We cannot improve what we refuse to acknowledge.
 

When student outcomes are disappointing, our first responsibility is not to explain them away—it is to understand them, confront them, and act. The Maine Department of Education may offer reasons why test scores do not tell the whole story. But explanations are not a strategy, and aspirations are not a plan.

Maine students deserve better than excuses and pipedreams. They deserve a clear, evidence-based roadmap to academic excellence—with measurable goals, accountable leadership, and a commitment to results.

At Maine Education Initiative, we believe the conversation must move from explaining failure to solving the problem. The question is not whether improvement is possible. The question is whether we have the courage to honestly assess where we are, establish where we need to go, and develop a plan that actually gets us there.

This op-ed I wrote for the Portland Press Herald addresses my concerns, looking at a plan going forward. Click here to read it.
 

Understanding the NAEP
 

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) gives parents, educators, policymakers, and school boards a common measuring stick to ask a fundamental question: Are our students actually learning—and are they making progress?
 

Serving as the "Nation’s Report Card" since 1969, the NAEP provides a consistent national yardstick for measuring what American students know and can do.

• Representative: It tests a carefully selected sample of students rather than every student;
• Comparable: It uses consistent assessments and procedures, allowing states to compare student performance with one another and with the nation;
• Long-term: It has measured student achievement since 1969, providing an important record of educational progress over time;
• Broad: It measures achievement in subjects including reading, mathematics, science, writing, civics, and U.S. history; and
• Objective: It reports results for groups and populations—not individual students, teachers, or schools

The regular attempts by Maine DOE Commissioner, Pender Makin, to discredit the NAEP, should not be taken seriously.                                                     

When the Maine Education Initiative launched just over two years ago, almost every call for help that we received from school board members boiled down to the same fundamental issue: “we want to make positive changes, but we don’t know what we are allowed to do.” In many districts, this lack of board confidence stemmed from decades of having authority taken from them.
 

Superintendents and other administrators had seized control over board roles and had relegated their board to rubber-stamp status. In other districts, board members with bold ideas for their schools were shot down by legal counsel, who told them that their common-sense measures would violate the law or asserted that their only role was to function as an “agent of the State.”
 

It has been our great privilege at MEI to educate, equip, and empower the tireless and courageous school board members across our state by, first and foremost, telling them the truth about their authority to make decisions for their districts. As we’ve emphasized time and time again, Maine law invests board members with broad powers to be the local educational leaders that their school systems need.
 

As we have connected with more board members, we’ve seen them step into their roles with confidence, passing innovative policies and taking decisive action – even when it’s unpopular – because it was the right thing to do for the students in their district. They have started to return the focus in their districts to rigorous academics; they’re cutting the fat from their programs and their budgets; and they’re passing policies to ensure transparency and measure what really matters – core academic competencies.
 

We’ve seen the headlines, and we all know that education in Maine has a long way to go. But true leaders don’t wait around for someone else to solve the tough problems; they start making change now, wherever they can. This is what the board members that we serve have been doing. While the State fails our schools, local leaders have started to step up in incredible ways. The trajectory of Maine’s education system is shifting for the better, from the ground up. We’ve seen it firsthand, and we are just getting started. We’re grateful to be on this journey with you.

To Protect Girls Sports

Dear Friend,
I'm calling on you today to take immediate action.

Secretary of State Shenna Bellows has released the proposed language for the Protect Girls Sports ballot question—but instead of presenting a clear, fair, and accurate summary, her wording is misleading and politically charged.

Here is what she devised:

“Do you want to change civil rights and education laws to require public schools to restrict access to bathrooms and sports based on the gender on the child’s original birth certificate and allow students to sue the schools?”

Maine law is clear: the Secretary of State must write ballot questions in a clear, concise, and neutral manner. This proposal does the opposite.

• It falsely claims the measure would change civil rights laws—it does not.
• It introduces the term “gender,” which does not appear in the proposal.
• It incorrectly states that only bathrooms are affected when the law covers all private spaces.
• It adds inflammatory and false language about lawsuits that is not central to the policy itself.

Now compare that to the straightforward, accurate language we've developed that reflects the actual policy:

“Do you want to define sports participation and access to private facilities in schools by biological sex as recorded on a student’s original birth certificate?”

This distinction matters.

Nearly 4-in-5 Mainers support protecting girls’ sports. Misleading ballot language is a deliberate attempt to manipulate and undermine that support before voters even have their say.

We need your help to push back.

We must flood the Secretary of State’s office with public comments demanding fair and unbiased language. If more Mainers speak out against this proposal than in favor, we create real pressure for her to change it—and if she refuses, it strengthens the case for a legal challenge.

Your voice can make the difference.

Click here to stand up to Maine’s Secretary of State and demand that she go back to the drawing board on the Protect Girls Sports referendum language. 

Take action now to ensure Maine voters get a fair, honest question on the ballot this November.
Thank you for standing with us on this important issue.
 

Sincerely,

Heidi Sampson

Executive Director 

Maine Education Initiative 

contact@mainepolicy.org