Education: March 2009 Archives

The great Matt Stone, education reporter for the Kennebec Journal, has a column in today's paper describing broad-based support among school leaders for educational collaboratives.

"In recent years," Stone writes, "a number of districts have joined forces to buy supplies in bulk and share the costs of special education, transportation and teacher training. Those districts have reaped the benefits in savings and expanded education opportunities, school officials told members of the Education Committee."

Wait, didn't I say exactly the same thing TWO YEARS AGO?

In fact, I did.  When the governor first proposed his consolidation scheme in early 2007, we responded with a research piece describing what we thought to be a better alternative, Education Service Districts.  These regional cooperatives allow districts to cut costs by sharing purchasing, back-office operations, and all manner of products and services, while allowing districts some level of autonomy. 

From yesterday's article: "Since efficiencies can be achieved by sharing services without changing governance, regional education cooperatives should be embraced as another consolidation alternative," [School Union 102 Superintendent Scott] Porter said.

Funny, I said the same thing in 2007.

We followed up that piece with a report on the Western Maine Educational Collaborative, one of the highly successful collaboratives mentioned in Education Committee hearings on Monday:

"The 11 school districts that belong to the Western Maine Education Collaborative share teachers of classes that typically attract few students, said Thomas Ward, superintendent of Dixfield-based SAD 21 and president of that cooperative. The districts have saved money while offering academic programs they would not have been able to afford on their own, he said".

Like Yogi Berra said, its like deja vu all over again.

HELLO??? Is thing on?

Is anyone listening to us??

A terrific column by Matt Stone in this weekend's Kennebec Journal outlines how Wiscasset High School is working to attract students in the new RSU of which it is part, and how all the families in the region are benefiting from the competition school choice brings.

The new Sheepscot Valley RSU "stretches from Westport Island in the south to Palermo in the north to Chelsea in the west."  Wiscasset High, the only public high school in the RSU, is working to attract students from the northern part of the new RSU, whose students have traditionally attended Erskine Academy in China or Cony High School in Augusta.

As I am quoted as saying in the piece, this is a smart move for Wiscasset.  They have a declining enrollment, and history shows that when area students have a choice, they have often chosen to go elsewhere:

"Nearly all Whitefield students attended Wiscasset High School when the two towns had a contract. But the contract has since lapsed, and just three Whitefield students attended the high school in the 2007-08 school year, according to the Maine Department of Education."

It remains to be seen what steps Wiscasset High will take, aside from launching the marketing effort described in the article, to attract more students.  Ideally, the school will launch whatever reforms are necessary to improve student outcomes, and thus attract more students as a result of being a high-performing school.  Wiscasset's being better will force its competitors to be better, with the end result that through competition, all schools in the area improve. 

That is the beauty of what Winslow High School Principal Doug Carville calls "healthy competition" between schools.

So, families in Lincoln County have school choice, what about the rest of Maine? Stay tuned...