Ideas fly as Maine Readiness Campaign kicks off

AUGUSTA – Fort Kent Community High School hopes to enhance boys’ aspirations; Madawaska Middle-High School aims to make classes more rigorous; and Calais High School plans to strengthen its community service program.

The Maine Readiness Campaign has only just kicked off, but educators and community members involved in the new statewide initiative said Thursday during an orientation workshop that they already have ideas about how to better prepare students for college, career and citizenship.

Gathered for the Augusta Civic Center event were principals, guidance counselors, superintendents, municipal officials, school board members, parents and business owners.

They all have pledged to work together during the next 18 months to develop ways to ensure that students have the necessary skills to be ready for life after high school graduation.

“We’re not saying that every student has to go to college,” said Norm Higgins, chair of the campaign’s advisory committee and co-director of the Maine Department of Education’s Center for Educational Transformation.

In today’s technological world, “there’s been a convergence of what’s expected for college and for business. It’s now the same,” he said.

Lynne Miller, professor of educational leadership at the University of Southern Maine, told the group that every student should graduate from high school “academically ready” – with a 75 percent chance of earning at least a C and a 50 percent chance of earning a B or better in an entry level college course.

They should be able to write coherent sentences and develop arguments that are supported by evidence, she said. And they should be able to do mathematical reasoning, estimating and problem solving.

“These are consistent types of skills that we all need for college and for life,” she said. “Academic readiness isn’t just for kids going on to a four-year college. It’s for everyone.”

Nowadays students who want to be certified nursing assistants, phlebotomists and cosmetologists all need higher level skills, she added.

Community members lent a different perspective to Thursday’s conversation. After Kelley Lizotte, a business owner from Fort Kent, wondered how to convince parents about the importance of rigorous math courses, Miller quickly came up with a suggestion.

Tell them that they could save them thousands of dollars in tuition because they won’t have to pay for college remedial courses that don’t count toward graduation, she said.

Lynn Lombard of the Maine Mutual Group, an insurance company based in Presque Isle, said she has noticed that workers lack adequate grammar and vocabulary skills. That prompted Colleen Quint, executive director of the Mitchell Institute in Portland, to note the important role that community members play in the readiness campaign.

They can help create programs that show students why their high school courses are relevant, said Quint, whose group is funding the initiative along with the National Governors Association.

“Community folks who want an educated work force … can work with schools to make that happen,” she said.

During interviews, participants said they were ready to confront the challenges in their particular communities.

Last year, only 45 percent of graduates at Piscataquis Community High School in Guilford went on to some sort of postsecondary education, said principal Jim Chasse. “That’s too low. We need to double that.”

Wayne Anderson, principal of Madawaska Middle-High School, said he wanted to reduce the academic disparity between advanced placement classes and the general education curriculum.

Noting the dwindling of farming and logging jobs, Linda Caron, guidance counselor at Fort Kent Community High, said her school needed to “look at how best to prepare” young men for the future.

Calais High School Principal Jeanne Bishop said she was looking to make service learning part of her school’s graduation requirements.

“Colleges are looking for extensive community service experience,” she said. “It makes students better citizens.”