Maine's schools have lower than expected grades according to the recent Leaders and Laggards report of the American Enterprise Association and the Center for American Progress.

Maine did well in the categories of preparing students for college and how it hired its teachers. The state received a C for how it set up school financing and removing ineffective teachers and was ranked seventh from the bottom—in spite of its groundbreaking one-to-one laptop program—in education reform. Surprisingly, it also got a D in the categories for school management, data, and technology by the report's authors, who faulted the state on insufficient research on the impact of the one-to-one program. Maine's state education officials are quick to point out that the Maine Education Policy Research Institute has found that student writing has improved as a result of the laptop program, as has student ability to retain information from science lessons. Clearly, however, the authors of Leaders and Laggards felt that the research was insufficient as a justification for the statewide program.

Although created by two organizations at opposite ends of the political spectrum (the left-leaning Center for American Progress and the right-leaning American Enterprise Association), the report clearly is based on certain assumptions about school excellence that are not shared by everybody. For example, Maine's law against public charter schools and its refusal to connect teacher pay to student performance—both controversial topics in a number of places—were two factors in the low ratings received by the state.

At least one critic interprets the report as a call to give building and district leaders more freedom to make their own decisions. "Let's liberate these teachers and building principals," says Steve Bowen of the conservative Maine Heritage Policy Center. "Let them do what we hired them to do."

The Leaders and Laggards report evaluates all the states in terms of their education progress. The report was released just prior to the start of the federal government's competitive $4.3 billion Race to the Top stimulus money for the states. Maine has chosen to not compete for this money in the first round, but will wait for the later round.

Source: Maine Faulted For Lacking Education Innovations by Matthew Stone, Kennebec Journal, and Leaders and Laggards: A State Report Card on Educational Innovation.