BRUNSWICK

The Maine Department of Education is pressuring the Brunswick School District to greatly improve student participation in the Maine Educational Assessment standardized test — threatening, among other things, to withhold Title I funding if they cannot curtail the opt-out rates.

The state could also increase monitoring by MDOE and change the school district’s rating within the state.

At a recent school board meeting, Assistant Superintendent Pender Makin said the tests are designed to inform the state how districts stack up against one another — a far cry from a presentation earlier in the meeting by Brunswick principals highlighting Response To Intervention models.

RTI is used in classrooms to give a snapshot of how students are learning in the moment and how to improve the learning and teaching strategies for individual classrooms as well as individual students.

Makin said that as of now, the U.S. Department of Education has voiced its disappointment regarding Maine’s turnout for the Smarter Balanced Assessment last year, saying that 95 percent of all students are required to engage in the standardized test.

The state has since switched to a new company, Measured Progress, to implement the test.

According to Superintendent Paul Perzanoski, only about 60 percent of high schoolers in Maine participated in the test. He said grades three through eight statewide were close to the requirement, however, he didn’t think Brunswick was in that ballpark.

Without the targeted participation, the federal government can withhold funding to the state which can, in turn, withhold from districts that failed to meet requirements.

Perzanoski said the funding referred to only reflects Title I and II funding — still a substantial number since it would affect about $500,000 to Brunswick.

“Our building leaders are in the uncomfortable position of really having to strongly urge our families to encourage their children to engage in this process because it is, ultimately, it’s a funding engine for public education to continue,” Makin said.

The question still remains as to why so many families are opting out of the standardized test. A letter Perzanoski sent to parents, community members and Brunswick School Department staff hints at the required time students — young students particularly — must invest in the test itself.

When combining the times of different test sections, children in grades three through eight are close to six hours of testing.

In contrast, Perzanoski said that the grade 11 SAT total testing time with all sections is only three hours and 50 minutes.

The alternate MEA Science for grades five, eight and 11 is another one-hour and 45 minutes to two hours.

School Board member Joy Prescott said that not only did it not make sense to her that the Smarter Balanced test be replaced by Measured Progress that takes the same amount of time to complete, but she also pointed out the week of instructional time ahead of testing to prepare students for the test.

“One of the major issues brought forward to the Assessment Task Force designated by the Legislature was a need to decrease the time spent on the state assessments. I’m not sure that the goal was significantly accomplished,”

Perzanoski wrote.

Between March 21 and April 15, Perzanoski said computer labs and certain rooms in the schools will not be available during testing. He said that the district is caught between a rock and a hard place. But, he added, “our apathy will only prolong our agony.”

In the meantime, Perzanoski said he strongly encourages people to contact their legislators to voice their concerns over the constraints and consequences of the current MEA mandates.

dmcintire@timesrecord.com