When Gov. John Baldacci last year cut $38 million in local education aid to help with a $400 million state budget shortfall, local school districts took it on the chin.

The move forced school districts to consider staff layoffs and program reductions. Later, with less state aid expected and the threat of another cut looming in fiscal year 2011, school districts were forced to consider more layoffs, reduced programing or both.

Education funding was spared in Baldacci’s latest budget adjustment, but the governor warned that the budget he will recommend to the next governor will be well short of the education funding required by state law.

Currently, the state funds just over 42 percent. State law mandates 55 percent, although it hasn’t met the requirement since the law was enacted in 2004. About half of the state’s biennial $5.5 billion budget goes to education.

With diminishing state revenues and an economy on a slow rebound, the next governor will have to make some difficult education choices.

Teacher compensation based on performance and student learning has become a hot-button issue. The conservative think tank Maine Heritage Policy Center has advocated the measure, and Baldacci this year tried to remove a prohibition that blocked the evaluation of teachers based on student performance on standardized testing.

Baldacci’s proposal encountered push-back by the Maine Education Association, the state’s teachers’ union, which has typically compensated its members based on longevity.

The state also lost an opportunity to receive millions in federal funding after scoring poorly in its application for the Race to the Top program. According to reports, the application suffered because the Legislature doesn’t allow charter schools and because only 30 percent of local teachers’ unions supported Race to the Top.

Here are the candidates’ views on those and other education issues.

Eliot Cutler, 64, independent

One of the keystones of Cutler’s education plan is lengthening the school year from 175 to 185 days, which he said, would make Maine students more competitive nationally and internationally.

Doing that would increase education costs, which, Cutler said, are already too high. However, his plan is to find savings within the system by evaluating the state’s student-to-teacher ratio, which at 11-to-1, is one of the lowest in the country. 

He would also create incentives for communities to consolidate districts, “rather than penalize them,” as, he said, Baldacci’s controversial 2008 plan did.

Cutler also proposes major reforms, such as teacher pay based on performance and student learning.

“We don’t reward good performance by teachers,” he said. “We pay them the same no matter how well they do. This is wrong.”

Cutler said he would lead the effort to allow charter and magnet schools, initiatives that have faced stiff opposition in the past.

He also favors merging the state’s community college and university system.

Cutler blamed previous failure of reform attempts on Democrat Libby Mitchell, who he said, was “linked arm-in-arm” with the state teachers’ union.

“(Mitchell) has blocked every effort at reform in this state over the last 30 years,” he said.

John Jenkins, 58, independent

Jenkins said he saw plenty of problems with the education system when he was the mayor of Auburn and Lewiston.

“I was amazed at how many teachers were reaching into their own pockets to buy supplies and resources to educate our children,” he said.

Despite his opponents’ frequent lament about the state’s high per-pupil costs, Jenkins said the state should be spending more on education.

Jenkins said he wouldn’t raise taxes to create more education funding, but find efficiencies within the system.

“I don’t think we’re using our dollars as wisely as we can,” he said. “We’re getting top heavy.”

Jenkins didn’t identify a specific plan for streamlining, but said he would reach out to individual communities to find opportunities for reform.

“(Baldacci’s) district consolidation was a sledgehammer approach, it was one size fits everybody,” he said. “. . . My administration won’t be so much top-down as bottom-up.”

Paul LePage, 61, Republican

LePage said one of the biggest problems with the education system is declining enrollment “without a corresponding layoff of personnel.”

LePage said he doesn’t support laying off teachers. However, he does think the state should increase its student-teacher ratio from 11-to-1 to between 18-to-1 and 20-t0-1.

“I would love to say 14- or 16-to-1, that would be ideal,” he said.

Unlike some of his opponents, LePage doesn’t think the state’s 55 percent funding mandate is unattainable.

“The problem has nothing to do with the amount of money in the system,” he said.

“If a community wants all the bells and whistles, you know, the principal with three assistants, all the ed techs, that’s going to be up to the community. But I am going to provide the adequate resources, the proper resources, so that teachers and the kids have the best chance in the classroom.”

LePage also supports amending state laws to allow charter schools, and making it easier for parents to home school their children.

On two occasions he’s made controversial statements about his desire to abolish the federal Department of Education and reject federal funding for Maine schools.

LePage’s campaign claimed those statements were mischaracterized.

Libby Mitchell, 70, Democrat

Mitchell said she wants to be known as the “education governor.”

The former teacher has won the support of the state teachers’ union – an endorsement that some of her opponents say makes her incapable of reforming the system.

Unlike LePage and Cutler, Mitchell is OK with the student-teacher ratio, saying the statistic is an average that shouldn’t be addressed by broad-based expansion. 

“You certainly wouldn’t want too many kindergarten students with one teacher,” she said. “And there may be more high school classes that could function properly with more students.”

“I don’t think the classroom is the place to save money,” she added. “The literature that I’ve seen shows students do better in smaller classrooms.”

Mitchell said the state needs to find better ways to deliver education, such as additional incentives for consolidation. She said Baldacci’s plan addressed the “right problem” but that the implementation was “flawed.”

Mitchell also wants to expand the prekindergarten services to every district in the state and reduce the dropout rate by expanding the Job for Maine’s Graduates program.

She opposes merging the community college and university system.

In a recent blog post, Steve Bowen, writing for the right-leaning Maine Heritage Policy Center, said Mitchell’s prekindergarten proposal would cost about $30 million a year.

Shawn Moody, 51, independent

Moody calls the state’s 55-percent funding mandate a “brass ring,” an unattainable goal.

“I think it dispirits an organization to believe you’re way underfunded,” he said. “If 55 percent was attainable we would’ve met it by now.”

Moody said the state should determine its education funding by taking an average of the last five years and “adding a percent or two.”

He said the education system is inefficient, and that he would institute “surplus sharing” to encourage districts to find savings, rather than continue spending to ensure a similar budget line the following year.

He also favors merit pay for teachers rather than “across-the-board” raises.

Moody would also like to streamline the university system while increasing funding for community colleges. He would evaluate the university system to find classes that serve the needs of today’s work force while consolidating classes with smaller enrollment.

Kevin Scott, 42, independent

Scott believes the state’s funding mandate is a realistic goal and he’s satisfied with the current student-to-teacher ration.

If faced with the need for a budget cut that could affect education, Scott said he would make the cut rather than raise taxes.

He also supports prioritizing “funds for schools, so we are educating children in order to avoid poverty and dependency in the long run.”

Scott would also like to increase parent volunteers at schools. According to his website, the initiative would build “support for teachers and lowers the cost of after-school programs. This is a small but important part of the plan, acknowledging some basic principles to build on.”