A report being issued today by a new education group aims to “shine the spotlight” on the teaching practices at the state’s highest-achieving elementary schools.

Maine has 33 top-performing fourth-grade schools based on annual standardized test scores from 376 elementary schools in the state.

Eleven of the schools where pupils met or exceeded the state average on all seven subjects covered by the 2001-2002 Maine Educational Assessment are in central and northern Maine, according to the Citizens for Excellence in Maine’s Elementary Schools.

Administrators and teachers “are so busy with day-to-day activities that they don’t have the opportunity to get around very much and dig into what’s really working,” said Thomas Collins, the founder and president of CEMES.

The top schools vary in size and are demographically and economically diverse. Several have high percentages of pupils eligible for free and reduced meals, and about one-third are in towns that are below the state average in household income.

The most common grade configuration among the top schools was K-5, with only five having seventh and eighth grades.

“This right away says that if you want to excel you’d better have an administrative focus on the early grades,” said Collins.

The report contains data from the Maine Department of Education, the University of Maine and the Maine State Planning Office. More specific information also was garnered from 14 of the top schools whose principals answered a survey about which classroom practices they attributed to their schools’ success. Schools that returned the questionnaire also were visited by CEMES.

In total, the 14 schools returning questionnaires had 2001-2002 enrollments of 3,962 pupils, 788 of whom were fourth-graders.

Almost all the high-achieving schools had one thing in common, according to the report. Eighty percent utilized Reading Recovery, a program that features one-on-one 30-minute lessons to supplement classroom instruction for first-graders who are behind in their reading skills.

Multiage classrooms, team teaching, literacy training for teachers, a positive school climate and alignment of curriculum with Maine’s Learning Results were cited as other reasons for schools’ success.

“While all Maine’s schools have been urged to align curricula with the Maine Learning Results, it may be that the top schools in fourth grade MEA performance have done a better job in the early grades than the average Maine school,” Collins said.

Area schools cited by CEMES said other things also worked for them.

Lynne Coy-Ogan, former principal at Morton Avenue Elementary School in Dover-Foxcroft, said she focused on making sure that each teacher spent the same amount of time on a particular subject. That way, “when a teacher was ready to pass students on, the teachers knew exactly what experience children had and [at what] instructional level they were currently performing.”

Now principal at Vine Street School in Bangor, Coy-Ogan said she brought University of Maine professors to Morton Avenue to teach classes in professional development, and she encouraged teachers to observe other classroom techniques.

Jane Smith, former principal at Dr. Levesque Elementary School in Frenchville, said the school’s open-door policy, where parents could visit their child’s classroom anytime, and the “constant dialogue” between teachers and parents went a long way toward pupil success. Smith is now principal at Woodland Elementary School in Baileyville.

Principal Shawn Anderson said Bay Ridge Elementary School in Cutler uses a phonics program and “places an emphasis on literacy.”

The school climate “is very positive, and that’s one reason students do well,” he said.

And at Jonesboro Elementary School, Ellen Norton called herself “a traditional teacher” who uses textbooks instead of literature for the most part.

“I run a tight ship,” she said. “My kids are expected to sit down, be quiet and learn – and they love it. They’re also expected to have a chapter book in their desk [for] when their work is done.”

Deputy Commissioner Patrick Phillips of the Maine Department of Education said he was heartened that schools have found aligning curriculum and assessments to the standards in the Learning Results to be beneficial. But he said high expectations of pupils and strong relationships between teachers and families also play just as vital a role.

Sound business practices also translate well to education, according to Collins, 72, a retired business executive who worked at Procter & Gamble for 36 years and now lives in New Harbor. At Procter & Gamble, he said, each plant manager knew what the other divisions were doing.

In the same vein, schools should network so they can get ideas from each other about how to improve, Collins said.

All of the top schools have agreed to help others interested in learning about their practices, he said.

CEMES has other ideas about how to improve schools. The department should keep data on classroom size and should track children who attended full or half-day kindergarten or preschool programs, Collins said.

And Maine should consider keeping schools open all year to test new programs and offer challenging courses. That could stem the flow of teachers who are leaving the field for careers that offer a year-round salary, he said.

“No significant private enterprise would think of using its human and capital resources for only 75 percent of the year,” he said.

School administrators may obtain a copy of the report by writing to CEMES, P.O. Box 12, New Harbor, ME 04554.