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.

Continue reading “Commissioner’s Update – February 7, 2013” →

A little over a year ago, Maine scored high, but not high enough, on its application for a Race to the Top grant to promote advances in the state’s early childhood learning systems. We and our counterparts at the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, who worked collaboratively to develop the plan, held a press conference and pledged to move forward with as much of the plan as we could, even though we would not receive any federal funding.

We felt good about our plan and were committed to moving it forward.

Continue reading “Commissioner’s Update – January 31, 2013” →

A quick budget update: Jim Rier and I presented an Education Finance 101 lesson to the new Appropriations Committee last week and are following that up with a similar presentation today to the Education Committee. As you all know very well, education funding is complex, so before we delve into policy, it helps if we’re all on the same page in terms of understanding how the system we have works. As part of today’s discussion, Jim will also touch on the proposal in the Governor’s budget to move a portion (about 14 percent) of teacher retirement costs into EPS and then add funds to GPA to cover about half that cost.

There continues to be a lot of misunderstanding about this piece. The state will continue to pay the vast majority of retirement-related costs. Continue reading “Commissioner’s Update – January 24, 2013” →

In a two-year state budget proposal that has a lot of reductions, education was largely spared by comparison – state education funds to school districts will be essentially flat for the next two years, at the post-curtailment rate. While the budget adds $27 million to GPA, it also shifts $28 million in retirement costs to become a state/local share. Currently those retirement costs are covered entirely by the State – for all districts, from the wealthiest to the poorest. The state will continue to cover the full Unfunded Actuarial Liability – the 25-year costs of paying off retirement obligations for teachers – at $142m, and another $30m-plus for retired teachers health and life insurance.

I plan to share more about the education budget next week. For now, here are some education budget-related charts and summaries for your review.

Continue reading “Commissioner’s Update – January 17, 2013” →

The second and final draft of the Next Generation Science Standards was released to the public Tuesday. Maine is one of 26 lead states participating in this state-led, national effort to improve science learning for all students through the development of more effective and rigorous science standards.

We encourage educators and others to review this draft and offer feedback via the NGSS survey by Jan. 29. Individuals may look over only a portion of the standards, but collectively many people across the state will have contributed to the review of the entire document.

Continue reading “Commissioner’s Update – January 10, 2013” →

To better protect Maine’s children, Legislature recently passed a law that prohibits bullying in schools. Over the past eight months, the Department has worked to develop a model policy for bullying and cyberbullying, which schools can use to help them revise their current policies.

The Department recommends that school staff be made aware of the law’s requirements and the recommended procedures in instances of bullying. Kids should feel safe in the company of their peers and have a comfortable environment in which they can focus on learning.

Continue reading “Commissioner’s Update – January 3, 2013” →

The events at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., continue to be a challenging and painful presence for many of us, especially in education. Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with the families of the victims and the entire Newtown community.

Maine DOE has created a Sandy Hook web page with a number of resources for school districts, parents and families, including: information about emergency planning and preparedness, how to talk with children, a Q&A, and other materials. We will add to the page as we discover appropriate resources.

Continue reading “Commissioner’s Update – December 20, 2012” →

The Maine Educator Effectiveness Council has met many times this year to develop standards for teacher evaluation systems—and the Council has just submitted its report to the Legislature. Meanwhile, the Department has submitted proposed rules for these systems, based largely on the work of the Council so far.

Legislation passed last session requires school districts to develop and implement systems for evaluating teachers and principals based on professional practice, student achievement growth and other measures. Continue reading “Commissioner’s Update – December 13, 2012” →

As educators it often feels like we’re in the business of addressing problems, so it’s important that we also celebrate the solutions – as we try to do in our weekly Updates. This week we can point to three schools that are doing it well: Maine DOE has nominated Longfellow Elementary School in Portland, Williams-Cone Elementary School in Topsham and Yarmouth Elementary School to be 2013 National Blue Ribbon Schools.

Continue reading “Commissioner’s Update – December 6, 2012” →

Questions have been raised recently about the rules on the use of physical restraints by teachers and other school staff.  The new rules, which went into effect this fall, were developed by a broad stakeholder group that met over 10 months in an effort to re-calibrate the balance between protecting children and others from the risks of restraint (there have been some tragic reports of injury and death across the country) and protecting teachers and other students, and avoiding disruption and property damage.

Please be sure to review the rules and provide training to your staff, as required in the adopted rule changes. Many of the concerns we’ve heard about specific incidents seem to reflect misperceptions about the rules. Continue reading “Commissioner’s Update – November 29, 2012” →