AUGUSTA, Maine — Maine will adhere to the provisions in the No Child Left Behind law for at least another year.
State Department of Education Commissioner Stephen Bowen announced Monday that the state will work within the guidelines of the frequently criticized law while crafting a new school accountability system.
The announcement, which Maine made jointly with New Hampshire, comes a week before the Feb. 21 deadline to apply for waivers with the U.S. Department of Education.
Bowen indicated that while Maine shares the frustration of other states with the 10-year-old law, a delayed response from the federal government and the need to draft a comprehensive accountability system from scratch compelled the state to withhold its application.
“We are not going to rush into this,” Bowen said in a prepared statement. “We’re going to take the time to do it right and involve all the right people.”
Bowen added that the state’s desire to leave No Child Left Behind was shared by other stakeholders, including teachers, parents and administrators.
“They want a system that lets people know how their schools are doing and helps struggling schools to improve, without stigmatizing them,” Bowen said.
The joint letter with New Hampshire Education Commissioner Virginia Barry was sent to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. It said that the two states agreed with Duncan that states needed more flexibility to create their own accountability standards, however, the timeline to develop “waiver guidelines will not work in New Hampshire and Maine, a common reality for numerous states.”
Last week Duncan and President Obama announced that 10 states had received permission to begin leaving the federal law. However, some of those states were granted conditional approval because their new accountability systems needed additional tinkering.
The 10 states had a head start over Maine because each had developed an accountability standard, also known as a state report card, before No Child Left Behind was implemented more than 10 years ago.
DOE spokesman David Connerty-Marin last week said Maine had never had an established accountability system and essentially needed to build one from scratch.
Department officials indicated Monday they knew building a system would be difficult, but had initially hoped the federal government would respond quicker to requests for feedback. In a release sent Monday, the department said it took two months longer than anticipated to receive input from the federal government about a way forward.
Bowen added that the department also wanted to better involve stakeholder groups. That, he said, wouldn’t have been possible before the Feb. 21 deadline.
Maine was one of 39 states that last year signaled its intention to receive waivers from No Child Left Behind. It presented a survey in December showing overwhelming support to replace the law’s accountability standards to measure school and student achievement.
Some of the standards under consideration include dropout rates, data from teacher, parent and student surveys and improvement on state tests.
The department said more than 500 responded to the survey, which was sent to teachers, students and administrators.
“There are a lot of data there, and lots of ideas about how to hold schools accountable while providing them the support they need to improve,” Bowen said. “We have been stuck with a system that was designed by people who don’t know Maine’s schools. So we are going to take the time to do serious and real outreach and collaborate with parents, teachers, professional associations, administrators, legislators and others. We cannot hurriedly create a new plan in Augusta and force it on schools and expect it to be embraced.”
Bowen said he was disappointed that Maine would remain under the provisions of No Child Left Behind for another year.
The program is often criticized. Opponents say it requires teachers to focus too much on preparing students for standardized tests and measuring student achievement based on testing benchmarks achieved by different students the year before.
Bowen said the plan Maine develops will recognize high-performing schools and help low-performing schools without getting stigmatized.
To see more from the Sun Journal, visit sunjournal.com.
Ok NCLB was one of George’s biggest blunders and needs to vanish a quickly as possible. At least that one hasn’t killed anyone yet. Sadly Mr. Bowen has been dragging his heels on other projects (Charter schools, school choice, teacher/administrator evaluations, etc. etc. etc.) so our State will now have to suffer yet another year under this silly law. On the plus side, next November the voters get to inform him and Mr. LePage what we think of all their “amazing” work against the people of Maine. I wonder if Mr. LePage and crew will have anything good to say about our schools, our students, our teachers, our administrators, or his citizens between now and then? Hmm…that could be a long wait.
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I wonder if Mr. LePage and crew will have anything good to say about our schools, our students, our teachers, our administrators, or his citizens between now and then?
My guess is that Jesus Christ Himself will make a speech before a joint session of the Maine Legislature before that happens.
I agree with both yours and StillRelaxin intelligent comments. I am not happy as too what is happening with our party.
It’s pleasant to see and it affirms our notion that not all republicans are Tea Party extremist. And that some have an old fashion value of compromise and look to see what can be done in the best interest of our State.
Thanks for your response, it’s encouraging.
It’s my party as well.
Yes we’ve had this discussion before. And I’ll say again, if he were to speak before such a grouping the only thing that would save him would be a line of Liberals blocking the mob of Conservatives attempting to make him a martyr for a second time. To them, Jesus only makes sense on Sunday. Hey, how’s about a Sunday Joint Session? We could be on to something here. Someone call up, Facebook, or Tweeter Jesus quick! In case I’m wrong all Liberals should still bring your shields next Sunday.
No, Jesus isn’t a registered voter of the State of Maine. Charlie Webster wouldn’t even let him cast a vote during the caucuses, because he lives in a dorm room at UMF. And Jesus was probably a centrist, and they aren’t allowed in the Legislature.
Jesus is a RINO ?
I thought he was an anti-establishment radical,
and far more like Abby Hoffman than Olympia Snowe .
Isn’t doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results the
very definition of insanity ?
Yawn!!!!!
I’m beginning to think that Bowen is as confused as his boss! What’s next with the education scenario? We’ve had threats against it; a commissioner who was just way to busy to conduct informational meetings in the county, then we had another threat by his boss. Last week Bowen glorifies the governors college education program, (but yet the governor said last fall too much emphasis is being placed on college courses in high school), THEN, also last week, they both want us to spend public money for private religious schools? And there must have been another threat to cut somewhere in there.
All of a sudden NCLB is an issue? Wow, I didn’t know following the law was an issue.
FOCUS! Commissioner.
There is still time for Mr. Bowen’s boss “Job Killer” LePage to veto the supplemental DHHS budget and then close the schools. That way it will insure that all children are left behind.
Ya, It’s not like he’s threatened or anything. This weekend he exclaims that he doesn’t understand all of the fuss of a veto……when he said himself, that he would veto it prior to their vote!.
I say get the damned bill upstairs, give it it’s two readings in each chamber, one more in each on enactment, and get it back downstairs! Let him do what he wants, he will anyway, and then do what you think you should be doing as a STATE representative.
Other than that, it’s sad how this went, but there are other issues. Get busy! Quit wasting our money. Do the job.
That’s sad to hear! No Child left behind has left every child without a usefull education. You should see one of the math papers that one of my friends posted on facebook that was her childs. We need to start back from scratch and educate our teachers first, them maybe they will be able to educate our children.
Oh my, it would appear the dog ate his homework.