AUGUSTA -- Maine will eliminate fifth- and eighth-grade standardized writing tests in March, and the state may join a multistate testing program this fall in an effort to cut costs, Department of Education officials said Tuesday.

If Maine decides to join the New England Common Assessment Program, the state could save up to $2 million each year, Department of Education spokesman David Connerty-Marin said. Maine would join New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont in using the regional test.

Canceling the March tests would save between $120,000 and $140,000, he said.

The department's announcement came a week after Education Commissioner Susan Gendron warned school superintendents that the state could freeze or cut subsidies to local school districts in the next budget

"We are looking for savings that will have the least impact on the classroom," Connerty-Marin said. "Here's a case where we can consolidate one of our functions by sharing with other states."

Joining the regional test collaborative might save the state enough money to allow it to keep school subsidies at the current $986 million level rather than cut local allocations, he said.

"This is one of the things that's helping us get to a freeze as opposed to a reduction," Connerty-Marin said.

By using the New England Common Assessment Program, Maine would avoid the costs of individually contracting with a service to create and print tests.

Department of Education officials will decide by the end of 2008 whether they will use the regional standardized exam, Connerty-Marin said. Maine would continue to use the SAT to test the state's high school students.

The state would eliminate only March's fifth- and eighth-grade writing tests, Connerty-Marin said. The annual writing test would return in the fall, when schools would administer the New England regional test.

"If we're going to move to a new writing assessment in the fall -- six months later -- then we can do without that one for the spring," Connerty-Marin said.

The writing test is the most costly of those administered by the state's schools because specialists individually score the exams, Connerty-Marin said.

"The other tests you run through a computer and they spit out the answer," he said. By contrast, the writing test is "a labor-intensive and expensive test to review," he said.

After scoring last year's eighth-grade writing test, state education officials decided to invalidate the results because more than 75 percent of students failed. But Connerty-Marin said the decision to drop the March writing test was not related to the 2007-08 testing troubles.

Maranacook Community Middle School Principal Mary Callan said the Maine Educational Assessment has become less reliable in recent years in helping school officials track student progress from year to year. The move to cancel March's writing test, coupled with last year's invalid results, is the latest example of an unreliable exam, she said.

"We've been concerned about the inconsistencies in the writing," Callan said.

In Augusta, Curriculum Coordinator Tina Meserve said the school department will still test students' writing prowess.

But without the March test, she said, the district will have no way to compare its students' performance with other districts'.

"It will be an internal assessment that we do feel aligns quite well," Meserve said. "It's just nice to get that data that says you're on the right track."

Matthew Stone -- 623-3811, Ext. 435

mstone@centralmaine.com