What a week!

Tuesday’s release of our strategic plan for education in Maine proved an energizing success.

Five talented, confident and ambitious students joined me at Capital Area Technical Center in Augusta to unveil our plan, called “Education Evolving: Maine’s Plan for Putting Learners First.” The students were the the key to making Tuesday’s release event the success that it was.

Maggie Stokes, Gareth Robinson, Brooklyn Pinkham, Morgan Horn and Kaytie Scully, after all, are already living the vision articulated in our 35-page plan. They are taking control of their learning, discovering their passions and excelling in their academics as a result. Their teachers, principals, and district leaders are leading the state in the move to an education system that puts students at the center and builds the system around their needs. It’s my hope that, by implementing the action steps detailed in our plan, all of Maine’s students will have the opportunities that the five students we saw on Tuesday have had in their education.

As I’ve noted previously, the strategic plan is a working document that could change in the coming months. I encourage you all to read it and join the discussion about it.

Continue reading “Commissioner’s Update – Jan. 19, 2012” →

We’re putting the final touches this week on the first release of our long-awaited strategic plan to create a learner-centered education system in Maine. The plan is the result of feedback I’ve received over the past nine months in conversations with students, parents, teachers, principals, superintendents, school board members, Maine DOE staff and others.

On Tuesday, we will release the plan to the public. At that point, it becomes a working, fluid document.

Over the next few months, the Department of Education will invite students, educators, parents and others to review the plan and share what they think. We’ll invite feedback online and in person, and incorporate that input as we prepare a final version of the plan.

I look forward to starting a conversation with this plan about the best ways to serve our learners, and prepare them to succeed in college, careers and civic life.

Stay tuned.

Continue reading “Commissioner’s Update – Jan. 12, 2012” →

Happy new year from all of us at Maine DOE!

Here in Augusta, the dawn of the new year means things are getting really busy.

Our Senators and Representatives are back in town, and they have numerous education issues on their plate, from online learning to sports-related head injuries to long-term planning.

At the DOE, we continue to work hard on a strategic plan. The members of the Legislature’s Education Committee saw a preview yesterday, and we’ll be sharing the full document with everyone later this month. The plan is a work in progress, and once we release a copy, we’ll seek feedback from the public that we hope will strengthen it.

Meanwhile, we’re also making progress on using all of your feedback to craft a request for Elementary and Secondary Education Act flexibility to submit to the federal government.

As if that weren’t enough, our most important work — the teaching and learning that happens each day in our schools — doesn’t stop.

Here’s to a fulfilling 2012.

Continue reading “Commissioner’s Update – Jan. 5, 2012” →

Disappointing, yes. But not a show-stopper.

In fact, we scheduled a press conference to announce the results of the Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge grant without knowing if we would be one of the states chosen or not. That’s because we knew we had a good plan and we were going to pursue it whether or not we got the federal funds.

Our comprehensive plan calls for enhancing our quality rating system of early childhood programs, working more closely with the Department of Health and Human Services and others in the field, and increasing access to quality early childhood programs, especially for lower-income families.

Continue reading “Commissioner’s Update – Dec. 22, 2011” →

Wow.

We knew there were a lot of opinions and concerns about the nearly decade-old No Child Left Behind Act and its system of for holding schools accountable. We figured people would have a lot to say, and much of it critical.

But almost 1,300 survey responses in a little more than a week?! Well, it’s exactly what we were hoping for. We also had almost 50 people at our Bangor forum last Thursday night, a small but engaged audience online Tuesday night, and about 40 more in Portland last night.

The highlight for me has been sitting with groups of very thoughtful high school students in Bangor and in Portland who shared their thoughts about what makes for an effective school and an effective teacher, and how to measure those qualities.

Keep the comments coming. I especially encourage you to participate in our Newsroom discussion. We are required by the feds to show how we solicited public input. But, more importantly, we need your input to craft an alternative system for measuring up schools, working with those that need help, and recognizing (and sharing best practices from) schools that are excelling.

There’s a bunch of information online about how we’re going about developing our request for flexibility on our ESEA Flexibility web page. Check it out and join the conversation.

Continue reading “Commissioner’s Update – Dec. 15, 2011” →

How should we help schools improve and recognize their success, all while holding them accountable for their responsibility to our students?

On Monday, we put that question out to the public as part of the process for assembling Maine’s request to the federal government for Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) flexibility. We haven’t been disappointed by the response.

There’s no shortage of opinions on this topic, as evidenced by the hundreds of responses to our three-day-old online survey and the active participation in our ongoing, online discussion on ESEA flexibility.

I hope to see the outpouring of input continue in the coming days.

Tonight, I head to Bangor to hear from students, teachers, administrators, parents, school board members and others at a public forum at Bangor High School. And next week, I’ll host an online forum and a public forum in Portland to hear even more opinions. Details on those events can be found on our ESEA Flexibility web page.

The more ideas we hear, the stronger our request for ESEA flexibility will be.

Continue reading “Commissioner’s Update – Dec. 8, 2011” →

If you’ve been waiting for information about Maine’s plans for seeking flexibility from the federal No Child Left Behind law, you’ll have a lot of it in no time.

This week, we’ve launched an expanded and growing web page where we’ll continue to post details about our efforts to secure NCLB flexibility. Soon, that page will also have details about how you can have your say in the process.

Continue reading “Commissioner’s Update – Dec. 1, 2011” →

This week, educators from Maine and across the country — and even some from outside the United States — have traveled to Auburn to learn about the implementation of Advantage 2014 in that city’s schools.

Advantage 2014 is the Auburn schools’ initiative to roll out iPads to kindergarteners and, ultimately, all city students in the early grades. The Auburn plan, however, involves more than simply equipping the city’s youngest students with tablet devices.

It’s a plan to make those devices an integral part of student learning: to use the adaptive power of iPads to boost basic literacy and numeracy skills, to use any range of iPad apps to enhance students’ problem-solving and critical-thinking skills, to provide students with a way to take control of much of their learning at a young age.

The Auburn school department has a well thought-out plan for deploying iPads, training teachers to use them effectively, and measuring the initiative’s success. And as this week is making clear, many will be watching Auburn’s journey every step of the way.

Please note: There will be no Commissioner’s Update on Nov. 24, Thanksgiving. The next Update will be published Dec. 1.

Continue reading “Commissioner’s Update – Nov. 17, 2011” →

Last week, I encouraged readers of this update to take a look at remarks I delivered recently at gatherings of Maine school curriculum leaders, superintendents and school board members that lay out the challenges we face in improving our schools and the core priorities we must have in mind when building a new and modern model of schooling.

This week, I was pleased to be reminded again that schools throughout our state are already putting such ideas into action.

Just two of multiple examples:

• In this week’s update, we bring you a dispatch on the RSU 3 Virtual Learning Center serving young families in rural Waldo County. The Virtual Learning Center combines adult education, GED preparation and community college courses with job search assistance provided by the Maine Department of Labor — all accessible to students anytime, anywhere. It’s an impressive application of virtual learning theory that could very well grow to provide more options for students in kindergarten through high school.
• Kittery residents made the news this week as they began discussing a bold vision for the future of Traip Academy that transforms the school into a learning hub that opens early, closes late and helps students make wise use of online and community resources to broaden their learning.

It’s just further proof that as more of our schools look to move to the next level, they’ll have a growing number of examples to learn from right here in Maine.

Continue reading “Commissioner’s Update – Nov. 10, 2011” →

Last week, I spoke with Maine school curriculum leaders, superintendents and school board members at their respective conferences. I shared with them the latest thinking that’s gone into our evolving strategic plan for education in Maine.

The vision for moving forward is based on what it takes to overcome the major challenges that have stood in the way of our ability to make significant progress in improving student achievement in recent years.

The vision is defined by a handful of priorities that should form the basis for a new model of schooling for the 21st century. That new model, as I’ve said before, should meet the needs of all students. It should put students — rather than administrative convenience — at the center of all structures, from bus schedules to where and how students learn.

Take a look at the remarks I delivered last week.

The vision and the plan are still evolving. Please use the comments feature in our Newsroom to participate in the discussion, or use the Contact Us link to send us your thoughts directly.

Continue reading “Commissioner’s Update – Nov. 3, 2011” →