Maine's Model of School Support

Maine’s Model of School Support is an accountability system that measures the progress of Maine’s public schools to inform schools, the state, and the federal government on how Maine schools are performing and determine where additional support is needed throughout Maine to help improve student achievement.

School progress is measured through key areas of school and student success, called "indicators." They are based on data collected from schools annually:

• Chronic Absenteeism (K-12): Students absent for 10% or more of the days enrolled, excused and unexcused.
• Academic Achievement Mathematics (Grades 3-8; One Year of High School): Students’ state assessment performance in math compared to state expectations.
• Academic Achievement English Language Arts (Grades 3-8; One Year of High School): Students’ state assessment performance in ELA compared to state expectations.
• Progress in English Language Proficiency (K-12): English learners’ progress toward meeting their annual growth goals.
• Graduation Rate (Grades 9-12): High school students graduating with a high school diploma in four, five or six years. 
• Academic Progress Mathematics (Grades 3-8): Comparison of students’ state assessment performance in math from Fall to Spring for MTYA and Spring to Spring for MSAA.
• Academic Progress English Language Arts (Grades 3-8): Comparison of students’ state assessment performance in ELA from Fall to Spring for MTYA and Spring to Spring for MSAA.

 

Graduation Rate (high schools): Students achieving a diploma 

Eligible individual student populations (where there are ten or more students of a specific student population) are also measured to identify where targeted support is needed. Student populations include economically disadvantaged, students with disabilities, Multilingual learners, and students who are white, black, Asian, Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander, Native American, Hispanic, or two or more races.

To determine each school’s performance on the indicators listed above, Maine uses data collected from public schools on an annual basis to provide each school with a performance rating on each applicable indicator.  

Performance on each of the indicators is reported on a range of four levels:

• Emerging: All eligible student groups have not met state expectations.
• Developing: At least one student groups have not met state expectations.
• Meeting: All eligible student groups have met or exceeded state expectations.
• Excelling: All eligible student groups have exceeded the state expectations.

Annually, the State issues each public school with a Report Card, which provides a summary of the applicable school accountability metrics, in addition to other available data about the school. This system of collection, reporting, and support works to inform both state and local decision-makers of the greatest needs that exist within our schools and our state.