The past week has been full of education issues. I started in Cincinnati for an Extended Learning Opportunities conference and finished consumed with our state’s Race to the Top Grant application. Read below to see what happened around the teacher/principal evaluation using student achievement.

Community Event
Over a year ago, I helped the State of Maine receive a $50,000 Supporting Student Success Grant (Mott Foundation) to examine our state’s Extended Learning Opportunities (ELO’s). ELO’s are outside-of-school programs and services that effectively expand school time by addressing missing school-based components. Examples of these are after-school activities, summer learning and extended day programs.

Last week, a team from Maine traveled to Cincinnati with four other states’ recipients (NY, OR, MN, WS) to learn and share best practices around ELO’s. Our three days were filled with hearing from national experts, field visits to schools offering ELO’s, and planning time for our team. I learned that:

* ELO’s must be more than extending the school days; they must combine cultural, fun and skill-based activities to reinforce school components
* ELO’s must tap into family and community resources to break down barriers to learning
* While ELO’s assist all children in learning, low-income children seem to have the highest advances

Maine is working on mapping ELO’s in the state in order to evaluate our existing structures. Then we hope to create legislation to improve student success by collaborating between ELO’s and school districts across the state.

Education Update
Yesterday in Augusta, I watched the Maine Department of Education (DOE) and other stakeholders agree to remove the barrier preventing local districts from linking student assessment data to principal and teacher evaluation systems. If you remember, I sponsored LD 1799, which allows Maine to apply for the Race to the Top Funds. On June 1st, Maine will be applying for $75-100 million.

The stakeholders approved that teachers would use at least the Charlotte Danielson model as a system for evaluating and improving teachers’ instructional performance. Principals agreed to use the Vanderbilt Assessment of Leadership in Education (VAL-ED) as a system for evaluating and improving principals’ instructional performance. Both systems will include student achievement components in their models.

The next steps are: the DOE finishes our Race to the Top application, the stakeholders regroups to work on the Danielson model and finding other models to provide options for local districts.

Question 2 – Energy Bond
 Last week, I talked about Question 1, the people’s veto of the tax reform package. The remaining questions on the June ballot are four bonds. I will address each of these over the next few weeks, starting now with Question 2.

Question 2 states:
“Do you favor a $26,500,000 bond issue that will create jobs through investment in an off-shore wind energy demonstration site and related manufacturing to advance Maine’s energy independence from imported foreign oil, that will leverage $24,500,000 in federal and other funds and for energy improvements at campuses of the University of Maine System, Maine Community College System and Maine Maritime Academy in order to make facilities more efficient and less costly to operate?”

A “Yes” vote would approve the bond, and a “No” vote would reject it. The bond would invest $34.5 million in an off-shore deepwater wind development site, with $11 million coming from the state and $24.5 coming from the federal government. In time, this investment will create 15,000 jobs and bring research and development opportunities to the state. In addition, the bond would invest $15.5 million in weatherizing state-owned higher education institutions, which will create jobs, lower costs, and save energy.

Both areas of investment create good-paying jobs in Maine and will decrease our oil-based energy consumption as we move into an oil-free future.

Click here to read more about the University of Maine System projects.

Closing
As always, I’d love to hear what you have to say. Just reply to this email and let me know what you think!

-Justin