AUGUSTA, Maine — Test scores for Maine’s public school students showed little evidence of improvement, according to new data released Monday afternoon by the Department of Education. According to scores from the New England Common Assessment Program, reading and math scores for Maine students in grades three through eight were virtually unchanged from 2011 to […]
education
Posted inLewiston-Auburn
Lewiston intervention program keeps expelled students in school
LEWISTON — When students misbehave, they’re sent to the principal’s office. When they misbehave to the point that they’re expelled, they are sent to the superintendent’s office. A program launched in September houses expelled students in Superintendent Bill Webster’s office building, the Dingley Building. It’s called the Dingley School. Of Lewiston’s 5,000-plus public school students, […]
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Posted inMaine, sj-web
Democrats want charter schools to share cuts
AUGUSTA — The Legislature’s Education Committee voted 8-5 along party lines Wednesday to include charter schools in $12.6 million in cuts to education aid, sparking the latest partisan battle on education reforms. Majority Democrats said the vote endorsed fairness. Republicans labeled it an attack on a key component of education reform measures enacted since 2011 […]
Posted inMaine, sj-web
MEA protests use of student scores for teacher evaluations
AUGUSTA, Maine — Representatives of public school teachers and administrators told the Maine Department of Education on Monday that they don’t want standardized tests to play too great a role in determining whether they’re doing a good job. Some argued that standardized tests fail to measure student progress adequately so they would be even worse […]
Posted inMaine, sj-web
Rising education budgets meet local resistance
BANGOR — The increasing cost of Maine’s public schools, paired with dropping student numbers, raises the question of whether the state’s education system is sustainable. From 2005 through 2012, per-pupil spending on education in Maine has gone from $9,356 to $11,063. During that same approximate time period, Maine has lost students, according to data from […]
Posted inMaine
Maine’s education commissioner says efforts to consolidate will continue
AUGUSTA — After two years as the state’s top public school official, Stephen Bowen, a former teacher and principal, said the state needs to do more to reduce the costs of public school administration to get more resources into classrooms. Bowen, the state’s education commissioner, said there may be legislation to encourage more school district consolidation […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, sj-web
Correction: Meeting location for Lewiston schools redistricting committee
In an opinion editorial on the Lewiston Redistricing Plan that ran on Sunday, Jan. 6, the wrong meeting location for the Monday afternoon was listed. The meeting will be held in the Dingley Room at the Dingley Central Office at 36 Oak St. on Monday at 4:30 p.m. The information was incorrectly reported. We regret […]
Posted inMaine, sj-web
LePage wants to remove cap on charter schools
AUGUSTA — Gov. Paul LePage is preparing legislation that would eliminate the cap on the number of charter schools allowed in Maine, an initiative that is sure to cause significant debate among incoming lawmakers who already face a weighty agenda and difficult funding issues in the education sector. Department of Education spokesman David Connerty-Marin said […]
Posted inMaine, sj-web
Public education expanding as pre-K programs become the norm
Faced with plummeting student populations — and therefore less state money — Maine school districts are increasingly adding another year of public education. While reams of research highlight the benefits of early childhood education, there has been no widespread discussion in Maine about the addition of a 14th year of public school. The explosion in […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, sj-web
Increasing choices and watching the budget in RSU 16
It’s not only the food that’s different in RSU 16, covering Poland, Mechanic Falls and Minot. Here, there are no “lunch rooms”– only “cafés.” That difference is important to Nutrition Director Betty Hayes. It aligns with her goal to add inventive new tastes to school food in RSU 16. Although the food might seem exotic, […]