AUGUSTA, Maine — A bill to adopt new science standards focused on engineering and experimentation is dead after supporters in the Senate were unable to cobble together the necessary support to override Gov. Paul LePage’s veto.
Nineteen senators, including every Democrat present and five Republicans, voted to override the veto, falling short of the two-thirds majority needed to muscle past a gubernatorial veto.
Republican Sens. Roger Katz of Augusta, Brian Langley of Ellsworth, Tom Saviello of Wilton, David Woodsome of North Waterboro and Linda Baker of Topsham voted in favor of the bill. Democrat Nathan Libby of Lewiston was absent.
Langley is the Senate chairman of the Education Committee, where the bill — LD 464 — received unanimous support from both parties. He said the Next Generation Science Standards endorsed by the bill are “much richer” than the current standards, called the Maine Learning Results.
For example, he said, the MLR requires that kindergarten students be able to describe basic scientific principles such as force and motion, while the NGSS requires experimentation with those principles.
“‘Describe’ is something you do passively, while you sit down,” he said. “‘Demonstrate, explore and investigate’ means you’re actually up and doing. You tend to remember those things better.”
The new standards are supported by the Science Teachers Association, and many Maine schools have already adopted them, Langley said. The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Mick Devin, D-Newcastle, has said the standards are a needed update to the state’s science curriculum.
“Passing this bill would be a big victory for Maine’s students,” Devin said Thursday, after the House overrode the veto 106-42. “We’d be setting our young people up to get better-paying jobs, and attracting new employers to Maine. Teaching science in the best way possible will help Maine succeed in a rapidly changing world.”
Sen. Eric Brakey of Auburn, one of the Republicans who opposed the bill, said schools adopting the new standards on their own shows that a mandate from Augusta is unnecessary.
“When I campaigned to represent the people of my district, I said I support local control of our schools,” he said. “There is nothing standing in the way of our local municipalities adopting these standards themselves if they choose.”
In his veto letter, signed May 22, LePage said he opposed the bill because it represented an unfunded mandate.
“This bill would require every school in Maine to rewrite it science curriculum to adapt to a new set of standards without allocating a single dollar to either the Department of Education or to the schools that must carry out this significant, time-consuming work,” he said.
The Senate’s action means the bill is now dead.
Follow Mario Moretto on Twitter at @riocarmine.
