Commissioner’s Update – February 7, 2013

Commissioner's Update - Feb. 7, 2013
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The Governor devoted a good portion of his State of the State address on Tuesday evening to education, a reflection of the passion he has for the topic. As he said, he believes education saved his life.

He introduced three plans that have us here at the Maine DOE pretty excited—and working overtime. First is the Governor’s education conference, planned for March. We’ll share details in coming days as we lock down nationally-known speakers on topics important to our education agenda. Gov. LePage also unveiled his plan for a school performance grading system. This A-F grading will give parents and communities a quick overview of how their school is doing and hopefully generate discussion about how to progress. The grades will be based on publicly available data, multiple measures such as performance and growth, and grad rates for high schools. No, one grade doesn’t tell the whole story, but it’s important to have some transparency and to catalyze discussion about how to improve all of our schools – regardless of where they are on the scale.

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— Stephen Bowen



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Doug Hodum, science teacher and science department head at Mt. Blue High School in Farmington, was recently selected as one of 12 Hope Street Group National Teacher Fellows. | More

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Monmouth Academy, part of Kennebec Intra-District Schools (KIDS) RSU 2, recently released two videos about learner-centered projects at the high school. | More

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UMF announces graduate course series in K-12 math leadership

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