High schools in Fairfield, Madison and Newport are now eligible for up to $4 million in federal funding to raise academic achievement after they were named Tuesday to a list of Maine’s persistently low-achieving schools.

Lawrence High School in Fairfield, Madison Area Memorial High School, and Nokomis Regional High School in Newport are among the 10 high schools across the state that made the list due to low scores, and slow growth, over the last three years on standardized reading and math tests, according to the Maine Department of Education.

“We are not huge fans of the way this list is developed, but it does allow us to provide some resources for meaningful school reform to those schools on the list that are interested in taking advantage of it,” Education Commissioner Stephen Bowen said Tuesday in a statement.

The schools are not the lowest-performing in the state, emphasized David Connerty-Marin, a spokesman for the education department. Following federal guidelines, the department ranked the averages of schools’ reading and math SAT scores over the 2007-08, 2008-09 and 2009-10 school years. Maine high school juniors take the exam as required under the federal No Child Left Behind law.

Schools on the low-performer list are either eligible for or receive Title I funds, which are directed toward low-income students.

Dean Baker, superintendent of Fairfield-based Regional School Unit 49, said he does not blame the tests or the students for low scores on the SATs, adding that Lawrence High School Principal Pamela Swett is a strong instructional leader.

“We accept that we have to change the level of student achievement and we need to improve the trend. I think this gives us an opportunity to focus on student achievement. I believe in our ability to produce improvement,” Baker said.

Lawrence High School Principal Pamela Swett said she is not happy with the test results.

“We’re going to make a very strong effort to focus on student achievement,” she said. “We’ve taken responsibility and we are going to move forward for our students.”

The school has an enrollment of about 750 students from Albion, Benton, Clinton and Fairfield.

This is the second year that the Madison high school, in School Administrative District 59, has been named to the low-performer list. The school has about 300 students from Madison, Athens, Starks and Brighton Plantation.

The school board voted last year, by a slim margin, to not apply for the federal funding to develop plans to improve student achievement. Troy Emery, board chairman from Madison, said he’s still not interested.

“We’ve made a lot of changes at the high school, and it takes more than half a year for those to work through,” he said. “People think you take grant money and you throw it on top of a problem and it’s instantly fixed, and that’s not the case … If you take that money, I believe you’re going to lose a lot of control.”

Elaine Wilder, a Madison school board member, said the school has been working to improve since the announcement last year. “We’ll continue to work on it because that is not a status that we want to have, for our kids or for our school. It is not acceptable. We will keep addressing it until we get it corrected,” she said.

Superintendent Lyford Beverage was not immediately available Tuesday. Phone calls to high school principal Steve Ouellette were not returned. He started work this fall, replacing longtime principal Colin Campbell.

For Nokomis Regional High School, which serves about 720 students, it’s the first time the Newport school has been named to the low-performer list, according to Superintendent William Braun.

Nokomis suffered from its low scores in reading and math, but it was mainly the reading scores that were the problem, Braun said.

He said the district, Regional School Unit 19, has been targeting math improvement recently by developing a new plan this year. “It’s on its way up,” Braun said.

Reading scores, however, have been “in the pits,” he said, with improvement not keeping pace with state expectations and dropping altogether during one of the three years that are measured. School officials are already taking several steps to address the problem, such as hiring a company to conduct a reassessment of reading programs, plus two-and-a-half days of teacher “in service” workshops on literacy curriculum and reading scores, Braun said.

“We recognize we have had a reading issue, we had some dismal scores,” he said. “So, it (the list) is not a complete surprise to us. But we’re a little ahead of the curve and already are taking some action.”

Braun isn’t optimistic the school will receive money it’s now eligible for, since Nokomis was listed in the second tier of schools in line for funding. But the school will still apply for it, looking to hire more reading specialists, Braun said.

In order to accept the federal money, the 10 schools on the list must choose from four turnaround plans laid out by the Obama administration:

* replace the principal, dismiss the teachers and rehire no more than half of them;

* convert a public school to a charter school;

* close a school and send its students to other district schools; or

* replace the principal, change the way material is taught and increase the amount of time students spend in class.

“What’s important is not how schools get on the list, or whether the list even makes sense,” Bowen said. “What’s important is the opportunity that is created by the list for some significant influx of funds to the school for professional development, after-school programming, and other work targeted at raising achievement.”

Carrabec High School, in Anson-based SAD 74, made the low-achieving list last year and agreed to the fourth option to replace the principal and restructure classroom time. It was off the low-achiever list this year.

Several of the improvement options may not be viable for Maine schools. Charter schools are not allowed under Maine law, and it may be impractical for districts to close a school if there are no other nearby schools for students to attend. Dismissing teachers could risk violating collective-bargaining agreements and labor laws.

Six of the 10 schools named last year applied for a piece of the $13 million then available and received funds. Because of the reduced funds this year, it’s likely not all schools will receive funding, according to the education department. Priority will go to schools that receive Title I funding.

The high schools in Madison, Fairfield and Newport are eligible for the Title I funding but use it at other district schools.

Staff Writers Doug Harlow and Scott Monroe contributed to this report.