Maine’s schools are stronger than critics maintain

I believe that Roger Rosenkrantz’s Nov. 25 commentary to your paper creates a misleading impression of the relative strength of Maine’s schools and requires a response.

First, it should be clear that Rosenkrantz wishes to see Maine implement charter schools. In order to make the case for this type of reform, it would appear he also wishes to paint the worst possible picture of the current state of Maine schools. His use of “abysmal” and “educational disaster” gives the impression of significantly lower scores in Maine than in other states. Careful examination of national and state indicators of student and school performance would lead anyone wishing to be objective to a much different conclusion.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress provides a nationwide basis for comparing states in core subjects. To interpret NAEP scores, however, one must keep in mind that the differences among states are relatively minor. The highest performing states have only slightly larger percentages of students scoring at the Proficient level (averaging 35 percent in fourth-grade math compared to Maine’s 31 percent; averaging 28 percent in eighth-grade math compared to Maine’s 24 percent).

State average scores also do not vary widely across the states. In eighth-grade math, the highest scoring states had scaled scores ranging from 285 to 291 on a 500-point scale. Maine’s average scaled score of 282 on the 500-point scale is not dramatically different in relative terms. To make the case that these scores reflect truly significant differences among the states, certainly to the extent that Rosenkrantz suggests, is to risk going well beyond what the data actually show.

That said, Maine’s scores have been relatively stable over the past few years, and we need to investigate what other states are doing that we could learn from. However, if some states are doing a better job educating poor and minority students and closing the achievement gap between these students and higher performing groups, Maine might not be able to use that same strategy since Maine’s gap between low and high socio-economic groups is among the smallest in the nation. Maine Department of Education staff will be taking a close look at other states that are comparable to Maine in an effort to identify promising reform strategies that might be added to our current efforts. We need to be careful, however, to select only those strategies that fit both our demographics and our educational beliefs.

The Maine Department of Education will also be taking a closer look at schools in the state that have a demonstrated track record of improving scores on the Maine Educational Assessment (MEA) test. This fall, Maine identified 34 schools in reading and 28 schools in mathematics that have increased the number of students scoring at the Meets Standards level, decreased the number of students at the Does Not Meet Standards level, and achieved a gain of 20 percent in both reading and mathematics. In recognizing these “Improving Schools,” Commissioner Sue Gendron hopes to focus on what common practices are employed by these schools that others might learn from.

Rosenkrantz also takes issue with the math performance targets Maine used for No Child Left Behind “Adequate Yearly Progress” (AYP) calculations, implying that Maine educational officials have adopted an intentionally low standard. Here he misunderstands a fundamental aspect of the federal requirements. These targets are set by each state using very prescriptive federal guidelines. Each state must set starting point targets by rank ordering schools by the percentage of students at or above proficiency (our Meets the Standards level on the MEA), setting the bar at the 20th percentile, whatever that level of performance might be. Again, he appears to be looking for evidence that Maine educators are doing a poor job. In reality, states whose standards have been ranked among the nation’s lowest also have large numbers of schools not making AYP. NCLB is designed to identify a rough percentage of schools in each state, irrespective of how state standards compare with each other.

It is legitimate to question, however, why so few Maine students are scoring at the Meets Standards level on the MEA in certain content areas. When Maine revised the MEA in 1999-2000 to fully align with Maine’s Learning Results, very high performance standards were established in order to provide a high bar for student achievement. Now that we have five years of MEA data to review, it is time to revisit these initial performance standards.

The Commissioner’s Comprehensive Assessment System Policy Advisory Committee will be reviewing the performance standards this year and making recommendations for adjustments as needed. Some states have set very low performance standards in an effort to avoid the NCLB accountability provisions. Maine has chosen not to lower our standards because of NCLB, and will not do so in the future. However, if it is clear that our first attempt in 1999-2000 to set fair performance standards placed the bar artificially high, then adjustments might be necessary.

Critics of Maine schools, and proponents of charter schools or vouchers, would do well to visit a few classrooms to experience firsthand both the dedication of our educators and the challenges they face. I am certain they would come away with renewed respect for the results we are achieving.

Patrick R. Phillips is deputy commissioner of the Maine Department of Education.