When schools cut their budgets, development – those innovative ideas that reach students no one thought could be reached – is often the first to be dropped. Given the many and growing number of responsibilities of schools, this is a logical, if unfortunate decision and all the more reason to praise the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, whose $10 million contribution to Maine went last week from theoretical to actual with the awarding of 34 grants to schools.

This money, managed by the Mitchell Scholarship Research Institute through its Great Maine Schools Project, will fund experiments in education to help all students learn. This is not a startup grant or seed funding with the hope that someone else might come along and add a bit more or a bake sale may result in the purchase of some new textbooks. Ten high schools will receive $400,000 each over five years to remake themselves. Not all of the ideas are new, but the grants were awarded in part based on the community’s acceptance of the proposed change and support from the local school board and school administration.

And new or not, some of the grant-winning plans were surprising. Central High School in Corinth wants to divide its four years of schools into two divisions, the first focused on core curriculum. The second two years would replace a traditional day and school schedule with internships, project-based learning, and on-line advanced-placement courses with an emphasis on access to college. Fort Kent High School won an award to devise a nine-week schedule – eight weeks of instruction, then a week of internship experience. Mt. Abram High School in Franklin County will offer more flexible hours, tech training for displaced mill workers, more on-line learning and college classes. The emphasis, as these examples show, is on including the school more often in the community and making the transition to college more natural for many more students. On paper, these are simple ideas; in practice, they are difficult to achieve.

The project’s three standards – equity, rigor and personalization – accurately reflect trends in education today, as the increase in outcomes-based education and the rise in the number of personal education plans suggest. These trends, through federal and state mandates, are likely to continue, so having these 10 high schools, plus 24 others that received smaller awards, working on how to do this well is important. And the High School Learning Network to which they will contribute is equally important. The network will be organized by the Mitchell Institute to bring together all high schools to learn how others are meeting higher standards, how new proposals are working and how better to integrate the community into schools, among other things.

The Great Maine Schools Project is not looking for incremental change. It has set high standards for whole-school improvement and made the Gates Foundation money available to match its expectations. The results will be seen in the next five years.