Maine news, sports, weather | Kennebec Journal, Augusta, Maine

CONTEST FOR FEDERAL FUNDS

Unanimity still elusive in Race to the Top

Maine has plenty who have not signed off

By Matthew Stone mstone@centralmaine.com
Staff Writer

Fewer than half of Maine’s school districts — and even fewer local teachers’ unions — are lining up behind the state’s bid for up to $75 million in federal education reform funds.

Maine’s Department of Education on Monday will release the final list of school districts that have signed onto the state’s efforts to win money in Race to the Top, the $4 billion federal program.

But 82 of Maine’s 215 school districts appear to have met the Thursday deadline for turning in documents endorsing the Race to the Top application, according to Department of Education spokesman David Connerty-Marin.

Of those 82 districts, the heads of only 24 local teachers’ union affiliates have signed onto the reform bid. The state’s largest teachers’ union, the Maine Education Association, has also declined to support it.

Maine’s second-round Race to the Top application is due June 1.

“I think 82 is a good representation,” Connerty-Marin said, “but especially when you look at who’s participating.”

The 82 districts represent 69 percent of Maine public school students and 63 percent of the state’s schools, Connerty-Marin said.

The level of support for a state’s Race to the Top application proved an important factor in the competition’s first round, education observers say.

Delaware, one of two first-round award winners, had the support of 100 percent of its school districts and 100 percent of its local teachers’ unions. In Tennessee, the other winner, 100 percent of school districts and 93 percent of local teachers’ unions signed on.

Maine’s Race to the Top application proposes expanding a number of reform initiatives that have begun in a handful of schools, according to an application summary the state has made public.

Those include EPIC, a program through which teachers have their course syllabi reviewed by experts to make sure they match up with state academic standards; and standards-based education, a school format in which students advance once they’ve mastered course materials, rather than once they’ve sat through a year’s worth of class time.

Maine also has to show in the competition it’s moving toward using teacher evaluations that incorporate student achievement data, and that it’s planning to adopt a common set of academic standards, known as the Common Core, currently being developed.

Along with soliciting support from school districts and local teachers’ unions, the Maine Department of Education is collecting endorsement letters from a number of state organizations with education interests. Those include groups representing superintendents, school boards and principals and the statewide teachers’ union, the Maine Education Association.

The Maine School Superintendents’ Association’s executive committee unanimously supported sending a support letter, said Victoria Wallack, the group’s communications director. The Maine School Boards Association hadn’t met in time to pen a letter, she said.

The MEA’s representative assembly, at a May 16 meeting, opted not to send a letter of support, MEA President Chris Galgay said.

“There wasn’t a vote of opposition,” he said. “There was a vote not to send a letter of support.”

Galgay said he couldn’t summarize the opposition vote with one sentiment.

“Did they see it as just another list of mandates coming down on them? Those comments were made,” he said. “There were a lot of different comments made, from all points of view.”

Ultimately, Connerty-Marin said, the MEA’s vote against sending a support letter won’t make a big difference. Race to the Top evaluators award points based on whether local union heads sign on, Connerty-Marin and Galgay noted.

“We can’t slow down in our efforts to pursue funding, and, more importantly, to pursue the reforms that are in the application, which we’ll be pursuing whether or not we get funding,” Connerty-Marin said.

The MEA assembly’s decision came days after a teacher evaluation task force — which formed as a result of MEA lobbying and in which MEA was a participant — came to an agreement for allowing school districts to incorporate student data in teacher evaluations, clearing Maine’s last Race to the Top hurdle. MEA executive director Mark Gray, in fact, introduced the compromise that won the 11-member group’s support.

News of the MEA decision also came the same week one of Rhode Island’s major teachers’ unions, the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers, announced it would support that state’s second-round Race to the Top efforts. Rhode Island’s teachers’ unions didn’t support the Ocean State’s application in the competition’s first round, in which Rhode Island was a finalist.

Also, earlier this month, two of Michigan’s major teachers’ unions indicated they’d support their state’s second-round bid for the education reform funds.

Matthew Stone — 623-3811, ext. 435
mstone@centralmaine.com