Education Minnesota knows best(?)

The Education Minnesota teachers union's answer to rising health care costs in school districts would be a new state law (HF 517/SF 1459, passed by the Senate and pending in the House) that would require all school district employees, both union and non-union, to join a statewide insurance "pool."

The good news, according to the fiscal note prepared by the Department of Finance, is that some school districts will lower costs and improve health services. The bad news?

...other districts would likely experience increases in costs and/or poorer health care coverage. There will be a mixture of winners and losers. For districts, there will be pressure in contract negotiation to gain back coverage losses, or to access district cost savings in the form of salary or other increases.

My home school district, Wayzata, woud likely fall into the "losers" category under this legislation. Because the district saw this coming, its legislative platform includes this plank: "Continue to allow school districts to have local control and flexibility in designing health care plans that meet the needs of their employees." An optional pool would be OK, freeing districts to join or not depending on local circumstances. (I am a parent serving on Wayzata's LAC but obviously the opinions expressed here are my own.)

In related legislation, both HF 2833, the Omnibus State Government Finance Bill, and HF 4040, the Omnibus Education Finance Bill, contain language prohibiting school employees from using district funds or resources, including time, materials, equipment, facilities and communication technologies, among other resources, to advocate for electing or defeating a candidate, passing or defeating a ballot question, or passing or defeating pending legislation.

Legislative action committees of school districts have always been nonpartisan and stayed away from endorsing candidates for office, but where did the gag order on advocating for "passing or defeating pending legislation" (such as the mandatory insurance pool bills) come from?

This provision would force local school districts to defer to the teachers union's judgement on all legislation. I guess having its headquarters across the street from the Capitol isn't enough for Education Minnesota.

EDUCATION

Education Minnesota fails reality check

The million-dollar public relations campaign by the state teacher union Education Minnesota failed a reality check by Pat Kessler of WCCO-TV Channel 4 (and 100.3 KTLK-FM).

One of its TV ads features an older, white male politician (read: Republican) on the campaign trail, saying, "Minnesota schools have stood with the best for long enough. It's time to slash education spending and lower standards. Mediocrity, mediocrity, mediocrity."

Kessler responds, "In fact, Minnesota spent $6.6 billion on school last year. It will spend $6.9 billion this year...Educators complain because the state didn't keep up with inflation, they have to cut school budgets to make up the difference."

As to the inference of "mediocrity" during the Pawlenty administration, Kessler notes, "Minnesota ranks number 16 in the nation in money spent per pupil; number one in college ACT scores; and number one in high school graduation rates."

I don't expect this to show up as an example of "critical thinking" in your kid's mass communications class, but feel free to suggest it.

UPDATE: Mitch Berg of The Northern Alliance of Blogs linked to this post from Shot in the Dark, saying, "[Scholar's Notebook] is one of the better edublogs in the business, and an essential read on the subject." Thanks Mitch!

One of the commenters to Mitch's post on this topic provided a link to a related speech by Bill Gates, on February 26, 2005, to the National Education Summit on High Schools. In the speech, Gates lays out a grim picture of U.S. education relative to the rest of the world.

EDUCATION

The failed promise of small learning communities

In marked contrast to its splashy announcements of large grants (totaling $1 billion) to fund some 1500 "small learning communities" across the country, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has quietly concluded: they don't work.

"At the Gates Foundation, early grants went to utopian and communitarian movements but we moved away from that because it does not work," foundation spokesman David Ferrero said late last month. Ferrero spoke at a conference on high school reform sponsored by the Center for Education at the National Academies of Science. (from "Educational Epiphany of Bill Gates" by Malcolm A. Kline, April 05, 2006)

Tom Vander Ark, executive director of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's education initiatives discovered, "With many of our early grants, I encouraged people to fix the architecture. Several years later, many of those same folks are stuck in architectural arguments and never got to the heart of the issue — teaching and learning."

In his January 2006 commentary in Education Week, "Come Clean on Small Schools" (requires registration) David C. Bloomfield, professor and the head of the educational leadership program at the Brooklyn College campus of the City University of New York said, "The students affected do not have the luxury of walking away from failed social experiments."

If you are a parent, this last comment should hit home. If your school district adopts the latest educational fad, ask lots of questions. The foundation grant money may sound sweet to cash-strapped schools, but your child does not have the luxury of a "do over" if it does not work for him or her.

EDUCATION