Education

BLOG: My Call for ‘No Excuses’ Education Reform

Friday, February 12th, 2010

This blog post also appeared as an op-ed in the Times-Record on February 12th.

Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont received their report cards earlier this month from NECAPS, the new multi-state consortium that assesses the performance of our education systems. Maine finished third and last among our three neighbors in both reading and math for grades three through eight. “Maine’s performance is sound,” said a spokesman for the state Department of Education. “We’re where we hoped we’d be.”

Well, this isn’t where I want Maine to be, and I’ll bet that it’s not where most Maine voters want Maine to be — whether they are parents of school-age children or retirees worried about the future of Maine’s economy. Bluntly, we are failing our children, denying them the opportunity to reach their highest potential in an increasingly competitive world.

Maine needs to innovate, to hold educators accountable for student performance and to create a culture of expectations and achievement that gives every Maine kid a fair shot at success, wherever she or he lives in Maine. To do this, we need to make excellence, quality, performance and efficiency our touchstones.

The facts are as plain and harsh as the glare of a full moon on a clear winter night. Maine has one of the most expensive public school systems in the nation, yet too many young people are graduating from high school without being ready for either college or skilled employment. We are doing many things well, but there are twice as many lower performing and less efficient schools and school districts in Maine than there are higher performing and more efficient schools and districts.

It’s time to insist on reform and to get smarter about how we use our resources, so that we can eliminate this achievement gap and raise our statewide performance results.

While Maine’s public school enrollment has been steadily declining, across the state we have continued to build expensive new schools with excess capacity.

Our student-teacher ratio has become the second most favorable in the nation at 11.3:1 versus a national average of almost 16:1. If we increase our student-teacher ratio to 13.5:1 — the average of several rural states that are currently performing as well or better than Maine — we would save $155 million each year.**

We could invest some of those savings in reforms that will make a real difference to our kids:

Negotiate a statewide teachers’ contract that makes teaching and education leadership a true profession with advancement opportunities.
Increase teacher compensation. (Maine’s average teacher salary is about $9,000 less than the national average.)
Provide merit pay and performance bonuses for teachers that are linked to student growth and achievement. Eliminate the Maine law that creates a firewall between teacher evaluation and pupil performance.
Make vocational and technical education broadly available so that Maine will be ready to replace our aging skilled workforce and keep jobs here.
Increase the length of the school day and the school year in elementary and secondary schools. Maine’s school year is 175 days, while it’s 180 days in New Hampshire and 31 other states, and well over 200 days in China (where the school day is also about 30 percent longer).
Use existing facilities to create magnet high schools for foreign languages at University of Maine at Fort Kent, for agricultural sciences at University of Maine at Presque Isle, for marine sciences at University of Maine at Machias and for creative arts in Lewiston-Auburn.
Merge our two separate systems of higher education — the University of Maine system and our community colleges — and operate a fully integrated Pre-K to lifetime public education system.

Finally, let’s tear down the bureaucratic and political walls that protect mediocrity and keep out innovation. Let’s authorize charter schools and charter districts in Maine. Let’s take a fresh look at education by creating exciting new places of learning designed around the needs of students, their families and the community.

President Obama’s “Race to the Top” education initiative will bring hundreds of millions of dollars to states that qualify by authorizing charter schools and pursuing other reforms. Maine will lose out, because the Democratic leadership in the Legislature bowed to the teachers’ union and defeated the bill that would have allowed charter schools. Instead of joining the Race to the Top, we will continue to scrape along the bottom.

Maine’s system of public education needs strong leadership from the top, from the Blaine House.

We need a governor with the courage and independence to put kids first, a governor who won’t rest until all Maine children receive a quality education, a governor who will be a champion for innovation. Hardworking Maine taxpayers who want the best for their children need a governor who will end duplication, fragmentation and inefficiency. Maine needs a governor who understands that economic activity, jobs and incomes require an educated and skilled workforce.

We need a No Excuses policy of education reform. When I am governor, we will have it.

**Note as of 6/21/2010: The Maine Department of Education has just determined that the teacher data provided to the National Center for Education Statistics was incorrect and resulted in the US Department of Education miscalculating the student-teacher ratio. The corrected ratio is 11.3:1, not 9:1 as originally reported by the USDOE and the MDOE. Based on this revised information, Maine ranks second in the nation, immediately behind Vermont, in the fewest number of students per teacher for 2007-2008.

Tags: Budget, charter schools, Higher Education, Innovation, Race to the Top, School Funding, Schools Comments Off

VIDEO: Education Reform in Maine

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009

While appearing on Pachios on the News, Eliot discusses why education reform in Maine is absolutely critical and and how we can do a better job educating students to succeed in today’s knowledge economy.

Tags: charter schools, Consolidation, Higher Education, MEA, Merit Pay, Schools, Teacher Performance Comments Off

Examiner.com: Eliot’s Push for Charter School Legislation

Monday, November 30th, 2009

The Examiner.com covered the Charter School debate in Maine and noted Eliot’s position as one of the most vocal supporters of Charter Schools to date:

Independent Eliot Cutler has been one of the most vocal supporters so far. Matthew Gagnon of Pine Tree Politics has stated that this is likely a clear sign that Cutler is working to define himself as a balanced pragmatist. “He will have a good base in the consciousness of the voter that can supplement his left leaning history and reputation with a much more balanced “the best of both worlds” image,” said Gagnon. This move puts Cutler in direct conflict with the Maine Education Association’s position on charter schools, usually an ally of liberal candidates.

Cutler has reaffirmed his support for charter schools and his disappointment in the Baldacci administration for not supporting charter legislation. Cutler wrote to Governor Baldacci after news broke Tuesday no charter legislation would be put forward next session. In the letter, Cutler urged Baldacci to reconsider his decision to kill charter legislation. Cutler is concerned, as others have been, that Maine will miss out on federal Race to the Top funding, which we desperately need, if charter legislation is not enacted.

“These Augusta decisions are just plain wrongheaded,” Cutler said. “We are losing out on millions of dollars, denying our children important educational opportunities, and cheating the future of our state. Sadly, Maine children are paying the price because the same special interests and tired partisan politics keep getting in the way.” Cutler went on to say that if the governor did not enact charter school legislation, he would as governor in 2011.

You can read the complete article here with Eliot’s comments highlighted in yellow.

Tags: charter schools, Education Reform, Schools Comments Off

BLOG: Charter Schools: The Democrats’ Final Fall

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009

Now that the protracted debate about school consolidation at least is off the ballot and out of the headlines, maybe, just maybe, Mainers on both sides of that issue will shift their attention to some of the more fundamentally important questions about K-12 education in Maine.

Why are we spending so much on public education in Maine and apparently getting so little in return?

Teachers are the most expensive component in our under-performing systems. Maine has great teachers in our public school systems, some of the very best in America. But why do we have so many teachers per pupil?

Why aren’t we measuring excellence, performance and efficiency and rewarding school systems that achieve excellence at the lowest cost?

Teachers, legislators and the governor are wailing over some of the deepest cuts in state aid to public education in history. So, why did those same teachers, those same legislators and the same governor just walk away from from an opportunity to collect millions and millions of dollars in federal funding for our public schools?

Maine voters interested in answers ought to examine the cozy relationship between the Maine Education Association (the teachers’ union) and the leadership of the Democratic Party in Maine.

Last week Education Commissioner Susan Gendron informed the Legislature’s Education Committee that the Baldacci Administration will not submit to the Legislature a bill to permit charter schools in Maine.

I wrote Governor Baldacci last week asking him to reconsider his decision. I also emailed Senator Bill Diamond (D-Windham) and Representative Emily Cain (D-Orono), the chairs of the legislature’s Appropriations Committee, where the funding cuts for public schools will be determined, and I urged them to take action to bring charter school legislation back before the Maine Senate in order to potentially offset some of those losses.

The decision not to reopen the charter school issue is tragic, crassly political and wrong. It constitutes a huge blow to our best educators and to parents all over Maine who have pushed for this legislation. They believe that charter schools are a chance to innovate and experiment in ways that ultimately can benefit all schools in Maine. (It’s not as if Maine schools couldn’t stand a little innovation. Just recently a bipartisan report from the Center for American Progress and two other think tanks ranked Maine 44th among all states in educational innovation, concluding that “Maine does a poor job managing its schools in a way that encourages thoughtful innovation.”)

This decision is also terribly costly. A law permitting charter schools would make Maine eligible to receive a share of $4 billion of funding through the Race to the Top program. Race to the Top was created by the Obama administration earlier this year in an effort to bring more schools up to par with national education standards. Maine is now one of only a handful of states that won’t be eligible for any of that money.

It is hard to find anyone opposed to a law that would simply authorize (not require) charter schools – other than the powerful teachers’ union and its allies in the Maine Democratic Party.

Why is the teachers’ union opposed? Because the union contract wouldn’t govern hiring, salaries and benefits in charter schools.

Why is that a threat to the teachers’ union? Because Maine’s ratio of classroom teachers to pupils now has become the second highest among all the states, fully 25 percent worse than the national average.

Too many teachers, too little innovation, not enough excellence… and a refusal to take federal money in the midst of a budget crisis because some or all of those circumstances might have to change. This is what Maine parents want for their kids?

The Democratic Party in Maine was once a great reformist party. For more than 25 years, from its rebirth in the late 1940s, the Democrats were a party committed to maximizing opportunity for all the people of Maine. Sadly, the party has become an inbred shadow of its former self. Saddled with so many political obligations to so many interest groups that it seemingly can’t keep them straight, the Democratic Party leadership is apparently incapable of embracing new ideas and committed only to maximizing opportunity for whichever one of its allies is next in line at the public trough.

Partisanship and close ties to special interests – in this case the teachers’ union – once again have trumped the public interest in Augusta: no charter schools, no Race to the Top funding.

This time, the real losers are our kids.

Tags: charter schools, Education Comments Off

Cutler Urges Gov. Baldacci to Reconsider Charter Schools (Augusta Insider)

Thursday, November 19th, 2009

Eliot received coverage in blog Augusta Insider for his vigorous support for Charter Schools in Maine:

Independent Eliot Cutler has been one of the most vocal supporters so far. Matthew Gagnon of Pine Tree Politics has stated that this is likely a clear sign that Cutler is working to define himself as a balanced pragmatist. “He will have a good base in the consciousness of the voter that can supplement his left leaning history and reputation with a much more balanced “the best of both worlds” image,” said Gagnon. This move puts Cutler in direct conflict with the Maine Education Association’s position on charter schools, usually an ally of liberal candidates.

You can read the complete article here with Eliot’s comments highlighted in yellow.

Tags: Augusta, charter schools, Education Reform Comments Off

Steve Bowen Notes Eliot’s Support for Charter Schools (Maine Heritage Policy Center)

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

Steve Bowen from the Maine Heritage Policy Center blog talks about Charter Schools and commends Eliot for his support of Charter Schools. Below is an excerpt:

One of the many, many gubernatorial hopefuls has jumped into the debate over charter schools. Eliot Cutler, who came to the notice of many Mainers with a well-received January speech on higher education and who is running for governor as an independent, posted the following on his campaign blog last Friday:

“Dwindling state revenues are forcing state officials to make massive cuts — millions of dollars — in the state’s share of funding for K-12 education in Maine’s public schools. At the same time, the federal Department of Education is getting ready to hand out hundreds of millions of dollars to states in the Race to the Top program.

But not to Maine. MPBN reports that Maine will be standing in the corner, likely ineligible to receive our share. Why? Because we are one of the few states left in America where charter schools are not allowed.”

In an October 20 interview with blogger Derek Viger, Cutler that he supported charter schools and “regretted” that the legislature had failed to pass the charter school bill. “When I am governor,” he said, “I will pass it.” He continued on, saying that the bill “had the support of educators and parents from around the state, but another good idea was lost because the same old tired politics kept us from innovating and moving forward.”

Sounds very much like what I was saying as Maine’s legislature killed the charter school bill last spring.

Cutler even makes mention in his Friday blog post of the new U.S. Chamber of Commerce report I mentioned in a blog post last week.

So, there is at least one gubernatorial candidate talking the talk on charter schools.

You can read the complete blog entry here.

Tags: charter schools, Education Reform Comments Off

Eliot Cutler Calls on Maine Legislature to Enact Charter School Legislation (Pine Tree Politics)

Sunday, November 15th, 2009

Matt Gagnon from blog Pine Tree Politics wrote an article about Independent candidate Eliot Cutler’s call on key legislators to enact charter schools in Maine. Below is an excerpt:

Cutler has sent emails to Senator Bill Diamond and Representative Emily Cain (the chairs of the legislature’s Appropriations Committee), pressing them to act quickly to bring the question of charter schools back up to the Maine Senate.

Cutler (correctly) asserts that Maine is missing out on federal funds that could provide some new money for Maine’s education system. Specifically at issue is the “Race to the Top” program, which is a Federal effort to bring more schools up to par with national educational standards.

Click here to read the full story.

Tags: charter schools, Education Reform, Innovation, MEA Comments Off

BLOG: 100-20+0=?

Friday, November 13th, 2009

The arithmetic isn’t hard. Any third grader in Maine could figure out the answer to this problem. Yet, the answer seems to have eluded their state fathers and mothers!

Dwindling state revenues are forcing state officials to make massive cuts — millions of dollars — in the state’s share of funding for K-12 education in Maine’s public schools. At the same time, the federal Department of Education is getting ready to hand out hundreds of millions of dollars to states in the Race to the Top program.

But not to Maine. MPBN reports that Maine will be standing in the corner, likely ineligible to receive our share. Why? Because we are one of the few states left in America where charter schools are not allowed. Indeed, in a recent, bipartisan joint report that reviewed programs in all 50 states, conservative and progressive national think tanks ranked Maine’s K-12 education performance near the bottom, concluding that “Maine does a poor job managing its schools in a way that encourages thoughtful innovation.” (Read the entire report here. Click on the map of Maine to see the report on Maine.)

All states are suffering today. But while other states will find some federal funds landing in their coffers to ease the pain in local school districts, Maine won’t. Can’t our state leaders add and subtract?

Now would be a good time for the Maine Legislature to re-examine the policy prohibiting charter schools…and to fix it.

Tags: charter schools, Education Reform Comments Off

BLOG: Moving On From The Debate Over Consolidation

Sunday, November 1st, 2009

Many people across Maine have asked me how I intend to vote on the contentious issue of school consolidation — Question 3 on next Tuesday’s ballot.

I answered that question in an television interview with Augusta schools superintendent Connie Brown several weeks ago, and again just this past Friday in response to a question from blogger Derek Viger of The Maine View. Regardless of what happens on Tuesday, we need to sit down and figure out the answers to much bigger questions about K-12 education in Maine. There are much bigger issues at stake here than whether or not we consolidate schools. The important questions are whether our schools are producing excellence. Are our kids getting a quality education? And, are we doing so at costs we can afford to pay?

Please read the rest of this blog to see what I have said on this critical challenge.

There’s are much bigger issues at stake here than whether or not we consolidate schools in Maine. The important questions are whether our schools are producing excellence. Are our kids getting a quality education? And, are we doing so at costs we can afford to pay?

Those are the central questions facing our education system. And the answers are going to be different in different parts of the state. Because of that, consolidation isn’t the right answer everywhere.

With that said, I’m going to vote to sustain the enacted school consolidation law because I think it’s a set of tools that we just can’t throw out. I think we need to take what’s there and fix it.

The issues to me with Maine’s K-12 education come down to equities, excellence, efficiency and cost-effective performance.

Every kid in Maine should have an opportunity for an excellent education. I believe every kid in Maine should be able to stay in school and to be excited about it. I don’t believe we can write off kids in one part of the state or another part of the state. That’s just not the right approach. As governor, I simply won’t permit it. Our kids are too important. They need and deserve more from us.

Now, we need to figure out how to correct inequities and achieve excellence in a more cost-effective way, because in the next few fiscal years in Maine, we are going to have a budget crunch the likes of which we’ve never seen before. There’s going to be a lot of pressure to cut spending on state aid to K-12 education because it’s such a big part of our state budget. When that happens, some towns in Maine are going to be just fine because they can raise the money to make up the difference. But there are a lot of towns in Maine where they are not going to have that opportunity. So the gap is going to grow and not narrow.

We need to figure out how to narrow that gap – even in tough budget times — because all Maine kids are our kids, and every single one of them is entitled to a great education.

Tags: Blog, Budget Comments Off

BLOG: While the Governor was in Europe . . .

Saturday, September 26th, 2009

. . . I was in China. I was in Beijing for a week, meeting with Chinese clients — businesses and investors — who are looking closely at opportunities in the United States. It’s given me another chance to reflect on what lessons we can learn from the extraordinary progress the Chinese have made in rebuilding their national economy, creating jobs, increasing incomes and educating their young people.

More than just about anything else, the story of modern China has been written in the extension of education to vast numbers – hundreds of millions – of people who never before had even dreamed of it. The result is that China has lifted more people out of poverty in less time than any other nation in the history of the world. And for individual Chinese citizens it has meant better jobs, higher incomes and expanded opportunity.

I have written and spoken about these changes and what they mean for both the Chinese and the rest of the world, here and here and here.

Our challenge in the United States and in Maine is to keep pace. Our educational system remains in important respects a much better one than the more rigid and rote Chinese approach, but these advantages will be fleeting if we don’t maintain and improve our public schools and universities.

If you want to know what I think we need to do in Maine, please take a look at my presentation – Keeping Pace: An Agenda for Maine in a Changing World.

Tags: China, Education Reform Comments Off