By Bonnie Washuk,Staff Writer

AUGUSTA – To improve K-12 education in Maine, a panel of the State Board of Education recommended sweeping changes Tuesday.

The number of school districts should be slashed from 287 to 35. Teacher pay should be increased, along with the length of the school year. Taxpayers should help pay for some college tuition. All Maine newborns should get a $200 mutual fund for college education. All students in grades 5-12 should have laptops.

Those and other recommendations came from the select panel of the board chaired by James Carignan, retired dean of Bates College.

Carignan was quick to say Tuesday “The Learning State: Maine Schooling in the 21st Century” recommendations are only recommendations.

“We don’t have any authority to impose anything,” Carignan said. The panel is seeking public feedback about how Maine should change education to get the most out of taxpayers’ money and produce successful students.

After receiving public comment, the board will consider adopting the recommendations. From there it will be up to the governor and state lawmakers next year to act, he said.

While some of the report’s recommended changes would cost, others would save, Carignan said.

Out of the 50 states Maine’s per pupil spending is the eighth highest, while teacher pay ranks 37th, he said. Much of that money is wasted on overhead.

“We’re not advocating closing schools,” but reducing the school districts. Each school unit has superintendents and other administrators including curriculum coordinators, business managers, food service directors and transportation directors.

“There’s an enormous amount of money to be saved by sensible-sized school districts,” Carignan said. If Maine had fewer districts there’d be more effective leadership, he said. The current infrastructure is expensive “and diverting resources and talent from the classroom.”

With regional districts, local control need not be lost, Carignan said. Superintendents would set goals. It would be up to local principals, teachers and citizens to talk about how to implement those goals.

Maine also has too many teachers, especially considering that the number of K-12 students is declining due to lower births. “I’m not advocating firing teachers, but we need to bring ourselves more in line with national norms,” Carignan said.

Other recommendations, including increasing teacher pay and lengthening school year, are necessary to improve education.

“Everywhere you hear teachers say, We just don’t have time to do what we need to do.’ Maine has the shortest or among the shortest school years in the country, 175 days. We need to do something about that,” he said.

The school year could be increased by 20 percent by adding 15 days a year and one hour a day. Half that time should be devoted to teacher development, Carignan said. He called Maine’s teacher-pay ranking 37th in the nation “an embarrassment.” To attract quality teachers, better pay is critical, he said.

Maine State Education Commissioner Susan Gendron said she likes some of the recommendations: more laptops and increasing teacher pay. “We need to be able to recruit and retain teachers.”

“The school calendar should be increased,” said Sen. Elizabeth Mitchell, D-Vassalboro, who co-chairs the Education Committee.

Gendron agreed, saying she’ll soon be proposing that.

Mitchell said school districts in Maine need to be consolidated, but going from 286 to 35 is too extreme. “I don’t support that number.”

The recommendations “push the envelope,” she said. Some may say Maine would never have one collective bargaining unit to establish teacher pay. “But let’s talk about it. Could there be a county collective bargaining?”

Overall the recommendations “really challenge you to think,” Mitchell said.

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