The Bangor Daily News will spend the coming months examining the public education system as part of a new, ongoing project to cover what it’s like to be a kid growing up in Maine. We aim to understand why schools and students are struggling so much more than they were ten years ago, and to identify ways to create positive change.
As we embark on this reporting, we want to hear from you. We welcome you to share your thoughts and perspective in the form below. You can also reach out to the primary reporter on this series, Sawyer Loftus, at sloftus@bangordailynews.com.
Maine’s fourth graders now rank 44th in the nation in reading, down from second in 1992 — one of the steepest declines of any state in the country.
A new report from the nonprofit Educate Maine, shared exclusively with the Bangor Daily News ahead of its public release, offers a rare look at why: a patchwork of reading programs across the state, many of them not backed by research on how children actually learn to read.
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Educate Maine surveyed 93 of Maine’s 155 public school districts that teach kindergarten through third grade, along with the director of education for the state’s unorganized territories, to examine what curricula schools use and how well they align with the science of reading. The survey found that 82% of responding districts use at least one program not grounded in that research.
The report does not identify which specific districts responded or which programs each district uses. Read the full report below.
