Like all states, Maine follows federal law to help developmentally delayed young children get services in such areas as speech and physical therapy, social and cognitive development. This state’s program, called Child Development Services, began as a model in the 1970s, but has aged over the years and needs repair now. What it likely does not need, however, is a wholesale restructuring, as being proposed by the Department of Education.

The restructuring, through LD 1772, would shift the administration of CDS from the 16 sites located in each county to a school-based model, after a stop of a couple of years of centralized administration in Augusta. The reform changes the emphasis from developmental to educative services, a move that requires more explanation.

The reform was designed to help create a seamless system of education, but it also raises doubts about the adequacy of schools to take on this added role of serving children from birth to age 5. It demands that schools be able to interact with the several other state services sometimes required for CDS families and counts on the schools to be as efficient at delivering services as the current sites are.

At a meeting Monday, Gov. John Baldacci described his interest in centralizing social services at some rural schools, including Head Start or other children’s services as well as programs for the elderly. This, he said, would allow the schools to remain open as community hubs, an important function. Lawmakers, however, should ensure that this understandable desire does not drive decisions for development services.

Instead of pressing ahead with a plan that generated many doubts at a recent legislative hearing, advocates, lawmakers and parents of children who would be affected by state reform urge the Legislature to slow down, drop the idea that changes to the system require emergency legislation and continue the hard work of studying what works and how different models would fare in Maine. This, they reasonably hope, would lead to a strategy that preserves valuable parts of the current system while improving the delivery of services.

A state task force has met for a year on the topic to produce the reform to date; a further plan would create a commission to study special education from birth through age 8. That’s a good idea, especially if it includes developmental services, and more reason not to draw conclusions about any new structure of the services yet. Given the Department of Education’s current moratorium on local school assessments and its abrupt second-guessing when it swapped the Maine Educational Assessment with the SATs, going slower rather than charging ahead again only to retreat later makes a lot of sense.

Further, the department already has its hands full trying to oversee the CDS system it has. Last fall, as it has on other occasions, the federal Office of Special Education Programs pointed out Maine had trouble meeting timelines for initial evaluation of preschool-aged children with disabilities and had compliance problems with delays of services, among other shortcomings.

Under its general supervision, the federal report concludes, Maine has “long-standing failure to correct noncompliance under” both the birth-through-age-2 standards and the age 3-through-20 standards of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Often, the state did not furnish the federal office with sufficient information to determine whether compliance had been achieved.

A further concern involves the number of children being served through CDS. Between 2000 and 2004, the program increased that number by about 250 a year. But in 2005, the number suddenly dropped by 400, to an estimated 5,588. The Department of Education attributes this to population declines and “a more consistent implementation of the developmental delay definition.” The population of these age groups has been dropping for years; it seems likely that a significant change in standards for services is being applied.

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Whatever the faults of the current system, a reformed version that creates new problems by limiting services to young children is not a good alternative. It not only adds costs to school departments later but deprives children of their rightful educations and discourages qualified providers from staying in the field or attracting new providers.

There is nothing so desperately wrong with the current system that Maine cannot afford to take its time, in a collaborative process, to look at options, consult with other states, protect the valuable parts of what it has now and go forward slowly.

A commission that spends more time with more options can help the evolution of the state child-development system and produce a reform that serves Maine well for many more years to come.