Maine Schools

    In the 2005-06 school year, Maine jumped six spots from last year’s “Education State Rankings” from eleventh to sixth in the nation for student achievement, personal attention from teachers, and positive outcomes from changes made the year before. Part of this comes from Maine’s small student to teacher ratio. In the past five years, Maine’s public and private school enrollment has dropped by more than 10%, leaving a student-teacher ratio of less than 12 to 1. Maine anticipates the drop in enrollment will continue, through 2010.

In 2005-06 Maine spent almost $2 billion on K-12 education. The state’s budget doesn’t seem to be going down even though enrollment is. In the past 10 reported years, spending per student has risen almost $3000 per student.

As part of the 2001 No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) reporting, Maine has been doing very well. In the 2005-06 school year, every Maine school tested met the threshold for participation, with 99.5% of tested grades (fourth, eighth, and eleventh) taking the test. Of the 706 tested public schools that reported to the Maine Department of Education, 489 have met the NCLB AYP for 2005. Half of the schools that had been marked for improvement in the 2004-05 school year made improvement in the 2005-06 testing. As part of NCLB, if a student is attending a school that has been marked for academic improvement two years in a row, the student can be transferred to a school in the district (or a nearby district) that has met requirements.

For more information on your school’s AYP performance, visit Maine’s Department of Education website at http://www.maine.gov/education.