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IN PURSUITOF MONEY

Forum focuses on change in education

By Matthew Stone mstone@centralmaine.com
Staff Writer

FARMINGTON -- Anne Geller hopes Maine pushes its schools to use more than just standardized tests to evaluate students as the state prepares its application for a piece of $4 billion in federal education funds.

Geoff Cyr hopes the application for funds in the federal Race to the Top competition becomes a chance for Maine to take another look at what tests it gives students to assess their academic prowess.

And Joyce Blakney is skeptical that the Race to the Top competition among the states will yield any authentic, thoughtful change in the way education is delivered in Maine.

The opinions are among several the Maine Department of Education collected on Thursday as it sought help from teachers, administrators and others in putting together the state's Race to the Top application. Department of Education staff members were at the University of Maine at Farmington for the third of five forums to collect feedback.

Maine plans to apply by June 1 for $75 million or more in federal money aimed at education reform. The funds are part of $4.35 billion that states are competing for in the Race to the Top.

Some 40 states and Washington, D.C., applied in January for funds in the first round of the competition, and the U.S. Department of Education recently named 16 finalists. Maine sat out the first round and will file an application for a second round of funds.

Geller, who used to provide arts programs in schools as the director of the Farmington-based Foothills Arts Center, said the focus on standardized testing success has kept teachers from using creative methods in their instruction.

"Teachers were just more and more becoming discouraged" since the 2002 passage of the federal No Child Left Behind act, Geller said. "They stopped doing more of the hands-on, innovative things."

Maine's Race to the Top application is supposed to represent a blueprint for Maine's education reform agenda, according to Susan Gendron, the state's education commissioner.

And Geller hopes that means an emphasis on multiple ways of evaluating students.

"Standardized tests don't reflect what most kids know," she said.

Meanwhile, Cyr, a UMF junior, said Maine needs to take another look at the standardized tests it uses. Using the SAT, for example, to measure high school students' academic performance, he said, is a bad idea.

"I hope that they would reconsider that during this process," said Cyr, a secondary education major from Madawaska.

Before Maine can file its Race to the Top application, the Baldacci administration is trying to change a handful of state policies.

Bills meant to strike down a state prohibition on using student achievement data to evaluate teachers and principals; establish innovative autonomous schools; and sign Maine up for a national set of academic standards known as the Common Core are winding their way through the Legislature after receiving committee-level approval.

Blakney, a Winslow High School math teacher and treasurer of the Maine Education Association, said she's concerned lawmakers are rushing to change policies as they pursue federal funds.

"I'm really worried that we are rushing to change huge things in education in order to have one-time money," she said. "I'm not sure how much relief that will give us in the long run."

Even if Maine doesn't receive money, Gendron said, "it's a great opportunity for our state to have a comprehensive transition plan for the next administration."

Matthew Stone -- 623-3811, ext. 435

mstone@centralmaine.com