A strong foundation is in place for Maine’s next education commissioner | Pender Makin

Pender Makin is commissioner of the Maine Department of Education.

Today, the Maine Department of Education is sharing new data showing that Maine students are improving in math and reading.

At the beginning and end of each school year, every Maine student in grades 3 through 8 and all high school sophomores take an exam called the Maine Through Year Assessment. While Maine gives the assessment its own name, versions of the test are used by schools across the country, providing us with meaningful national comparisons.

Results from the last school year show that Maine students performed at or above national achievement norms in both reading and math. In fact, scores have increased steadily since the spring of 2023, demonstrating meaningful progress in recovering lost ground from the pandemic.

If you’ve read news coverage about Maine student performance, you’re probably wondering how to reconcile this new data with widely covered numbers from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) released last year. Those projections continued a disappointing trend of poor results in reading and math.

Both of these assessments provide insight about student performance. But they measure student progress very differently.

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NAEP offers a periodic snapshot based on a sample of approximately 1,700 Maine students selected to represent students statewide. Rather than simply averaging test scores, NAEP uses a series of statistical adjustments and estimates to project a statewide score estimate.

By comparison, the Through Year Assessment measures more than 85,000 students twice each year, providing a more complete picture of student performance and progress. Its results show Maine students performing at or above national norms and making steady gains over the last few years.

The differences between these two assessments are precisely why it is important to look at the full range of evidence.

Taken together, the Through Year Assessment and NAEP scores — along with indicators such as graduation rates, career and technical education participation and early college enrollment — provide an encouraging picture of how Maine students are performing and how well prepared they are for college and careers:

1. Maine’s four-year graduation rate has increased in recent years, reaching a record high in the 2024–2025 school year and exceeding the national average.
2. Public school students from Sanford to the St. John Valley are preparing for rewarding careers in the trades, with enrollment in career and technical education programs increasing by more than 20% since 2019.
3. Schools in 13 of Maine’s 16 counties now offer extended learning opportunities, allowing students to explore potential careers and establish meaningful connections with local employers as part of their regular school day.
4. Our state is closer to providing universal public pre-K, with more than 90% of districts now offering public pre-K as an option for their communities. Research overwhelmingly shows that these programs prepare children to succeed in school.
5. Since 2019, the number of Maine students who graduate fluent in at least one other language has nearly doubled.
6. More than 10,000 high school students earned college credits in the past year through Maine’s state-funded early college program, which is among the most generous in the nation.
7. The most recent administration of the Maine Integrated Youth Health Survey indicated improvements in key areas, including lower rates of suicide attempts and substance use among students and fewer bullying incidents at school.

At Gov. Mills’ direction, the Maine Department of Education launched a comprehensive initiative last year to strengthen math and reading instruction and ensure that Maine students develop the literacy and numeracy skills they need to succeed in today’s economy. That initiative builds on the Mills administration’s efforts to support conditions that foster student success: safer and healthier schools, universal free school meals, high-quality instructional materials, stronger literacy instruction, expanded career and technical education, early college opportunities and proven student support programs.

These investments and initiatives are helping students to develop skills that will always be in demand, regardless of technological advances: creativity, complex reasoning, relationship-building and ethical decision-making.

There’s more work to do, and there always will be, but I am confident that we have built a strong foundation for the next governor and the next commissioner of education — in partnership with parents, communities and local school boards — to build upon. That foundation — grounded in high standards, innovation, evidence-based instruction and a relentless focus on student success — will help ensure that Maine students are prepared for bright futures.

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