House rejects school choice > Learning standards measure awaits action by Maine Senate

AUGUSTA — The House voted 107-34 Tuesday night to kill a bill designed to give Maine public school students more freedom in where they go to school. The overwhelming vote against school choice meant the measure is probably dead for this session.

Earlier Tuesday, the House enacted a bill to set up learning standards in Maine public schools on a 92-46 vote, but then the measure got embroiled in the heated politics of the waning days of the legislative session.

After the House vote, which was supposed to be its final verdict on learning standards, Rep. William Lemke, D-Westbrook, rose to protest the timing of the vote.

“I am stunned that this bill was run at this time,” said Lemke, a leading opponent of learning standards. “I thought there was an understanding.”

Lemke said he posed five legal questions about the learning results bill to Attorney General Andrew Ketterer. He claimed he was assured by House Speaker Dan Gwadosky that the House wouldn’t take its final vote until after Ketterer delivered his legal opinion on the bill.

Lemke posed several questions including whether the learning standards bill violated constitutional provisions for local control of education. He also asked whether the standards bill represented an unfunded mandate by the state.

After hearing Lemke’s plea for more time, the House voted 89-51 to table the learning standards bill pending possible reconsideration.

Tuesday night, the House spent an hour debating the school choice bill. The measure would make it easier for students to transfer from one public school to another public school, but it does not address transfers from public schools to private schools.

The measure is supported by independent Gov. Angus S. King and has been part of Republican platforms for years. It is intended both to give individual students and their parents more freedom in choosing schools and to promote competition among schools to improve education quality.

“If that student can get a better education someplace else, they ought to be given that opportunity,” said Rep. Alvin Barth, R-Bethel. “Currently only the rich have true choice. This would go a long way toward addressing that because with poorer children, only transportation would stand in the way.”

Rep. Julie Winn, D-Glenburn, said, “Please consider trusting parents on where is the best place for their children to go to school.”

But Rep. Kathleen Stevens, D-Orono, like Barth and Winn a member of the Education Committee, opposed the school choice proposal.

“If students are allowed to choose their schools, students who are affluent or smarter will see to it they go to better schools,” said Stevens. “Segregation could occur between the rich and the poor, the smart and the not so smart. The way it is now, every school has its share of good students and good athletes. I would be afraid with school choice that superintendents would recruit.”

Rep. Charles Heino, R-Boothbay, was concerned about what would happen to schools that lose students through transfers.

“All schools have problems,” he said, “but taking the student out doesn’t solve that problem.”

Under the bill, students could transfer with the approval of the school board in the receiving district. They would apply to transfer before Jan. 1 of the year they wished to enter the new school in September.

School districts would be allowed to refuse to accept any transfer students if they wished. And school districts could prohibit students from leaving their district if they could demonstrate hardship to the state Department of Education.

A key difference from the way transfers are handled now is that state subsidy would transfer with the student, so students would not be charged tuition at their new school. The only expense in transferring would be to provide transportation to the new school. But transfer students could be picked up by buses of the receiving school district once they were inside the boundaries of the school district.

The bill split the 13-member Education Committee four ways. Five members supported the bill and five members opposed it. Two members favored a phased-in approach in which school choice is only available in two pilot areas. One member favored the bill but without a provision that students must state their reason for wanting to transfer to officials of the receiving school.