I wrote this back in January when Maine Department of Education introduced three bills that they hoped would qualify Maine for Race to the Top funds. All three bills passed, including one that purported to allow "innovative schools," but most folks agree that the restrictions placed on that bill, mostly at the urging of the MEA, enable no more innovation that school districts are already allowed, and are unlikely to put Maine in a very strong case for race to the top. Below are the recommendations I shared with the Education and Human Resources committee at the time.
* Funding mechanisms that enable cost-effective small schools to flourish, such as allowing two or more existing districts to share effective small schools.
* Regulatory structures that enable and encourage community partnerships with non-profits and social service agencies, so that Maine's many assets can flourish with integrated approaches rather than compete to maintain disintegrated, less than effective approaches.
* Assessment systems that increase accountability and produce better outcomes for students - without crushing the morale of students, teachers, and administrators. Models of streamlined, web-based systems exist and can be easily adapted to Maine's Learning Results.
* "Best practice" teaching contracts (in collaboration with the MEA) that enable the most talented people to not only enter teaching, but to thrive and stay in teaching. Such contracts enable both more flexibility and more accountability, enabling teachers to work in innovative small schools without losing seniority or benefits and ensuring that teams of teachers both can and MUST collaborate on best practices that actually produce measurable results for their students. Innovative, autonomous small schools also can give parents a choice other than private schools, creating MORE, not fewer, jobs for teachers
* Longer school days and year round programming that ensure that students are engaged beyond 2:15 each day and throughout the summer - if that is what is best for them.
What autonomies are needed (and not needed) ensure broad support and effective implementation?
* Principals need to be able to hire and train teachers and cannot be forced to keep teachers who underperform. Excellent examples of contracts that enable a balance between job security and performance standards exist...but these empower those closest to the students, rather than creating and relying on often expensive and arbitrary state-wide systems.
* Funding decisions need to be made at the school level, so that each school can allocate resources according to the needs of their students. While a formula such as EPS can be helpful in deciding a school's overall budget and ensure that small schools are funded at the same level as larger schools, the formula should specify only a RATIO of overall certificated staff proportional to traditional schools, not a list of specific job titles.
* These schools must be FULLY public schools. Existing public or non-profit schools need to be able to transform themselves to "innovative, autonomous schools," enabling them to have the same status as Maine's academies in creating agreements with districts for tuitioning students. But in order to do so, they MUST agree to standards and a process for "replicating the demographics of the sending area." In other words, such schools cannot attain public school status, unless, no matter how small, they agree to serve special education students, gifted students, and everyone else, using lottery systems or other means of ensuring equity.
An approach such as the one outlined above will allow superintendents and school committees to innovate, enable teachers and teachers unions to collaborate on "win-win" contracts, and enable parents and students whose needs are not being met by large traditional schools to have an option that works for them - all by rethinking the money we currently spend rather than spending more!
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