AUGUSTA -- Maine will collaborate with New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont to redefine the concept of high school, while sharing ideas for boosting high school graduation rates and enrolling more students in college.

A $1 million grant from the Nellie Mae Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will bankroll the effort.

Education Commissioner Susan Gendron and Gov. John Baldacci said the grant will help high schools prepare students for technology-heavy 21st-century jobs.

"Our work force needs to have the skills and knowledge base to compete globally," Baldacci said Monday at a Statehouse news conference as Rhode Island and Vermont staged similar events.

Under the program, the four states, as part of the New England Secondary School Consortium, will review education policies, graduation requirements and programs already in place throughout the region.

"We don't want to reinvent the wheel," Gendron said. "We want to learn from one another."

Maine, for example, could examine Rhode Island's portfolio system for awarding high school diplomas. In that system, students assemble work they have done over their school years to demonstrate they're ready to graduate.

"I'm not sure we'll go there in Maine," Gendron said in an interview.

Likewise, Gendron said, education officials in New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont could look to Maine for guidance on graduation requirements. A task force of teachers, administrators and school board members recently issued recommendations to Gendron that, if implemented, would allow students a number of ways to earn a diploma.

"We will be sharing that work," Gendron said. "We will collect data and information. And it may help to inform the work of other states."

And what Maine learns from its regional partners could alter graduation requirements the state ultimately puts into effect.

"We'll learn, do we need to realign or tweak our policies?" Gendron said.

Driving the collaboration is education officials' core belief that the traditional high school model is insufficient for a changed world.

"The high school experience has to go beyond high school walls," said James Morse, superintendent of Oakland-based School Administrative District 47. "We have to do it better, we have to do it wise, we have to do it more efficiently."

Morse, whose district was one of two from central Maine spotlighted at Monday's announcement, touted progress in SAD 47 for allowing students to earn college credit during high school.

In addition, SAD 47 -- which covers Oakland, Sidney, Belgrade and Rome -- will soon pilot Virtual High School, a program of Internet-based classes.

Students can learn in new, nontraditional ways by using technology, Gendron said, and schools need to respond more aggressively to that reality.

And the four states can find economic efficiencies by collaborating, Gendron said.

"In many instances, we're already duplicating the same work," she said.

The Great Schools Partnership, based at the Mitchell Institute at the University of Southern Maine, will coordinate the effort.

"When these states and their representatives get together, they share a tremendous amount of ideas ... and wisdom," said Mark Kostin, a Great Schools Partnership senior associate.

The initiative comes on the heels of Maine's announcement Friday that it will drop the Maine Educational Assessment in favor of a regional standardized test with the same three states.

Matthew Stone -- 623-3811, ext. 435

mstone@centralmaine.com