Education chief gets good grades> SAD 47 constituents praise Albanese

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BRUNSWICK — Duke Albanese, the state’s new education commissioner, knows how to run a school system.

High school students in SAD 47, where Albanese has been superintendent since 1983, consistently outscore their peers on the Maine Educational Assessment. Few of them drop out of school, and a large percentage go on to college.

While other towns have recently haggled over and rejected school budgets, residents of Oakland, Belgrade and Sidney — the towns which make up SAD 47 — have never voted down one of Albanese’s budgets.

It was, in part, because of his success in SAD 47 that Gov. Angus King Tuesday announced that Albanese was his choice to replace outgoing Education Commissioner Wayne Mowatt, who is stepping down July 1.

“Several names kept coming to the top and Duke’s was always one of them,” King said of the selection process during a morning press conference at Bowdoin College.

“I found him to be knowledgeable, unflappable, enthusiastic and a real leader,” King said in introducing the 47-year-old Albanese, whose nomination must still be approved by the state Senate.

The governor also applauded Albanese’s work on a set of state education standards, which King has long championed. Albanese was a member of the Task Force on Learning Results, which was charged with developing a set of statewide standards that students will be expected to meet in order to graduate from high school.

Albanese, a 1971 graduate of Bowdoin, said completion of the learning results will be his top priority as he tries to make Maine’s public education system the envy of the nation.

The former social studies teacher and football coach said school funding will also be an important issue during his tenure as head of the state’s Department of Education. He suggested that the state should look at alternative ways of paying for education rather than relying solely on property taxes as it now does.

He said he would see how well the state’s latest funding formula is working before contemplating changing it.

Albanese’s nomination was met with praise from most of the education community.

“I’m really excited because he’s got the knowledge base and the expertise,” said Marge Medd, chairwoman of the State Board of Education, which interviewed Albanese Monday. “He has the ingredients for a successful career as commissioner.”

Paul Brunelle, president of the Maine School Management Association, which represents the state’s superintendents and school boards, said Albanese brings a good statewide perspective to the board. “The issue really is whether he will be given some leeway to assert his leadership,” Brunelle said.

Not everyone was thrilled with Albanese’s nomination, however. Tim Humphrey, president of the state’s teachers union, said his organization has reservations about the nomination.

“We wanted someone who was going to be a fresh advocate who was going to push for more resources and push to meet the needs of the state’s children. I don’t see that strong advocacy [in Albanese],” the president of the Maine Education Association said.

“I feel he is one who is very willing to compromise,” Humphrey continued. For example, he said Albanese was too willing to settle for a phase-in of the learning results. Humphrey, who was also a member of the task force, said he felt more discussion of the merits of the proposed standards may have helped get them through the Legislature.

Despite the union’s reservations, which he stressed did not equate to opposition, Humphrey said his organization was willing to work with the new commissioner. “I think we have the same basic desire to improve education. We just have different ideas on how to get there,” Humphrey said.

Alan Sleight, president of SAD 47’s local school union, disagreed with Humphrey’s assessment. “He’s an intelligent, well-spoken advocate for children and education,” the Messalonskee High School math teacher said. “Children are his bottom line.”

Although his ideas may differ from the MEA’s, statistics show that Albanese has successfully run the central Maine school district where he has worked — with the exception of one year in the 1970s which he spent at Skowhegan High School — since his graduation from Bowdoin.

The district’s students perform well on the Maine Educational Assessment, a test given annually to the state’s fourth-, eighth- and 11th-graders. Results from last year’s test show that Messalonskee High School’s 11th-graders did better than their peers from schools with similar socioeconomic status in five out of six subjects.

Messalonskee’s dropout rate has consistently been well below the state average during the 1990s. During the last school year, 1.9 percent of Messalonskee’s students dropped out compared to a statewide dropout rate of 3 percent.

Although the amount of money the district spends on its students is among the lowest in the state, the number of graduates who go on to college from Messalonskee has also been above average. In 1995, 66 percent of Messalonskee’s graduates went on to college while the state average was 60 percent.

Although SAD 47 is not wealthy, it does pay its teachers well. Pay for new teachers at SAD 47 is among the top 10 percent in the state. Starting pay for teachers with a bachelor’s degree is $21,930, above the state average of $20,421.

In addition, the district, under Albanese’s leadership, encourages teachers to further their education. Under a contract signed several years ago, new teachers are required to earn a master’s degree within seven years of joining the school district. Despite a shrinking budget, Albanese has found ways to fund further education for the district’s teachers, Sleight said.

“Our district has become one of the best in the state because of Duke,” said Kelly Couture, a member of SAD 47’s board. “He hires good people and gets good work out of them.”

Couture said she moved into the district from Waterville several years ago because of its schools. One of Albanese’s strongest points, she and other school board members said, is his ability to sell the school budget to the community. Before each town votes on the budget, Albanese holds numerous meetings at each of the district’s schools to answer questions and address community concerns.

“We’ve never had a budget voted down, and I give all that credit to Duke Albanese,” Couture said.

“The state of Maine has gained someone of great quality,” said Eunice Spooner, a former Oakland Elementary School teacher who has served on the board for 10 years.