Bill would allow schools to opt out of Common Core

By Mike Lange
Staff Writer

    AUGUSTA — Several educators and parents have thrown their support behind House Majority Leader Jeff McCabe’s bill to help public schools opt out of Common Core standards and related assessment tests.
    A public hearing on LD 1153, “An Act to Restore Local Control of Education to Towns,” was held on April 22 before the Education and Cultural Affairs Committee and a work session on the bill is scheduled for Wednesday, April 29 at 1 p.m.

    The bill, if passed, would also allow school districts to develop their own evaluation systems for educators and establish a method of transferring funds to a public charter school that uses an alternative method of assessing students.
    “A one-size-fits-all approach isn’t ever going to be the answer in education,” McCabe (D-Skowhegan) said in a prepared statement.  “All this time spent preparing students for standardized tests come at a cost. Teachers are missing out on opportunities to connect with kids and build on their unique needs and strengths.”
    Rep. Paul Stearns (R-Guilford) also serves on the Education and Cultural Affairs Committee and said that several provisions in McCabe’s bill “are reflective of frustrations in the field of education.”
    But Stearns said that charter school funding has already been addressed in another bill – LD 131. “This year, if a student attended a charter school, the bill for that student was paid directly by the system in which the student resides,” Stearns said. “Local residents had no say in any of the costs, including special education. If LD 131 makes it through final passage, these charter schools will be funded directly by the state.”
    Stearns said that the current cost for the 671 charter school students, including teachers and 19 administrators, (17.5 full-time equivalents) “is in the $7 million range and will increase substantially in the next few years.”
    One parent who testified in favor of LD 1153, Bear Parker, has three children attending schools in RSU 18, the China and Messalonskee district. “Learning is about inspiration and creativity, which helps a child embrace school and become passionate about what is being taught,” Parker testified. “If you take away a teacher’s ability to teach freely, you are taking away a child’s ability to learn. Our schools have been reduced to mere test prep factories and we are too often ignoring student learning and opportunity.”
    Stearns, a retired school superintendent, said that “teachers, administrators and school board members are battle-weary from the number and frequency of major changes and new initiatives that are thrown at them.”
    But he added that education standards have been the norm since the 1980s.
    Stearns said, however, that he will be surprised if LD 1153 passes “both the House and Senate and then survives the veto pen of the governor.  This does not mean that other steps might not be taken to improve some of these issues.”