Education Commissioner Susan Gendron is recommending the Legislature permanently scrap a requirement that local school systems develop their own assessments to measure whether students are mastering all the subjects they need to graduate, so teachers can spend their time teaching not testing.

“There was a feeling by many educators throughout the state that there was an overemphasis on assessment,” Genrdon said, and not enough focus on teaching and learning in the classroom.

The Legislature last session put a moratorium on the local assessment system requirement and now Gendron would like to see it repealed all together. Instead schools can use tests already being given statewide under the federal No Child Left Behind Act to see if kids are making annual progress.

“I think the local assessment system as it was designed… was not a workable plan,” said Assistant Superintendent Phil Blood of SAD 6, which includes Standish.

“The issue of students taking common assessments is a really important issue,” said Blood.” All kids taking algebra should have a common assessment, or all kids taking science should have a common assessment” Blood said this would ensure that all students in Maine are getting the same curriculum.

“One thing I’ve learned is that things don’t always end up the way they start,” said Chris Howell, director of curriculum and instruction for the Windham school department.

Howell said Gendron’s recommendations may be mutated by the legislature and he will have to wait and see before solidifying an opinion.

Howell said he likes the idea of teachers being able to compare their students’ scores with one another and discuss which teaching approaches are more successful than others.

“The only reason we were doing it was to please the state,” said Howell in regard to the schools individually developed assessments.

However, that wouldn’t necessarily mean teachers wouldn’t continue to use some assessment tools, said Susan Card, co-director of the Maine Assessment Cooperative, an association of educators from across the state working to develop local assessments.

“The repeal of the formal local assessment system won’t result in people abandoning what assessment parts they think is successful,” said Card, a former classroom teacher who lives in Casco.

“There still will be quick little quizzes,” Gendron said, and other tests to see if students are keeping up with their work, but she wants to get rid of the laborious requirement that every local school system has to create its own comprehensive testing system.

That testing system was a companion to the state’s adoption of the so-called Learning Results, which outline what students are supposed to know at various grade levels in content areas like math, science, reading, writing and social studies.

While the local assessments were supposed to give local school districts more autonomy, creating and administering the tests overwhelmed educators, Gendron said.

“We tried to design a system that was unrealistic,” Gendron said. “Assessments were layered on top of what teachers were doing in the classroom.”

Gendron bolstered her case for ending the local assessment system with an $80,000 outside study that recommended Maine reduce its focus on testing and instead better train teachers.

If the Legislature agrees to scrap the local testing requirement, Gendron said the state will work with local school systems to establish achievement targets for each school based on the results of statewide tests already given in grades three through eight and grade 11 to comply with No Child Left Behind.

If the school doesn’t meet that achievement target, the department will provide technical assistance to help improve the school, Gendron said.

There also will be more focus on teacher training through what Gendron called “learning communities” or regional collaboratives that she said should be established regardless of what happens to Gov. John Baldacci’s plan to consolidate the existing 290 school districts into 26.

Gendron also is proposing that graduation requirements be more closely tied to the state’s Learning Results, and that all students graduate prepared to meet the admission requirements at Maine’s community colleges or state universities.

“Every student and parent – and every college and university admission officer – must be confident that a Maine high school diploma means the same thing,” Gendron said. “It’s not fair for our students to graduate high school, and then find out they can’t get into college, or can’t succeed in college, because they have not had the right preparation.”

Staff Writer Michael Hartwell contributed to this story.