Initiative Links Sports, Standards, Stronger Schools
Contact: Media contact: Kay Hyatt at (207) 581-2761
ORONO– A federal allocation will provide seed money for the University of Maine to shape a coaching and sports education initiative aligned with timely educational issues and the state’s learning standards. Former Maine Education Commissioner J. Duke Albanese is spearheading the effort to create research-based curriculum development and community awareness to improve the training of coaches, and identify and implement best practices for school sports programs.
“Coaching Maine Youth to Success” will seek to improve the sports experience as a means of heightening the aspirations and academic performance of student athletes and encouraging more students to participate in and benefit from the positive, lifelong benefits of sports.
Robert Cobb, dean of the College of Education and Human Development, who successfully sought the $397,400 congressionally authorized grant, is co-director of the project. The two-year grant was designated in the FY2003 U.S. Department of Education appropriation.
” The purpose of earmarks is to generate creative thinking that can be of national value,” says Cobb. “We are fortunate that Duke Albanese — a career educator with proven credibility — sees the potential of such a project and is available to direct the day-to-day activities.”
Secondary education is a statewide concern, and developing model sports programs can dovetail well with initiatives focusing on strengthening high schools, increasing the number of Maine graduates going on to and succeeding in post-secondary education, and staying in the state, Cobb and Albanese agree.
Albanese is also lending his expertise as lead policy advisor for the Great Maine Schools Project at the Senator George J. Mitchell Scholarship Research Institute in Portland. As Commissioner, he provided the leadership to land a $10 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to improve Maine’s high schools.
“Athletics are a huge part of the school experience and the community,” says Albanese. “High school climate matters, but the high school experience doesn’t work for all kids. Coaches are among the best mentors in schools and communities, and the quality of coaches as educators and role models is key to the student experience.”
Cobb and Albanese have established an ambitious timeline, beginning this fall, for developing and advancing the initiative. It targets every Maine high school and middle school offering interscholastic sports, as well as coaches and student athletes in those schools. The overall goal is to be a catalyst, leader and resource for schools and communities in developing quality interscholastic sports programs that complement high academic standards.
The initiative builds on the pioneering work of the Maine Center for Coaching Education (MCCE), located within the College, in linking interscholastic sports programs to their schools’ educational mission and the Guiding Principles of the Maine Learning Results. That program — Sports, Schools and Learning Results — was piloted at a dozen Maine high schools from 1996-99 and provided one of the first program assessment models grounded in Maine’s performance-based standards.
The new initiative will identify core principles and practices of healthy interscholastic sports programs, including the training and preparation of coaches, and the generation of a statewide conversation about the purpose and merit of interscholastic athletics, as well as problems. As envisioned, “Coaching Maine Youth to Success” will provide a working philosophical base and a mechanism for improving Maine interscholastic athletics, supporting quality coaching education and helping guide school sports programs across the nation.
A select panel of Maine citizens, with broad public input, will craft guiding principles and practices for interscholastic sports programs that, in addition to skills, teach principles of fair play, respect for rules, sportsmanship, and develop good citizenship, leadership and character.
The MCCE, directed by Keith Lancaster, works to address the decline of qualified coaches and the lack of consistent training and certification standards for the hundreds of new coaches recruited each year. The initiative will bolster and expand the MCCE’s education opportunities for coaches and athletic administrators to include parents and discussion of issues like spectator behavior and unrealistic expectations for young athletes.
The National Center for Student Aspirations and the Center for Research and Evaluation, also at UMaine, will be responsible for research and program development strategies, such as: developing surveys to gather information on the attitudes and beliefs of coaches, parents and student athletes, and certification demographics of Maine coaches; designing and implementing an experimental project measuring the effects on student aspirations for various coaching training interventions; and providing research and materials to educational and community leaders to inform development of programs, policies and curriculum to support training activities.
The initiative will seek out key statewide partners, including the Maine Principals’ Association, the Maine Interscholastic Athletic Administrators’ Association, the Maine School Superintendents’ Association and the Maine School Boards’ Association. In addition, the project will engage the Maine Department of Education, State Board of Education, and higher education institutions that have teacher and administrator preparation programs in exploring policy issues regarding certification of coaches, athletic directors and principals.
“There is no definition of what good healthy sports programs look like or what their parameters in middle schools and high schools should be,” says Albanese. “Articulating the essential qualities of interscholastic athletics that mesh with teaching and learning expectations will help steer good activities and experiences for kids.”
The core principles and practices will serve as guidelines for preventing and working out problems under a broadly agreed-upon doctrine. Acceptance and participation of schools is integral to the initiative’s success, and those that sign on will be recognized for strengthening the educational contribution of athletics, advancing school improvement and playing an important part in achieving the state’s learning and performance standards.
The Fall 2003 timeline for the project includes: development of survey instruments; design of an aspirations measurement project; establishment of the select panel; strengthening the Maine Center for Coaching Education; and development of a public communication strategy
For more information about the University of Maine Coaching and Sport Education Initiative: Coaching Maine Youth to Success, contact the co-directors:
Duke Albanese: (207) 581-3645
Robert Cobb: (207) 581-2441