News Briefs
Maine education officials say that two-thirds of the school reorganization plans up for approval this week have been approved.
November 10, 2008
Maine plans to eliminate 5th and 8th grade writing tests in March, and the state is considering joining a multistate consortium to save money on tests.
October 28, 2008
A battle under way in the Maine legislature could undermine the hard-won victory last year—led by Democratic Gov. John E. Baldacci—to consolidate the state’s hundreds of school districts and local school boards.
April 15, 2008
After a year in which a push by Gov. Baldacci to reorganize the education bureaucracy dominated public debate, he used much of his State of the State address to highlight issues such as prison reform and the economy.
January 15, 2008
Legislators approved a new law that calls for paring the state’s 290 school districts down to about 80 through mergers and consolidations.
July 17, 2007
Maine might become the first state to require students to make postsecondary plans before they can receive a high school diploma.
May 22, 2007
A multistate effort to draw nontraditional students into Advanced Placement starts to pay off.
May 8, 2007
Researchers are divided on whether streamlining results in cost-efficiency.
March 27, 2007
Critics fear the proposal would sweep aside local control, cost hundreds of administrators their jobs, and force school closures.
February 13, 2007
Gov. John E. Baldacci's proposal would eliminate hundreds of locally elected school boards and scores of superintendents and replace them with 26 regional boards and schools chiefs.
January 11, 2007
The U.S. Supreme Court last week rebuffed an appeal by eight Maine families who contend that their state has wrongly refused to pay their children’s tuition at religious high schools because the state only provides such benefits for certain students enrolled in nonreligious private schools.
December 5, 2006
Voters in some states didn't show a lot of generosity toward schools as they voted down measures that would have provided more funding for education in Idaho, Michigan, Nebraska, and Ohio. But proposals in three states that had the potential to restrict spending on schools-the idea known as a Taxpayer's Bill of Rights-were rejected, early returns showed.
November 8, 2006
Whether high school students take college-admissions tests used to be an individual decision. But a growing number of states are requiring that step and even making the exams a core part of their own testing systems.
September 12, 2006
Worried about the possible shrinkage of their educated workforces in coming decades, the New England states have joined together on a new initiative aimed at preparing more students to tackle college.
May 2, 2006
Instead of passing a state-developed test in order to graduate, high school students in Maine might soon have to take the newly revamped SAT.
September 13, 2005
Updated: January 30, 2007
