview of what the Orland school choice supporters did in their successful effort to save choice:

Choice advocates in Orland talked among parents, got phone numbers and e-mails, and solicited donations from parents to send out a saturation mailing to every Orland resident that had many points on why Orland should keep school choice, how to vote to keep school choice, and a copy of the very lengthy and confusing ballot so people could understand what they were voting on before they went into the voting booth.

We also put up around 10 large, simple to read, signs telling people which way to vote to keep school choice, in strategic locations about 2 weeks before the vote. We also talked to Heads of Schools where the majority of Orland students who choose high schools other than Bucksport attend. They were helpful with general information and even sent out a letter to current parents and alumni advocating school choice and getting out to vote.

Additionally, we encouraged parents and alumni who attended other area high schools to write letters to the editors of local newspapers in support of school choice and why.

In other words, a good old fashioned grassroots effort, done on a shoestring and pulled off by dedicated volunteers.  It is important to note how little time they had to do this - opponents of choice started circulating a petition to get rid of it in early September.  That left Karen and her allies only a few weeks to organize the all-out effort she describes.

Some good lessons here as we move forward, though some of the battles, I think, will be in Augusta, which will require a different approach and much larger and more organized coalition of supporters.

In Sunday's Portland Press Herald, economist Charles Lawton made some rather dubious claims about the economic impact of transfer payments.  He states: "In short, the reason for the rising share of transfer payments in Maine's total personal income is not their rapid growth rate.  Rather it is the slower growth rate of earnings from employment.  In a word, it's the jobs, stupid.  If the nation as a whole can grow employment earnings by nearly 150 percent over an 18-year period encompassing two recessions while more than doubling the volume of transfer payments, there is no reason Maine can't do the same--at least no theoretically necessary reason to the detrimental effects of transfer payments."

Whoa, hold on Tex.  I am not even sure where to begin on that one.  First, Dr. Lawton should read my study on "Why Taxes Matter."  In fact, transfer payments do come at the expense of earning. Earnings, government employment excluded, are generated by the private sector. Transfer payments come from taxes which are paid from the private sector. If transfer payments grow, then taxes to pay them must go up. Throw in the deadweight losses from the higher taxes, and the private sector--earnings and jobs growth--suffer.  There is one "theoretically necessary reason for detrimental effects."  And empirical reasons as well.

Dr. Lawton also downplays the enormity of the transfer payment problem in Maine.  While he likes to talk about the national average, Mainers can only wish they were even close to the national average.  In my new study on Maine state government spending--"Maine Spends too Much . . . But Where?"  The study shows that Maine state government spending on "Public Welfare" (Medicaid, TANF, etc.) and "Health" (WIC, state clinics, etc.) rank the highest in the country as a percent of income.  In fact, Maine spends nearly double the national average on Public Welfare and more than three times the national average on Health.

One last point--though I'm sure there are others I am forgetting.  In another recent paper--"Maine's Dwindling Private Sector Economy"--I show that there is a clear relationship between the size of a state's private sector and its overall economic well-being.  Transfer payments crowd out the private sector to the detriment of all Mainers.  Of course, we don't need complex graphs to tell us that.  Just look over the border.  New Hampshire has the 2nd largest private sector in the country and the 9th highest per capita personal income in the country.  Alas, Maine is the polar opposite. 

MHPC has done quite a bit of work to publicize the fact that school choice in Maine is under threat. Is it possible that school choice could be expanded as a result of consolidation?

The Times Record reports that residents of Wiscasset, which is destined to be the only non-choice district in its new RSU, are thinking about extending school choice to their own students.  The article is tremdously revealing about the motives of the two sides.

On the side favoring choice, you have this argument:

Smith noted that, with school enrollment falling and no sign the other seven towns would send students or funding to Wiscasset to help combat the dropoff, the high school could continue to wither away. If the disappearance in funding and programs reached severe enough levels, he argued, it would be unfair of the town not to allow its students to seek better educations elsewhere.

"If we can't save the high school, isn't our obligation to the students?" asked Smith.

In other words, for the good of the children, we have to provide the best options available, and if that means closing a school to which kids don't want to go, then so be it.

The argument on the other side is that for the good of the school, we need to avoid giving kids a choice:

However, School Committee Chairman Gene Stover remained worried that opening the door of school choice would exacerbate what he described as the "exodus we're experiencing from Alna and Westport Island."

Alna and Westport Island had already been partnered with Wiscasset before the larger consolidation talks began, but as Smith noted, "one-third of the Westport Island kids choose schools other than Wiscasset due to misconceptions about the quality of our schools."

Allowing Wiscasset's own students to leave, too, argued Stover, would be a bad idea.

"We've got to combat this business of people leaving because of what they perceive as programs that aren't as good as other schools."

I find this line of thinking facsinating. The kids that have choice are voting with their feet and leaving the schools.  They are doing so, Mr. Stover suggests, because of "perceptions" that the schools are not that good.

His solution, evidently, is not to deal with the perception issue (or what may be underlying perfomance issues), but simply to use the law to prevent students from leaving.

It says something about how ingrained the public school monopoly model has become that nobody gets worked up about trapping kids in underperforming schools. "So what if kids want to leave - we won't make the school better, we'll just prevent them from leaving."

Someday we'll look back at this era and be amazed that people put up put up with this...

An article from today's New York Post details the choice facing President-Elect and Mrs.Obama as they look to move to Washington in January - to which school will they send their kids?

Most Americans, of course, don't have that choice to make. They are forced to attend the public school assigned to them by the state unless they can afford to go elsewhere.  Many Maine communities offer school choice, though fewer and fewer all the time.

Future Mom-in-Chief Michelle Obama flew into DC ahead of her husband yesterday on a reconnaissance mission to scope out private schools for her two daughters.

She headed first to the tony Georgetown Day School, an ultra-progressive prep school where students and their teachers are on a first-name basis.

After Georgetown, Michelle headed to Sidwell, a liberal Quaker school that many consider the front-runner in the heated Race for the Schoolhouse.

Still to be visited is Maret, a college-prep school with an emphasis on sports.

The DC public schools made an unsuccessful push for Chelsea Clinton back in 1992, but it seems unlikely the Obama girls will end up in a city school.

What is even more amazing about this article are the long lists of prominent Democrats with kids at each of these ritzy private schools.  It amazes me that these people are never called on the carpet for the blatant hypocrisy of denying ordinary people the same school choice rights they enjoy.  They are all very supportive of D.C. public schools until they have to send their own kids there...Unbelievable.

Turns out, more folks are prepared to merge school districts than I had anticipated.  I predicted in this space that about half of the consolidation plans sent out to voters would pass, turns out that 12 of 18 did.

I had thought opposition in Freeport would spell the end of that plan, with opposition in SAD 38 sinking its merger with SAD 48.  Wishful thinking, I guess - both those plans will end school choice for a number of students.

A number of plans are still waiting to go, and plans that were rejected still have time to be reworked and put back in front of voters in January.  The big question will be whether the state moves forward to impose penalties on those districts not in compliance.  They are likely to if most plans pass, unlikely to if most plans fail, I would guess.  So far, 2 out of 3 are passing, which will embolden the administration to keep pushing the merger effort forward in the face of what is likely to be at least some legislative opposition.

Democrats have built large majorities in both the Senate and House. Will they oppose the administration's effort?  Unlikely. Consolidation is here to stay.

Not a great Election Day as far as I'm concerned, but there was one bright note.  Voters in Raymond and Orland both voted to preserve school choice.

The vote in Orland was very close, 671 to 644.  That means Orland will continue to have at least some school choice after merging with Bucksport, assuming the merger plan passes when the time comes. That plan would limit high school choice in Orland to only 35% of students. The other 65% will be required to attend Bucksport High School.

School choice in Raymond was upheld by a better than two-to-one margin, 1923 to 788.  This means Raymond will keep choice after merging with Windham.  This is a truly great win considering that much of the school board and the school administration were adamantly against choice.

The battle is not over yet.  We're still learning the outcomes with regard to a handful of consolidation plans dealing with school choice, though it looks as though the Freeport-Durham-Pownal merger will go through, ending choice for students in Pownal and Durham.

Stay tuned...

Every politician of every possible persuasion promises to support Maine people and create Maine jobs - right?

 

Well, while searching the Checks to Businesses & People section of MaineOpenGov.Org, the out-of-state spending by the State of Maine is shocking!  After Maine, the biggest pile of money sent to another state is the $52,838,303 spent with Massachusetts firms in 2007.  That is a bit more than one million tax dollars a week!   
 
It gets worse!  The total spending shows 2007 State of Maine vendor payments of $1,012,794,401.  About 64 percent ($647,527,689) was spent with Maine companies.  This means that more than a third of these tax dollars ($365,266,712) were spent outside of Maine in 2007.
 
That is one million dollars a day!
 
Politicians will justify high state spending by emphasizing the Multiplier Effect - which estimates that every dollar of state spending generates three or four or five dollars in the private sector economy. 
 
OK.  But if this Multiplier Effect argument is part of the justification for Maine's high spending... why is Augusta sending one million tax dollars outside of Maine every day - so they can "multiply" somewhere else?   
 
Some people argue that there are specific services and products unavailable in Maine, and that is correct.  But a million tax dollars a day are spent on things like office supplies, office furniture, marketing support, printing, consulting, professional services, public education services, desktop computers, office interior design, repairs to buildings, laptop computers, document scanners, construction contractors, computer maintenance, computer printers...  
 
Pick up the Yellow Pages, Augusta!  These products and services are available through Maine businesses, who employ Maine people, who pay Maine taxes... and would like the chance to try out this Multiplier Effect theory here in Maine!  (And if Maine companies cannot compete with out-of-state firms because of our business climate... who's fault is that?)
 

 

MaineOpenGov.Org is a window into state spending, and we hope that our Moggers* are using this information to question candidates this fall!
 

  
 

  
* MOG Users are known informally as "Moggers."

Our friends at the University of Maine have just released a report, done in cooperation with the Penquis Superintendents' Association, which shows that preserving school choice was a critical issue for many communities in Maine as they faced the school district consolidation mandate, enough so that it was seen as a major barrier.

Consider the following findings form the report:

Page 23: Developing a partnership with a community that had school choice was a concern of many respondents. The possibility that these communities would send students to high schools outside the RSU was a major concern and many school choice communities were adamant that school choice be preserved. Although the reorganization law protects school choice, many involved in the RPC process expressed doubts about the stability of protections. One superintendent expressed this as follows,

"Where the law allowed for choice, that the choice might remain. There's a great
deal of mistrust in the state government. One of the things I consistently heard from
people was: "Well, that's what the law says right now, but what about five years
from now?"

Page 33: On the survey, 93% of the RPC member respondents indicated that potential
loss of local control was a significant/ highly significant challenge...65% indicated that
concern about loss of school choice in some communities was significant.

Page 34: A community representative said, "What citizens in my town wanted, we wanted to stay in control of our schools and we want to keep school choice--high school choice. That may be the biggest issue. . . . The law is written to say that school choice will stay, but we were suspicious. We felt that over time, there would be pressure to send our kids to
[high school A]

Page 73:  The findings from this research suggest that the lack of support for school district reorganization is rooted in four fundamental problems: 1) pressure from time constraints and mandates; 2) lack of confidence in the stability of the initiative; 3) lack of credibility of primary goals; and 4) threats to local values around governance and school choice.


It is good to see such strong support for school choice still out there across Maine. Now let's hope the people in Raymond and Orland, both of whom will vote on whether or not to keep school choice next week, have the same passion for keeping their school choice rights...