"- 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.

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.

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.

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 over at AsMaineGoes have been doing a little predicting.  How will the 17 consolidation plans to go before voters turn out?  My guesses:

·         Falmouth / MSAD 51(Cumberland).  Though held out as a model for the state, support for this plan has been unraveling.  My guess?  DEFEATED.

·         MSAD 34 (Belfast) / MSAD 56 (Searsport).  You hardly hear a peep about this plan.  Seems to have attracted little, if any opposition.  PASSES.

·         skepticism among regionalization planners, nearly half of whom anticipated their consolidation plans would be turned down by voters.  The planners cited a shortage of time to do community outreach and a lack of real budget savings from consolidation as reasons for likely opposition from voters.  We'll find out soon enough.  According to the Department, 17 consolidation plans will go before voters on November 4th.

•  The Department of Education is already warning districts to expect a state funding freeze for perhaps the next two years. As the Sun Journal reveals, state funding for schools is up about $250 million since 2005, and the school districts that appear to be in trouble are the ones that grew school spending as a result. Those that funneled the increased state funding into property tax relief, which is what voters demanded when they approved the 55% provision back in 2004, will be hit less hard - they simply didn't grow their budgets as much.  No doubt more news on the budget will come when new revenue projections are done - after the election.

• The presidential election, of course, will have a profound impact of federal education policy. We'll report on what those impacts may be once we know for sure who will be running the show come January 20 of 2009.