Baldacci seeks $3 million for education

BREWER – Gov. John Baldacci said Tuesday that he plans to ask the Legislature for $3 million in additional funds for the state’s public colleges and universities.

“We need to address higher education,” he said, speaking during a teachers’ forum sponsored by the Maine Education Association.

Baldacci also said he wants the University of Maine System to finally settle its collective bargaining agreements.

“The labor management model by trustees needs to be reviewed,” he said. “I’m really not happy with the negotiations. That’s not the way I operate. All my state employee contracts are settled and signed. That’s how we deal with people. I’m not happy about the model that’s been established at the university system.”

Maine Department of Education Commissioner Susan Gendron also was at the event, which was the last in a series of regional discussions between teachers and the state’s top officials.

The moratorium on local assessments and the revision of the Maine Learning Results academic standards were among the subjects discussed at the gathering, which was attended by more than 50 public school teachers and UMS faculty.

Higher education issues dominated much of the conversation as UMS faculty and staff pointed out that some employees have been working for 10 months without a contract.

Four bargaining units, including those for both full- and part-time faculty, are in various stages of negotiations, UMS spokesman John Diamond said Tuesday night. Also unsettled are contracts for professional and clerical staff.

Pointing out that he soon would be making a new appointment to the UMS board of trustees, Baldacci said “there will be new leadership and new membership.” UMS Chancellor Joseph Westphal recently announced his resignation.

More money needs to be infused into the university system and the community college system, according to the governor who said many of the employees of the state’s now-defunct paper mills “have no higher education and can’t transfer into anything else.”

Reached Tuesday night, Sen. John Martin, D-Eagle Lake, said, “Democrats are supportive” of the additional funds.

Commissioner Gendron emphasized that school systems should abide by the local assessment moratorium and stop using assessments to certify students’ achievement on the Learning Results. The focus instead should be on classroom instruction, she said.

A task force is currently reviewing other ways to measure achievement of the Learning Results, Gendron said. One idea may be to have assessments that are common to each high school.

“It’s not a wise decision to continue” using the assessments for Learning Results certification because new recommendations that will be presented to the Legislature in January “will look very different,” she said.

She also urged teachers to critique the proposed revisions to the Learning Results that have been posted on the department’s Web site at www.state.me.us/education.