PORTLAND (AP) – A report commissioned by the Maine Board of Education recommends big changes for the state’s public schools, including a longer school year, larger school districts and higher salaries and merit pay for teachers.

The panel’s 90-page report also recommends setting minimum enrollment to end building small schools that aren’t cost-effective. It also calls for preschool for 4-year-olds and an expansion of the state laptop program.

The Select Panel on Revisioning Education in Maine contends a major overhaul is needed because student test results have been “flat” despite Maine being “one of the most expensive public school systems in the nation.”

The report provides “a good starting point” for a much-needed discussion of improvements, said Assistant House Republican Leader Joshua Tardy, R-Newport.

“I’m glad to see that someone’s trying to think comprehensively about school reform,” added state Senate President Beth Edmonds, D-Freeport.

Among the key suggestions:

-Shrink the number of school districts from 286 to about 60 or 65.

-Extend the school year by 10 days, providing five more days for students and five more days for teacher training.

-Set minimum enrollments for new schools, to prevent construction of schools that are too small to be cost-effective.

-Boost Maine teacher salaries, which rank in the middle of the pack nationally, and provide merit pay for teachers.

-Extend the middle-school laptop program through the 12th grade.

-Provide a half-day of preschool for all 4-year-olds.

A University of Southern Maine analysis estimates that implementing all of the changes would save $133.4 million.

The analysis says the some of the recommendations would cost $745 million over five years but that others would save $878.5 million over the same period.

But the authors of that analysis urged “extreme caution” in relying on it because of variables. The 15-member committee was made up of educators, politicians, academics and business leaders across the state.

“It sounds like a lot of random ideas that have been kicking around or talked about before,” said Mark Gray, executive director of the Maine Education Association.

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