Education: August 2008 Archives

Lots of lipstick being applied to the school district reorganization pig this week. The Department of Education, always looking on the bright side, reported this week that "half of all Maine students go to a district with an approved reorganization plan."  According to the Kennebec Journal's reporting, "the department has approved six reorganization plans and 39 alternative plans."

Sounds like things are going well!

What is left unsaid, though, is that none of the 39 "alternative" plans consolidated anything. Under the law, districts already larger than 2500 pupils, which would be all of the state's largest school districts, were allowed to avoid consolidation altogether.

What of the six approved plans that actually consolidate districts?  Well, the state's website seems only to list five. One of them, in Bath, predates the reorganization law, but that does not stop the state from taking credit for it.  The SAD 53/SAD 59 plan was defeated by voters in Madison.  A July 3 report in the Forecaster suggested that Falmouth was getting cold feet over its approved plan and sought to pull out of it, which does not bode well for voter approval this fall.

That leaves the SAD 16/Monmouth/Dresden plan, with 2450 kids, and the Sabattus/Wales/Litchfield/Oak Hill CSD plan, with 1600 kids, as the only two consolidation plans that have been approved by both the commissioner and the voters of the districts involved.

4050 kids out of 200,000? Little less than "half of Maine students" being in consolidated districts, I would say...
  

Last month, we released a report entitled District Consolidation and the Threat to School Choice: 15 Reorganization Plans to Watch. In it, as the title makes clear, we identified a handful of communities where school choice is now available, but where it may be threatened by ongoing district consolidation efforts.

There is good new out today regarding one of the consolidation proposals we highlighted.  According to a report in the Morning Sentinel, under the consolidation plan for the towns of Wiscasset, Alna, Westport Island, Whitefield, Windsor, Chelsea, Palermo and Somerville,

"...school choice applies to students from kindergarten through grade 12 in Alna and Westport Island; to high-school students only in Chelsea, Palermo, Somerville, Whitefield and Windsor; and to no Wiscasset student."

In other words, school choice options will remain in place where they have traditionally been, as long as the plan in its current form is passed by voters in the eight towns.  There is apparently some rumbling in Wiscasset about how high a share they will pay for the new regional district, among other concerns.

Assuming the plan does eventually pass, will Wiscasset parents remain happy with fact that every other high schooler in the district has school choice but them? School choice is not out of the woods yet, but good to see a plan being put forward that actually preserves choice.

A Virginia legislator has launched a school choice advocacy group there called School Choice Virginia.  Disappointed at his lack of success passing school choice legislation, Delegate Chris Saxman took the initiative and formed a statewide school choice organization, complete with its own webpage.  The launching of the advocacy group won praise from the Richmond Times-Dispatch, which today published a column from Saxman arguing in favor of school choice. Predictably, the teacher's union in Virginia responded with a call to oppose choice, which tells you all you need to know about how interested the entrenched powers are in maintaining the status quo.

Isn't in time for a statewide school choice advocacy group in Maine, one of the few states that actually has school choice?

A couple of weeks ago, I suggested in this space that the school consolidation effort was not going as well as the administration might hope. The Freeport/Durham/Pownal merger plan, at one point turned down by the Freeport school committee, eventually got the green light from the board and is now in the hands of the commissioner. The plan, which eliminates school choice in Durham and Pownal, will likely go before voters in those three towns in November.

Up in Winslow, though, the school board shot down the proposed China/Winslow/Vassalboro/Oakland/Sidney/Belgrade/Rome merger by a unanimous vote. We have identified this merger plan as worthy of careful scrutiny because of the potential implications for school choice, but according to reports, Winslow's rejection of the plan had more to do with the sheer size and scope of the proposed plan. It was reportedly observed by one Winslow resident that even "Caesar's empire" did not "extend from Rome to China."

Two other boards take up the plan tonight.