Recently in Education Category

The opposition to charter schools is already springing into action in response to Rep. Casavant's move to re-introduce charter school legislation.

Rep. Finch argued that charter school legislation could NOT be re-introduced at this point, in accordance with the legislature's joint rules, since it was defeated last session.

Sen. Alfond claimed that "a new study" is out showing that charter schools are no better than traditional "publicly funded" schools. He wants this study, which he "has on his computer" distributed to the committee.

I was personally approached by a lobbyist who suggested, as Rep. Finch did, that a charter school bill could not be introduced anyway, so why were the Republicans bothering? He was chagrined to learn that Democrat, Rep. Casavant, had put the idea forward...

So, everything old is new again - back into the breach on charter schools - promises to be an interesting few weeks.

Senate Chair Alfond suggested that the work session on LD 1801 will take place TOMORROW.

As expected, news being made on LD 1801 - Rep. Casavant is proposing to replace LD 1801 with charter school legislation - a national model developed by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.

His comments focus on the kids that fall through the cracks - "why not give them options?" Why not indeed.

Rep. Johnson discusses the effort being made in Greenville to create a charter school there...

Rep. Nelson wants to know the details of what Rep. Casavant is proposing...

Yet another good speech by Rep. Casavant - this one related to teacher certification - he is dead on.

Bill tabled....

Closing in on a vote on LD 1799...

A good speech from Rep. Johnson, who says he'll support LD 1799 because he believes student performance data SHOULD be one of the factors used in teacher and administrator evaluations.

A good speech from the thoughtful Rep. Casavant, who doesn't know how he'll vote. Good to see a legislator really struggle with a vote, which he is.  Too many votes here are done with too little real deliberation.

Final vote in LD 1799:  9 to 1 Ought to Pass



Quickly on to LD 1800, and already an Ought to Pass motion from Rep. Sutherland.

Rep. Casavant leads off yet another impassioned speech by saying that he thinks MHPC was right that Maine is not pushing reform hard enough.

Vote: 9 to 1 on LD 1800

Are we going minimal here?

The question from House chair Sutherland: What are the parts of these bills that we MUST pass in order to be eligible?

The answer from the commissioner is the part of 1799 that allows Maine to connect student achievement to individual teachers and LD 1800, the common core standards bill, must be passed, innovative schools are an option.

Will the committee simply go with the absolute minimum in order to be eligible?

If Rep. Finch's short speech to the committee is any indication, we may not even do that. "Is Maine for sale?" he wondered out loud.

In short, he is not prepare to "sell" Maine for $75 million, so he will vote against LD 1799, one of the two bills MUST pass for Maine to even apply for an RTT grant.

Some good discussion underway, prompted by Sen. Weston, about what the commissioner sees as our odds of competing for a grant. The senator asked the commissioner to go through the application point by point and give an estimate of where she thinks we are, but she is not prepared to do that at this time, and instead took more of a big picture view.

According to the commissioner, we are in good shape. She conceded that our lack of charter schools will cost us 32 points, but she feels we are strong on the rest of the application.  I respectfully disagree, but she seems confident...

I can't wait to see this application...

The first issue up today, from the House chair, Rep. Sutherland, is whether the committee could insert some kind of sunset language into any of these bills, so that they would essentially expire at some point in the future, ideally after we get the RTT money from the feds. 

So in other words, the House chair of the committee would like to pass these bills in order to ensure that we can say in our RTT application that we have passed them, then have them expire down the road so that we don't actually have to do what we promised the feds we would do by passing the laws in the first place.

Mercifully, she seems prepared to drop the idea after some pushback from Commissioner Gendron, but we're not off to a great start here...

The Education Committee has begin its work session on LD's 1799, 1800 and 1801, the three bills put forward by the Baldacci Administration in an attempt to improve Maine's chances for winning a federal Race to the Top grant.

Given how weak these bills are, it doesn't seem that actually winning a grant is that high of a priority, but these are the bills that the Baldacci administration put forward.

Right now, the committee's analyst, Dr. Phil McCarthy, is briefing the committee on the testimony from the public hearing.

What will happen today? My guess is the first two bills will be passed quickly, but there will be an attempt to replace the third bill, the one creating "innovative schools", with the charter school bill that was debated last year. Could be lots of debate this afternoon...

Stay tuned!

On Tuesday, the Education committee will conduct work sessions on LD's 1799, 1800, and 1801, all three of which were put forward by the Baldacci Administration in an attempt to improve Maine's chances of winning a federal Race to the Top grant.

There were few surprises at the public hearing last Thursday.

LD 1799, which would allow data from the state's assessment system to be used in teacher evaluations, was opposed by the Maine Education Association, but supported, though with some reluctance, by the associations representing Maine's principals, superintendents and school boards.

Chris Galgay, the MEA president, was quoted as saying that "there is little or no evidence that tying student test scores to teacher evaluations is an accurate or useful way to measure teacher effectiveness." That assertion was challenged by Rep. Nelson, who wondered out loud whether there was any legitimate way to judge the effectiveness of teachers other than by assessing whether they actually taught or not. Mr. Galgay did not have a good answer.

The truth is, of course, that in the performance-based evaluation systems now in place, student achievement data is but one of a number of elements used to determine teacher effectiveness. In Denver's ProComp system, for instance, teachers are evaluated on a whole host of indicators, only one of which is tied to scores on state tests.

Despite opposition from the MEA, the bill will almost certainly pass. Without it, Maine would not even be eligible for a Race to the Top grant, much less be competitive with other states for one.

LD 1800, which would allow the state to adopt learning standards in common with other states, will likely pass as well. Maine could adopt whatever learning standards it wished, whether they were in common with other states or not, which means the bill is largely meaningless. There was no opposition at the public hearing. 

Speaking of meaningless, LD 1801, which would allow the creation of "innovative" schools run by existing school districts, deserves a unanimous "no" vote from the committee (or, better yet, it should be amended into a bill allowing charter schools). As testimony at the public hearing made clear, there is nothing that schools would be allowed to do under LD 1801 that they could not already do under existing law, so what is the point? I doubt the U.S. Department of Education will be moved by the fact that Maine is one of only 11 states without charter schools but DID pass a meaningless piece of legislation allowing "innovative" schools that are anything but.

If the committee really wants to improve Maine's chances of winning a Race to the Top grant, it should follow the advice I laid out in a recent research report: adopt charter schools, enact a slew of legislation related to teacher and administrator quality, dramatically improve our data systems, and enact legislation specifically targeted at chronically under-performing schools. Throw in alternative processes for attaining teacher certification and you're there.

Unfortunately, none of that will happen. The education establishment wants no reforms that threaten their monopoly power and the Baldacci administration clearly has no interest in taking them on. The status quo will prevail yet again, and Maine's students will continue to be ill-served.

Don't believe me? The work sessions on these bills are tomorrow... 

The administration says three new bills will improve our chances of winning Race to the Top funding. We politely disagree. Our press release:

Think Tank Critical of Proposed Race to the Top Legislation

 Administration's School Reform Bills Fail to Innovate Maine Schools

 

PORTLAND - A Portland-based think tank said today that school reform legislation proposed by the Baldacci administration isn't even close to the kind of bold innovation demanded by the U.S. Department of Education's multibillion-dollar Race to the Top grant program.

 

"There are few words to describe how disappointing these proposals are," said Stephen Bowen, who directs the Center for Education Excellence at The Maine Heritage Policy Center. "Other states have taken bold steps in response to President Obama's call for real education reform.  What the Baldacci administration has proposed is embarrassingly weak."

 

Under the guidelines of the Race to the Top grant, Maine could receive up to $70 million in federal funding to help foster educational innovation and reform. The grant program is competitive, however. "We have to show Washington that Maine is a prudent place to invest school reform dollars if we have any hope of winning a grant," said Bowen. "That means we need to be more ambitious, more creative, and more innovative than the states we're up against. The governor's proposals achieve none of these things."

 

The Baldacci administration has proposed three separate bills which it claims will make Maine more competitive for Race to the Top funding:

 

·         LD 1799 allows the use of student assessment data in teacher evaluations.  Rather than let local school districts develop new teacher evaluation systems of their own, the bill requires use of evaluation models developed by the state Department of Education. "This is yet another example of the administration's top-down approach to reform," said Bowen. "It is designed to put the bureaucrats in Augusta and their allies in the education establishment in the driver's seat."

 

·         LD 1800 allows Maine to adopt academic standards common with those of other states, a change designed to answer the Obama administration's call for national standards for academic achievement. "The bill changes only one line of state law and even that one line says the state 'may' adopt common standards, but does not require it," said Bowen. "This sends Washington a message that Maine lacks commitment to reform."

 

·         LD 1801 establishes what the administration calls "innovative schools."  The one page bill allows existing school districts to create "an innovative autonomous public school," but not a public charter school. "These supposedly autonomous schools will be run by the very same people who run our schools today and must abide by virtually all existing state law governing public schools.  This bill fails to create autonomous schools in any way," Bowen said.

 

According to the Baldacci administration, "innovative" schools must have "a system for accountability for student achievement that exceeds but is not in conflict with" the state's existing accountability system.  This means such schools must operate two assessment systems - one of their own and the state's testing program.  "It is also important to note that only those assessment systems related to student achievement get special consideration under the law. Teachers and administrators in such schools are no more accountable under this bill than they were before, and not nearly as accountable as they would be under a charter school model," Bowen explained.

 

While the so-called autonomous schools proposed in LD 1801 may have discretion with regard to things like staffing and school calendars, such changes must not conflict with state law.  "That means all the teachers in these schools must be certified just as they are today, despite a lack of evidence that teacher certification correlates with student achievement, and the same rules and regulations burdening schools today remain in place," said Bowen. "How can anyone look at this bill and say with a straight face that these schools will be autonomous or innovative?"

 

"Compared to other states' reforms, this package of legislation is unimaginably inadequate," said Bowen. "Michigan changed state law to increase the number of charter schools and strengthen accountability measures for persistently failing schools. California law was changed to provide school choice rights to parents with children in underperforming schools. Massachusetts adopted statutory changes that make it easier for school administrators to remove ineffective teachers. 39 states now have charter schools, yet the Baldacci administration thinks a one page bill allowing 'innovative schools' will win us a Race to the Top grant."

 

"The research Steve has done makes clear that the Obama administration set the school reform bar very high," said Tarren Bragdon, chief executive officer of the Maine Heritage Policy Center. "We were hopeful the governor would rise to the challenge, follow the lead of those states that have adopted meaningful reforms and advance a bold agenda to dramatically improve Maine's schools. Instead, he took orders from the education establishment and proposed one of the weakest school reform packages proposed in the country. This is a huge disappointment for Maine students, and a national embarrassment."
 
To read Bowen's recent paper on Maine's chances of winning a Race to the Top grant, CLICK HERE.

It won't be out officially until tomorrow, but readers of the blog can see our new education website today at www.greatschoolsforME.org.

As you'll see, tons of data and information on the site, access to data from greatschools.org, an interactive school choice map, new tools to study state and local education spending, and facts and information on school choice, charter schools, homeschooling and more.

Lots of work went into the site and we hope it becomes the go-to resource for Mainers interested in learning more about the state's schools. 

Enjoy this sneak peek!