AUGUSTA, Maine — The Department of Education released new details Monday about how the state intends to abide by federal No Child Left Behind requirements under an extensive waiver application that will be filed with the federal government next month.
The department and numerous education officials from across the state have been preparing the waiver application for months and three public forums this week — an Internet-based presentation Monday night followed by public sessions Tuesday and Thursday in Westbrook and Brewer — represent the final chapter on that effort.
No Child Left Behind, which is now called the Elementary and Secondary Education Act under the Obama administration, stipulates that all schools — and by extension all students — must reach 100-percent proficiency in reading and math by 2014. Last year, the Obama administration announced that the federal government would allow states to design their own performance thresholds and intervention techniques, providing they submit a successful waiver application. Maine is expected to file its application by Sept. 6.
The proposed system, which Education Commissioner Stephen Bowen said Monday is similar to what most states are pursuing, would require all schools to improve their performance by 50 percent within six years.
That means a school that currently has 76 percent proficiency, according to a formula involving a number of factors, would be required to improve to 88 percent within six years at a rate of at least 2 percent each year. Local schools would have the coming school year to design pilot programs which can be implemented next year.
“It’s customized to each school,” said Bowen, who hosted Monday’s Web event with Mark Kostin of the Great Schools Partnership, who has helped facilitate the waiver application effort. “What this allows us to do is to take into consideration where the school is today and build a customized approach to helping them improve.”
The lowest-performing schools, which would be called “priority” and “focus” schools, would be targeted for a range of support and intervention, an effort which would be supplemented by repurposing existing federal funding, said Bowen. However, much of the responsibility for designing and implementing improvement programs — including teacher effectiveness measures and professional development avenues — will fall to the local level. Bowen acknowledged after Monday’s Web event that some local school systems will struggle to find the resources for that.
“It goes straight to the resource question,” he said. “Where are some of the resources that we can find to turn around these schools? As we move some legislation forward, that will be one of the discussions.”
Bowen said schools’ progress would be measured by tracking student achievement with yearly tests in grades three through eight, and then once again in high school. The waiver application also calls for Maine’s graduation rate to achieve 90 percent in six years. During the 2010-11 school year, that rate stood at 83.8 percent.
Kostin said the new system’s combination of new evaluation and intervention tools with standards that are more attainable, compared with No Child Left Behind’s 100 percent proficiency demands, makes more sense.
“The current system lacks credibility,” he said. “It doesn’t drive change. The new system will be far more credible and meaningful.”
In-person public forums on the waiver application are scheduled for 6 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 21, in the Westbrook Middle School cafeteria at 471 Stroudwater St., and 6 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 23, in the Brewer Community School cafeteria at 92 Pendleton St.
Information about No Child Left Behind/Elementary and Secondary Education Act and the state’s waiver application is available at www.maine.gov/doe/accountability/participate.html.
That 50% improvement should be 15% for the next paragraph to make sense.
The first thing that came to mind when I saw the 50% improvement in 6 years was “Welcome to Lake Wobegon, where all the men… and all the children are above average.”
The details are a little scanty. I see a little simple math. If the proficiency level is at 76%, meaning the school is 24% away from 100%, the school has to make up half the difference, 12%, in six years. Now comes the big question – how? Commissioner Bowen said the lowest performing schools would be targeted for support, but they would still bear much of the responsibility. The state would be saying to the local schools, “You aren’t doing well, so go do something about it. We’ll watch.”
The state will target them for support by not cutting their funding quite as much as they will cut the funding for other schools.
The current system that “lacks credibility” being No Child Left Behind? The system brought to us by the last Republican president? You mean Bush’s education policy is the one that doesn’t make any sense? And now we have a Republican governor trying to make his “improved version” of the Republican president’s “improved version”. Why anybody would support any Republican policy these days is just baffling.
” Why anybody would support any Republican policy these days is just baffling. “True!
No Child Left Behind!= A Republican Mandate that,— “All” children will be,–
“Above Average”!
NCLBA had full bipartisan support.
I wouldn’t expect anything else from Stephen Bowen, especially when it comes to bowing down to NCLB, the biggest JOKE foisted on education in the 20th and 21st centuries. Both NCLB and the Race To The Top ignore one critical element necessary in education-accountability on the part of the students and parents. There is NONE. ZERO. NADA. Too many parents ENABLE their children to do poorly in school, pulling them out of classes on a whim for personal enjoyment (vacations, shopping, day out), making excuses for why their child doesn’t do homework, and simply not expecting the best from their children and allowing them to just muddle by. My parents, back in the 60s and 70s, were not obsessive about grades, but if I came home with a C or lower, they expected me to get my act together and do better, even if it meant staying after school and getting help from the teacher or another student (that’s called taking responsibility for the outcomes of one’s education). If I got in trouble at school, I got it double when I got home. Now, if a child gets in trouble at school parents are on the attack towards the teacher, principal, school board, or whoever will listen as they make excuse after excuse for their little darling. Unless and until parents and students are held accountable on the same level as teachers, nothing will change in education.
That is so true,
today, Little Johnny comes home with all A’s and it is because “you” have a Brilliant Son!
Little Johnny comes home with all D’s and it’s “All” the Teachers Fault!
Stop wasting Maine taxpayers’ money trotting around the state to get support for a “new plan”. Maine schools don’t need a new bandwagon to jump onto (“pilot program to be developed next year”), we need stable funding from our state so our local property taxpayers are not taxed out of their homes. Bowen’s word “repurposing” with regard to state and federal funds is dangerous. Stop trying to push a factory model (schools will improve __% each year), let good Maine teachers greet the diverse student population that walks in our doors each Sept. and take them as far and as high as possible.
The biggest thing we can do to improve education immediately is to get the government out of it! Name one thing the government has ever run well. Absolutely nothing. Privatize education, let the teachers actually teach, get rid of all the standardized testing which results in teachers having to teach for the test, and get back to the basics.
For anyone who doubts this would get education back on track, read: “Free Range Learning” by Laura Grace Weldon. It’s a homeschooling book, but points out the actual, statistical facts about how the government actually hurts education with their meddling and all the meaningless testing. We can do better with our educational system.
So, great, let’s disparage teachers, fire-fighters, police, and the military since the Private sector is clearly superior to all of these government run programs. Let’s forget about the fact that government run health care costs less than the private sector and produces better results (see US healthcare versus the rest of the world/ Medicare’s medical expenditures vs. private insurance). Your idea is to privatize education and then remove all accountability from them by eliminating testing requirements? Really? If no testing is good enough for the private sector then it should be good enough for the public.