Education commissioner outlines goals

By Stephen Bowen
    Our announcement earlier this month that we plan to take our time to craft an accountability and improvement system that works for our students, teachers and schools is good news.
    Yes, it means the unfair and unrealistic system we have under No Child Left Behind will stick around for another year. But the constantly moving test proficiency targets will at least stand still.
    More importantly, after that one remaining year, Maine will remove itself entirely from the paradigm of the No Child Left Behind Act that we’ve struggled with for a decade. This is an opportunity to take stock of the priorities we share to move to an education system that’s designed around and responsive to student needs, and to craft an accountability and improvement system accordingly. We want a system that’s fair and constructive, that supports — rather than stigmatizes — schools when they’re in need of improvement.
    We’re not going to get there, however, without you. The success of Maine’s new accountability and improvement system depends on involvement from teachers and administrators, school board members, students, parents, community members and others. What we heard loud and clear in December at community forums, during dinners with students, in online discussions, and from more than 1,500 survey responses was that you don’t want us simply to tinker or propose patchwork fixes to a broken system. So please lend your voice to this important process. Visit the Maine DOE’s accountability and improvement web page to find out how you can get involved.
    In Maine, we’ll take the time we need to devise an accountability and improvement system that is flexible and that works for our schools.
    Stephen Bowen is the Maine Commissioner of Education.