This is in response to the Sun Journal story, “SAT scores drop” (Dec. 5).

What to do? The way student achievement is tested could be changed. That would certainly take the heat off administrators in education. But would it help young people learn?

Unfortunately, the public will never know because next year there will be no historic baseline to measure progress against and it will be five years or so before the next baseline is built — a breather for the educators.

An alternative could be to add up all the dollars spent in Maine on education and redirect 10 percent to educating the youngest children who are most eager to learn. I suspect that the University of Southern Maine and Bates College would be opposed to such a strategy and could quickly produce research to support maintaining the current cash flow.

So, the status quo will be maintained and who knows if the new baseline five years from now will show an improvement.

Jim Tierney, Auburn