No matter how anyone wants to spin it, this was not good news:

When Education Week magazine issued its Quality Counts survey results last week, Maine had dropped six places to finish 27th out of the 50 states and Washington, D.C.

The report comes with plenty of caveats. It ranks the states in their compliance with national education reform standards, which may not be applicable here. In fact, Maine students continued to rank in the upper tier in terms of achievement, and did well on providing transitions between pre-kindergarten, school and the workplace.

But when it came to policies around academic standards and monitoring teacher performance, Maine ranked near the bottom. Only two states, Montana and Nebraska, finished lower.

For a state that was once considered a leader in setting standards, and that has invested millions of dollars developing and implementing them, this was a bitter pill. We should have much more to show for our investment than a 49th out of 51 ranking.

Maine’s Learning Results do not set standards by grade level, instead setting them for groups of grades. It lost points for that, and it lost points for programs to develop new teachers and hold them responsible for their performance.

Many other states also passed us by formally training administrators to evaluate the teachers that work for them.

Perhaps most disturbing is the fact that Maine received about the same raw score in 2010, but dropped six spots in the rankings.

That means that while other states, some with far more serious budget problems than ours, were taking strides to improve, Maine was standing still.

With a new administration in the Blaine House and the office of commissioner of education still empty, it will be some time before new programs are put in place. It would be a mistake, however, to wait too long for plans to be implemented.

If nothing else, this report shows that other states will not stand still and wait for Maine to get its act together.