Teaching assistants must comply with a new state law.
By Lindsay Tice
Staff Writer

AUBURN – Teaching assistants will soon have a new way to meet federal teaching quality standards: an associate’s degree in education from Central Maine Technical College.

Trustees for the Maine Technical College System, which will become the Maine Community College System next week, voted Wednesday to approve the new two-year degree. Although open to anyone, the program was designed specifically to help the state’s teaching assistants comply with the No Child Left Behind Act, an education reform law signed by President George W. Bush in 2002.

Under the law, all teaching assistants who work in federally funded math, reading and writing programs must prove that they are highly qualified by taking 60 credits of college classes, by receiving any two-year college degree or by passing a state exam.

In the past, some Maine teaching assistants, also known as education technicians or ed techs, could work if they had only a high school diploma or if they’d taken some combination of college classes and professional development.

Teaching assistants must comply with the new law – completing their college work or passing an upcoming state test – by January 2006. Those who don’t could lose their jobs.

The new college requirement has caused some concern among teaching assistants, most of whom earn $7 to $9 an hour and worry that they don’t have the money or time to go to college. It has also concerned school officials, who fear a shortage of qualified teaching assistants and the loss of experienced, if under-educated, employees.

“It hasn’t been a big problem yet. It’s going to be a big problem,” said Rob Walker, president of the Maine Educational Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union.

Maine has more than 10,000 teaching assistants. It is unknown how many have attended college.

In a survey of 19 area school superintendents this spring, CMTC found that 18 had teaching assistants who didn’t meet the new requirements.

“We’re just trying to respond to that need,” said Patricia Vampatella, dean of academic affairs at CMTC.

The new program will offer courses in special education, classroom management, child development and other topics in K-12 education. The courses will allow students who have already earned some college credits to fulfill an associate’s degree. Those who have never attended college can attend full-time and earn a degree in two years or attend part-time and earn the degree over a number of years.

“It’ll definitely help us out,” said Mark LaRoach, assistant superintendent of the Norway area’s SAD 17. In recent years, SAD 17 has been able to recruit college-educated teaching assistants or to encourage current assistants to return to school by offering to pay for their tuition. But LaRoach said he’s happy to see CMTC provide a degree program that will help his district’s future hires.

All seven Maine Technical College campuses will now offer some sort of education program.

Graduates who want a full four-year teaching degree can transfer their technical college credits to the University of Maine system.

CMTC’s education program will start in the fall. Like all technical college programs, tuition will cost $68 per credit hour or $2,040 for tuition per year.

The school will use existing faculty to run the program. Because the education program will require no new laboratories, equipment or buildings, the cost to the school will be minimal.

ltice@sunjournal.com