A total of 39 Wiscasset High School teachers have signed a petition directed at the state legislature requesting that "the Learning Results and all attendant legislation be repealed."

The legislation was passed several years ago in an effort to set standards of learning for all schools in the state.

"We acknowledge that this legislation was enacted with the most honorable intention of improving education for all Maine students," the petition says.

"However, this program has become a disaster. The Learning Results are extremely costly to communities, are a bureaucratic morass, are destroying teacher morale, are removing local control, and are an insult to the professionalism of all teachers."

"The learning results have not improved education in Maine. The program cannot be fixed or amended without creating more problems."

Wiscasset's Tom Lafavore says, however, that doing away with the state standards will only subject the school system to the national "No Child Left Behind" standards, which are more encompassing and more involved than the state's.

Lafavore, who is principal of the Wiscasset Primary School two days a week, is also the system's Director of Curriculum Assessment and Instruction. Part of his duties as director is to help bring the school system into line with the Maine Learning Results.

"I understand the teachers' frustration," he said Tuesday. "I applaud their initiative. It's important that teachers take a stand on what they're doing in the classroom."

"But if you think the Maine Learning Results are involved, the No Child Left Behind legislation is worse. The handbook is six inches thick. I call it the No Tree Left Behind' law."

"We do need to operate on a standards-based system, however," he said. He called the Maine Learning Results program "fluid."

"We can add to it or take away as the needs arise," he said.

Regardless of what happens, he said, "I think standards are here to stay -- they're not going away."