CONTACT:
TED O’MEARA
ted@cutler2010.com
207.699.4401
WATERVILLE, Maine – Saying student achievement should not be a matter of chance, Independent candidate for governor Eliot Cutler outlined a series of education reforms in a speech to the Waterville Rotary Club this noon. Cutler’s proposals include charter schools, a longer school year, rewarding teacher performance and merging the university and community college systems.
“We need to reform public education in Maine from top to bottom, so that our kids can graduate in Maine, find good-paying jobs in Maine and live in Maine,” Cutler told club members. “We need to kick open the doors, throw open the windows and welcome a fresh wind of innovation and reform. We need a No Excuses policy for education in Maine.”
Cutler offered the following reform initiatives in his speech:
- Provide developmental screening to all pre-school children and services to those who need them. He said the performance benchmark will be the number of children who are reading proficiently at the end of third grade, and that “we will cut our failure rate by more than half by the end of my first term as governor.”
- Allow public charter schools and districts, as 40 other states have done. These are free, public schools that operate substantially free of traditional collective bargaining rules but subject to a negotiated performance contract among students, parents and teachers. “Many charter schools have fostered dramatic innovations in the quality and delivery of cost effective education, and Maine can learn from these experiences,” he said.
- Create more statewide magnet schools that introduce students to the excitement of higher education and apprenticeship programs before they graduate and inspire meaningful careers. “I’ve visited with the students at the Maine School of Science and Mathematics in Limestone, an exciting learning community that is consistently rated one of the top high schools in the nation,” he said. “Let’s find the resources for magnet schools in foreign languages, agriculture, marine sciences and creative arts.”
- Reward good teacher performance with higher pay, instead of the present system in the State of Maine, where teachers get tenure after two years and lock-step salary increases for 20 years. “Teachers’ compensation is based on seniority, not performance, with no distinction permitted between those who teach effectively and those who do not,” Cutler said. “Let’s start to look at how much a student is improving each year and reward those teachers, teams and schools that are improving student progress.”
- Institute a longer school day and a longer school year. Maine is one of only 8 states in the country that still have a school year of only 175 days. “In China, the school year is 225 days, and our kids will need to compete with Chinese kids and others from around the world,” he said.
- We will recommit ourselves to a strong new partnership between our high schools, community colleges and industries to reinvigorate skills training and create a new generation of legendary Maine workers. “Maine’s skilled and dedicated workers always have been one of our greatest competitive advantages, but the average age of those in our skilled workforce is moving into the early 50s,” Cutler said.
- Make better use of technology, provide more clinical and professional training for teachers and enhance the role of our schools as community centers.
It’s time to put taxpayers, parents and teachers back in charge of education,” Cutler said. It’s time to make what’s right for kids – and not the union contract – the standard by which we judge what we do in our schools.
In terms of higher education, Cutler reiterated his call for a merger of Maine’s university and community college systems. “Let’s have one governing body and one chief executive for both systems. Let’s improve efficiency and reduce the unnecessary duplication of programs,” Cutler said. “A more centralized model will allow both community colleges and four-year university campuses to collaborate to offer sequenced, affordable programs in a variety of specialized programs. “
Cutler closed his remarks on education reform by noting that American education has long been the envy of the world, but with the rising cost of college, higher education is becoming affordable for fewer people. He said focusing on greater coordination, cooperation and operational efficiencies, Maine can begin to bend the cost curve of higher education and ensure that a quality education is within the grasp of every student.