Does Maine have an educational system? Or a delusional system?

The question before us is whether sound education policy raises student achievement. To examine this, we will look at two states, call them M1 and M2, that have been moving in opposite directions. Our facts come from Education Week’s annual review of state policies and learning results, called “Quality Counts.”

M1 requires a subject matter test of all entering teachers, M2 only a college major. M1 has an “alternate route” to attract bright college graduates and second career professionals into teaching. Until last summer, M2 was one of only six states without one, yet it tolerates the highest rate of out-of-field high school teaching in the nation. Despite this closed shop, M2’s teachers are among the lowest paid with a statewide average of $38,500 as against M1’s $52,000. One might think this is because M1 spends more on education, but actually it spends slightly less than M2’s $9,000 per pupil, eighth highest in the nation.

The road to reform for M1 was rocky. The first teachers test it administered in 1999 made national headlines because 59 percent of the candidates failed, prompting massive protests. More flak was encountered in 2001-02 when M1 first required passing state tests in English and math for high school graduation. M1’s teachers’ unions mounted a $600,000 media blitz to squash the test-based accountability system it agreed to support in 1993 in exchange for a big hike in state spending on education. But, gradually the furor has died away as more than 90 percent of the students pass the exit exam. M2 has, as yet, no plans for an exit exam.

What the dickens!

By now most readers will have guessed that M1 is Massachusetts and M2 is Maine. Quality Counts awards Massachusetts an A for its standards, assessments and accountability, and Maine with a C, with only nine states ranked lower. The Fordham Foundation’s evaluation of state standards gave Maine’s math and history standards an F.

Apart from “adequacy of funding,” Quality Counts rates Maine high only in the category of “school climate,” owing to its small schools, small class sizes, strong parental support, and low incidence of disciplinary problems. But it then adds that “the state’s grade drops because Maine has done little to expand parents’ options in choosing public schools and is one of only 10 states without charter school laws.” By contrast, Massachusetts pioneered in school choice and is now judged by the Center for Education Reform to have one of the strongest charter school laws in the country. Thus, the contrast in state policies could not be more stark: Massachusetts is in the vanguard in promoting high standards, tough accountability and school choice; Maine in the rearguard. But is there any evidence that the reforms in question are working?

To measure student achievement, one turns naturally to the National Assessment of Education Progress, the “Nation’s Report Card.” The 1998 NAEPs made Maine look like an educational superpower as it ranked in the top six on all five tests, with a first in eighth grade reading. Yet, the dismal scores on the MEAs were disturbingly out of kilter with the NAEP scores. Gradually, it dawned that the disparity might be an artifact of Maine’s tiny minority enrollment, by far the lowest in the nation.

These suspicions were dramatically confirmed when Quality Counts reported disaggregated scores for the first time in 2004. Maine’s population of Afro and Hispanic students is so small that their NAEP scores are not even reported. So, in comparing aggregate scores, Maine officials are really comparing white students in Maine to the mix of students in the other states. Given the large achievement gaps between white and minority students, who average 40 percent nationwide, how could Maine not look good?

In a comparison of white students, however, Maine drops like a stone, scoring below the national average on all four 2003 and 2005 NAEP math and reading tests. Its aggregate score on eighth grade math declined last year to middle of the pack, with 24 states lower, but in a comparison of white students in fourth and eighth grade, only nine states ranked lower, states such as Alabama, Mississippi and West Virginia. When you are keeping that kind of company and state officials are proclaiming what a great job our schools are doing, you know you are being taken for a ride.

The other pattern national test scores reveal is one of Maine’s relative decline. While its eighth-grade NAEP score rose modestly from 25 to 30 percent proficient between 1998 and 2005, Massachusetts’ jumped from 23 to 43 percent proficient. In fact, Massachusetts led the nation on all four 2005 math and reading tests, a stunning achievement and a fitting tribute to Bay State officials who bucked stiff opposition from powerful interest groups and stayed the course.

Again, Maine’s verbal and math SAT scores, among the lowest in the Northeast, rose just 5 and 8 points between 1995 and 2005; Massachusetts’ jumped 15 and 25 points. Nor does Maine have any of the excuses to which other states can appeal, or large troubled urban districts. Yet, our officials go on singing the praises of this already pricey system and propose new spending.

The question Mainers must now confront is whether we have an educational system or a delusional system.

Roger Rosenkrantz of Wayne is a mathematician working to improve the teaching of math and science and effect educational reform.