Education: August 2007 Archives

Our friends at the Ellsworth American were gracious enough to print a column of mine on school consolidation:

In Education, Bigger Is Not Always Better

Written by Stephen Bowen
Wednesday, August 29, 2007

This Friday marks the first major deadline in the state’s quest to merge Maine’s many small local school districts into large regional ones. School units are required to share with the state’s education commissioner by that day how they intend to comply with the new school district consolidation law.

One hopes that the districts will draw inspiration from Brig. Gen. Anthony McAuliffe, commander of U.S. Army forces inside the besieged city of Bastogne during the WWII Battle of the Bulge, who famously replied to a German request for his surrender of the city with one word: “Nuts!�

Indeed, with many districts finding consolidation to be more costly, rather than less, with at least one school district, SAD 61 in Cumberland County, reportedly informing the commissioner that it does not intend to merge with anyone, and with efforts already being made to repeal the law through citizens’ referendum, it appears as though resistance to the latest great idea from Augusta is beginning to mount, and with good reason.

In January, the Maine Heritage Policy Center published a report challenging the very notion underlying this effort, which is that larger school districts necessarily do their jobs better or even cheaper than smaller ones. Analysis of evidence from other states demonstrated that in many cases, school system consolidation led to increased levels of administrative spending and bureaucracy. As a result, school districts became less, not more, accountable as they got larger.

Our newest research indicates that we needn’t have looked outside the state to find ways that school and school system consolidation can make the situation worse. A half century ago, another Maine legislature taken in by the “bigger is better� mantra passed a law that became known as the Sinclair Act. A review of what happened as a result of that law gives us a pretty good idea what to expect if current consolidation efforts continue.

Read the rest of the column on the Ellsworth American website.

Looks as though East Machias, which is one of the few towns to ever withdraw from an SAD, is pushing back against consolidation as well...

By Diana Graettinger
Thursday, August 30, 2007 - Bangor Daily News

EAST MACHIAS - They’re ready to do battle with a state they say is wrong.

Their weapon: the court system.

Their objection: a statewide school consolidation plan they maintain is going to "injure" their school.

This community of 1,000 residents is "damn mad" about the state’s plan to consolidate school districts, which they say will do more harm than good, and they plan to sue the state to stop it.

"This just burns me up," school board Chairman Bucket Davis said Tuesday.

He, along with Principal Tony Maker, school board member Pete Rensema, and Union 102 Superintendent Scott Porter met Tuesday at the Elm Street Elementary School on Route 191 to talk about the state plan.

School communities have until Aug. 31 to file a formal notice of intent to merge or consolidate their administrative offices with neighboring schools. The consolidation law, enacted earlier this year as part of the $6.3 billion state budget, seeks to reconfigure the existing 290 school units into a maximum of 80 new regional school units.

"I plan to fight this until my damn death," Davis said.

Read the rest here.

As reported this past week, former State Legislator and Deer Isle/Stonington school board member Skip Greenlaw has proposed a repeal of the new school consolidation law. His letter to the state's school boards is available here.

Key lines:

"Since the majority of our elected Senators and Representatives did not represent our views in opposition to school consolidation as expressed at the public hearing in Augusta on February 5, 2007, I hold little hope that they would be disposed to vote against future amendments to the school consolidation law. Hence, the time has come for Maine people to be heard on this issue by repealing the law through the initiated referendum process."

It will be interesting to see what kind of response he gets...

At least one school district has voted to tell the commissioner that they will not merge with surrounding districts. Can't wait to see how this turns out.

'We will go it alone'

By David Harry
Editor-The Citizen

CASCO (Aug 23, 2007): Crooked River Elementary School in Casco will no more be confused for a Charleston, S.C., shore battery than the Maine Department of Education resembles Fort Sumter.

As school boards in SADs 55 and 72 convene Aug. 29 to vote on consolidating, it seems likely the cannonade against the reorganization plan passed by the Legislature in June will continue.

Read the full article here

Seems competition is not working out for one of Portland's high schools. Solution? Take away student choice.

Portland newcomers won't pick high school
In order to even out enrollment, new students will be assigned to either Portland High or Deering.

By TREVOR MAXWELL Staff Writer August 23, 2007

When Portland schools open two weeks from today, about 100 high school students will be affected by a new policy aimed at reducing the enrollment gap between Deering and Portland high schools.

That means families with children in King Middle School, for example, can still choose a preferred high school. But a family who moved here over the summer or during the school year will not have that choice.

Interesting pair of articles in the BDN today, one on how the districts are "falling into line" on reorganization, the other on at least one guy's attempt to the repeal the bill.

First, on how the districts seem to be complying without much complaint, a telling couple of lines from the piece:

"[Maine DOE spokesman] David Connerty-Marin said that while the department encountered resistance to the proposal when it first came before the Legislature, most communities have fallen in line now that it is state law. "Regardless of where they stood before the law was passed, school units and municipalities are stepping up. They are not fighting back. They may not like it, but they are working with it."

I love that. They don't have to like it, they just have to do it. Read the rest here.

The other article reports on a possible repeal attempt coming from Hancock County. Interesting to see where it all goes!

NEW YORK TIMES
By SAM DILLON
Published: July 24, 2007

LOS ANGELES — Steve Barr, a major organizer of charter schools, has been waging what often seems like a guerrilla war for control of this city’s chronically failing high schools.

Educators and policy makers from Sacramento to Washington are watching closely because many believe Green Dot’s audacious tactics have the potential to strengthen and expand the charter school movement nationwide.

Seacoast Online
By Jeffrey W. Pelletier
July 29, 2007 12:59 PM

Editor’s note: The writer is chairman of the Kittery School Committee.

The state of Maine has given school districts until the end of August to inform them whom they intend to enter into negotiations with, not with whom they intend to merge. There’s more than semantics in that statement, but what’s important is this: Kittery is meeting with her neighbors and intends to file the pertinent information with the state by the deadline. While I can understand that some could imply that not enough is being done, the schedule set by the Legislature is an aggressive one, and school committees are doing their best during these summer months to get the work done.

I will only speak for myself and not for the committee. While I am a strong proponent of efficiency and of small government, I don’t like this consolidation. There, I said it. This law is poor legislation crafted by a state government that can’t control its own spending, let alone Kittery’s.

Read the rest here

In April, MHPC released a Maine View report outlining how the introduction of Charter Schools might be a way to improve school performance in Maine, which is one of only ten states in the nation that outlaws such schools. Seems as though the success of the charter school model is overwhelming in New Orleans:

Charter schools lead way on LEAP
Some improve in every grade; Recovery District campuses lag
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
By Darran Simon
New Orleans Times-Picayune

At Sophie B. Wright, one of many New Orleans charter schools that outperformed most traditional public schools on this year's LEAP test, the faculty makes academic achievement a daily competition.

In scores released this week, charter schools such as Wright posted higher scores at every grade level, with some showing vast improvement over their pre-Katrina, pre-charter performance under the Orleans Parish School Board.

At Wright, a Recovery District charter school, children on the honor roll get T-shirts with their names embroidered on the back, a color signifying each marking period. Teachers get a monetary bonus when their students perform well on the state's high-stakes assessment test.

Students at the school, once one of the system's lowest-performing campuses, posted far better results this year, with 71 percent of fourth-graders scoring "basic" or higher on the English portion and 80 percent meeting that standard in math. Though eighth-graders didn't do as well, they scored far better than past eighth-grade classes there.

In the first test scores offering a meaningful comparison between charter and traditional public schools in New Orleans, charters clustered near the top of the rankings, while traditional schools -- particularly those run by the state-run Recovery School District -- in some cases had more than half their students fail the test. At many Recovery District schools, fewer than 20 percent of students scored basic or above.

Read the entire article here