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BY BETH QUIMBY
MaineToday Media, Inc. 06/02/2008

MaineToday Media, Inc.

For years, students in Pownal would scatter to a half-dozen different public and private high schools after eighth-grade graduation at Pownal Elementary School.

But after this year, that will no longer be the case. Pownal voters decided to end the town's long-standing tradition of school choice and send all of their high school students to Freeport High School.

"It makes more sense to invest in one school," said Joseph Feeney, who is both school superintendent and principal at Pownal Elementary School. In the past, the town would pay tuition to whatever public high school the student chose to attend and half that amount for students who attended a private high school.

Pownal is one of a number of communities moving to limit or end school choice. This week, the Raymond School Committee is scheduled to vote on whether to abandon school choice after capping the tuition it would pay earlier in the year. Durham residents voted in April to end school choice by locking into an exclusive contract with Freeport High School.

The trend is being fueled by falling enrollments and concerns over the cost of education. Some advocates of choice say the new school district consolidation law threatens to erode school choice further because of a loophole that will lead communities to make exclusive tuition contracts with one high school.

Those in favor of ending school choice say students will benefit educationally and residents will save tax dollars.The opponents say ending the competition that now exists among some high schools for tuition students will lead to worse schools.

Maine's school choice tradition dates to the mid-1800s, when the idea of free, public high school education began to catch on. In 1909, municipalities without a high school were required to pay the tuition for their students to attend an approved high school.

Today, about 15 percent of the state's 64,628 high school students live in communities that allow high school choice. Most school choice communities pay high schools that accept their students the standard tuition rate annually set by the Department of Education. This year, the rate was $8,039.

More high schools appear willing to take out-of-town students than a decade ago, when high school populations were on the rise. With the high school population now peaking, most high schools will face declining enrollments in the years ahead.

In order to afford current levels of programming, they will have to attract more students.

Communities that have moved away from school choice say their students have benefited from the limitation.

Acton ended school choice four years ago after several of the secondary schools attended by its high school students stopped accepting out-of-town pupils because of space concerns.

Worried their students would be locked out of other schools, voters decided to sign a long-term contract guaranteeing all of their students a spot at Sanford High School. The town still pays tuition for students who attend private schools. Today, only 11 of their 127 students attend private schools.

Acton School Superintendent Brian Beeler said Acton students are now better prepared for high school because the town's elementary curriculum has been coordinated with Sanford High School's. He said because Acton students start foreign language instruction much earlier than Sanford students, they are able to skip freshman-level foreign language instruction and move into more advanced classes.

School choice opponents also say the practice is too expensive because it keeps them from striking cost-saving deals with high schools.

The Raymond School Committee will vote Wednesday on whether to discontinue school choice and sign an exclusive contract with Windham High School to take all its students. School Committee Chairman Teresa Sadak said the town, faced with a $207,000 cut in state aid this year, can no longer afford school choice.

Windham High School charges $700 less per student than the other high schools attended by their students. With a high school population of 270, that would mean a substantial savings if they all went to Windham High School, she said.

Supporters, though, disagree with the premise abandoning school choice saves money and leads to improved student performance.

They point to a study funded by the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation, a nonprofit organization that supports school choice, which concluded test scores in Maine were highest in regions where there was competition among schools for tuition students. The study also concluded taxpayers would have to spend $900 more per student to match the performance gain that results from school choice.

There has been little other research looking at the cost-effectiveness of school choice and its impact on student performance. There are no school choice advocacy groups in Maine.

"It's an historical legacy that people have gotten used to and not given it much thought," said Stephen Bowen of the Maine Heritage Policy Center, a conservative think tank.

Bowen published a study last month that concluded the new school district consolidation law threatens the future of school choice, even though the law was designed to protect it. Bowen said a loophole appears to allow communities to use tuitioning contracts such as those adopted by Acton, Durham and Pownal.

The Department of Education officials disagree, saying the law protects school choice. Durham, Pownal and Raymond educators say they were all discussing exclusive tuition contracts long before the school district consolidation law was approved.

While some communities are giving up school choice, others are adamantly against ending school choice. A number of school districts that want to protect school choice are partnering with other school choice districts as they reorganize under the school district consolidation law.

"We have all been pretty united on this issue of school choice, " said Gregory Potter, school superintendent in School Union 133, which includes Windsor, Palermo and Somerville.

School Union 133, which sends its 270 students to 11 different high schools, is working to merge with Westport Island, Chelsea, Whitefield, Alna and Wiscasset, which has its own high school. Under the school district consolidation law, the reorganized school unit must have a high school or an iron-clad contract with a high school. Since Wiscasset does not have enough room for all of the high school students in the proposed district, the new arrangement works nicely, said Potter. Some parents and students in communities that are abandoning school choice say they do not expect any big changes. Amber Snell, who grew up and still lives in Durham, said it was sad when all of her classmates split up to go to different high schools. Now, her own children will spend their high school years with other Durham children.

"It is good for all of our students to go to the same place," she said.

In Pownal, most students attended Freeport High School even when they had a choice. Pownal Elementary School seventh-grader Joe Cushman, 13, who will be in the first class without choice, said he does not mind that voters took the decision of where to attend high school out of his hands.

"Freeport High School is pretty big but it seems like a nice school," he said.

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