In an interview for the Republican Vision Series, gubernatorial candidate James Libby connected low expectations with low test scores in Maine. His critique included a comparison to Massachusetts, a state that had increased there minimum requirements for graduation and then saw a marked improvement in test scores and overall ranking among the other states.
Currently, for a student to graduate from a Maine high school, the state requires that they have, at a minimum, 4 credits* of English, 2 credits of Mathematics, 2 credits of Science, 2 credits of Social Studies/History/Personal Finance, and 1 credit of Fine Arts; which includes art, music, forensics or drama classes. (Maine DoE Diploma Requirements) While Maine’s English credit requirements are in-line with many other states, Maine’s Social Studies, Math and Science requirements are not.
Of those 4 other New England States included in the analysis released by the Education Commission of the States, only Maine requires just two credits each in Math, Social Studies and Science. Massachusetts and Rhode Island both require 4 credits of Math and 3 credits each of Science and Social Studies. While Maine & New Hampshire students both only need 2 science credits to graduate, New Hampshire require 4 math credits and 2.5 social studies credits.
Connecticut also has a much higher credit requirement for graduation but defines there courses differently than other states. Instead of the standard English/Language Arts, Mathematics, Social Studies and Science, Connecticut requires 9 credits in Science/Technology/Engineering and Math and 9 credits in Humanities. Of the 5 New England states included in the analysis, only Maine requires a Fine Arts credit and only Maine has no Physical Education & Health credits requirement.
In addition to the Physical Education & Health Education credit requirements, both Connecticut and Massachusetts require 1 and 2 credits respectively in Languages. Rhode Island requires a credit in Computer Science and New Hampshire requires one in Digital Literacy. New Hampshire also requires 6 additional elective credits, while Massachusetts requires 5 elective credits
Similarly to Maine’s requirements, Alaska, Delaware, Nevada, Illinois and California also only require 2 Science credits for graduation. Additionally, California requires only 2 credits of Math and Illinois requires only 2 credits of Social Studies. Only Maine and Montana require just 2 credits each in Math, Social Studies and Science.
However, even among those 6 states most similar to Maine, all of them have additional credit requirements that Maine does not have. Alaska, California, Delaware and 33 other states, have a Physical Education & Health credit requirement while Montana has a similar Health Education requirement. California and Illinois both have a “Languages, Fine Arts or CTE” credit requirement and Delaware requires 2 Language credits.
Maine having the additional Fine Arts credit requirement puts Nebraska as the only state with fewer subject matter requirements than Maine. However, at 11 credits, no other state requires fewer credits to graduate high school than Maine does.
Maine state law permits each district to include additional credit requirements for graduation, and many of them do. However, if the purpose of having specific requirements on the state level is to create a minimum for all students across the state, then its worth noting that no other state has set there minimum lower than Maine.
–TMP
*Maine requires, at a minimum, 4 years of English, 2 years of Social Studies/History/Personal Finance, 2 years of Math, 2 years of Science and 1 year of Fine Arts; which includes art, music, forensics, or drama. Because states use different terminology (ex: units, courses, credit hours) or use different definitions for that terminology, the Education Commission of the States, standardized all course requirements as credits for analysis & research purposes. There most recent analysis can be found HERE.