Just a decade ago, Maine’s public schools had among the highest scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, commonly known as the nation’s report card. Since then, however, the state’s ranking has slipped toward the middle, not necessarily because Maine students aren’t performing as well as they once did but because other states have made more substantial changes and reaped the benefits.

This fall, Education Commissioner Susan Gendron, after previously calling a halt to local school assessments under the state’s Learning Results program, has rolled out a new system that she believes will help schools meet state standards and rise in national rankings. Lawmakers will see a formal bill in January; for now, educators and other members of the public should have broad access to this proposal to offer ideas and modifications.

The commissioner began discussions about the proposal last month at a conference at China Lake. She would broaden the range of evidence to show a student has learned a subject and create a set of common assessments to be administered across the state. The SAT would be part of the assessment but the commissioner says it would not become a high-stakes test for graduation. Students could also carry out a public policy project in which they select a topic, gather research and defend their work. Similarly, students could meet requirements with a scientific design project, as well as successfully completing assessments in English, math, science and classroom work.

Those are some of the outcome measures being considered; the state proposal would also look at inputs, specifically at whether the syllabus for each course at each high school contains the topics necessary for students to be successful. Why oversee the inputs for schools achieving the right outcomes? “Because they aren’t achieving the outcomes,” the commissioner said the other day. “But where schools are achieving well, they’ll continue on with what they’re doing. Where they’re not achieving, we’ll come in and look at the data.”

State education officials hope to set standards over several years so that eventually all Maine students demonstrate their proficiency in eight areas – English-language arts, math, science, social studies, foreign languages, career education, visual and performing arts, and physical education. That’s an ambitious and necessary goal. Likely half of the commissioner’s challenge will be to put the plans into an understandable and logical context so that the public sees not merely more state meddling but a well-reasoned system of encouraging and measuring learning.

It’s too soon to say whether the specifics of the commissioner’s plan are the best choices, but Maine needed a new proposal to help more of its students meet Learning Results standards. And the commissioner was right to bring forth a proposal well before the next legislative session to gather public reaction and suggestions for improvement.