They leave no child behind (without NCLB)

The schools that innovate are going to be rewarded. You can feel like a victim in education. This is saying, "We're going to control our own destiny." —Principal Rob Metz, Saint Louis Park High School

Does it take a village to raise a child? To paraphrase Bill Clinton, it depends on what your definition of "a village" is. In her book It Takes A Village, Hillary Clinton says, "Every child needs a champion." For the last fourteen years at Saint Louis Park High School, every ninth grader has had multiple champions, even those whose home lives were less than ideal.

Almost half (and rising) of Saint Louis Park High School's ninth-graders were failing at least one class. Lacking the funding to simply throw money at the problem, counselor Angela Jerabek decided that a team of teachers, social workers, counselors, and administration would "have the back" of every ninth grader, meeting with and about each one continually, all year long. The result?

Since the program started in 1998, the number of students in advanced classes has skyrocketed. Then, 44 percent of ninth-graders were failing one or more classes; last year, that fell to 20 percent. Cigarette use was cut in half among ninth-grade boys...It's a simple premise: more adults reaching out to a student to prevent them from slipping into anonymity, failing class and dropping out. "No student will be able to get by unnoticed," Jerabek said. ("Intense focus on 9th-graders pays off big in St. Louis Park," Star Tribune, December 23, 2011)

The school is now closed to open enrollment and has a waiting list. The program is being piloted nationally by the Minneapolis-based Search Institute under the name Building Assets Reducing Risks (BARR).

When it comes to raising kids, no school or government program can replace the loving support from a team of parents, extended family, friends, a church home, and youth groups. Saint Louis Park High School's experience has confirmed that kids can overcome adversity with a group of caring adults in their corner.

New social studies standards nearing completion

According to a January 12 e-mail update from the Minnesota Center for Social Studies Education (CSSE), the latest revision of Minnesota's K-12 academic standards in social studies is nearing completion:

The state K-12 social studies standards are in the final phase of revision, with an estimated completion date of mid-February or sooner. The CSSE will send an e-blast as soon as the final draft of the standards is posted on the Minnesota Department of Education website.

The CSSE has received many questions about the possibility of delaying the implementation date. At this point, there has been no legislative action to delay the implementation of the new standards. Therefore, the implementation timeline remains in place and the newly revised social studies standards must be implemented no later than the 2013-2014 school year.

There will be a session on the new standards at the Minnesota Council for the Social Studies Conference on March 5 in St. Cloud. Please join us if you would like to spend some time "digging in" to the new standards with other teachers and curriculum coordinators!

There will also be multiple opportunities for training on the new standards this summer through the Minnesota Department of Education and Minnesota's social studies organizations.

The current standard for history and social studies was created to replace the Profile of Learning in 2004-2005. It was created with an unprecedented level of public input in a relatively short period of time, including public hearings that at times devolved into politically-charged shouting matches. The 2004 standards had plenty of room for improvement (earning only a grade of C from the Fordham Foundation), so after Minnesota schools lived with them for several years and a rigorous and public revision process was conducted, I am anxious to hear what teachers and outside experts have to say next month after the new standards are released.

EdWatch succeeded by Education Liberty Watch

The prototypical Minnesota grassroots political action organization, EdWatch, was disbanded last year due to the departure of its founders to new positions. A "new" group, Education Liberty Watch, has taken its place.

I use quotation marks around the word "new" because Education Liberty Watch is more of a child of EdWatch than a brand new administration. The group's president, Dr. Karen Effrem, was a key member of the EdWatch leadership and advocacy, a well-known face at the Capitol. Dave Jones was an EdWatch board member. Constitutional attorney Marj Holsten and Polly Sorcan are long-time EdWatch volunteers. Gubernatorial primary candidate, conservative activist, and radio personality Sue Jeffers and Director of Legislative Affairs for the Republican Liberty Caucus Minnesota Greg O'Connor round out the new board.

Expect continuity of principle: the new group has adopted the old group's motto, "Education for a FREE Nation," and some observers wondered why they did not simply retain the EdWatch name and organizational structure. The group's face to the world, its web site, has a streamlined look and blog-like organization that should facilitate finding specific information. Although new, it seems like it could be kept more up-to-date than the old EdWatch site. The front page today details Effrem's urgent media and legislative testimony schedule in both houses and several radio shows.

With the state academic standards in social studies under revision, an education finance omnibus bill in committee, a multibillion-dollar budget deficit to be closed, and union bargaining rights debated on the nightly news, it is good to know that academic freedom and educational liberty again has a steadfast guardian in Minnesota.

EdWatch (1998-2010)

EdWatch, Minnesota's best-known, powerful grassroots K-12 education advocacy organization is concluding operations at the end of this month, according to co-founder Renee Doyle, in an e-mail sent to supporters at the end of November.

"We came into being in 1998 over the statewide outrage about Minnesota's radical new education system, the Profile of Learning," said Doyle in the e-mail. "Colleen Wogen, Julie Quist and I called the first meeting to order and elected each other officers. We had no idea that our newly established educational non-profit would not only go state-wide, but that five years later, under the name EdWatch, it would go national. EdWatch has stood as an advocate for children, parents and teachers and always has been on the cutting edge of educational research and information."

It amazes me to look back over the last twelve years and realize what an education we gave each other, legislators, school boards, parents, and the public. Doyle said, "We boldly challenged the conventional wisdom regarding No Child Left Behind, International Baccalaureate, Early Childhood Education, School-to-Work, the federal curriculum, international education standards, education for world citizenship, earth-worshiping environmentalism, school mental screening and drugging, 'comprehensive' sex education, Outcome Based Education, and a centralized federal workforce system.  We reminded parents, teachers, and students that good education understands that truth exists and should first of all be about acquiring knowledge and understanding, not about inculcating government-approved values and beliefs."

I cut my political teeth during the Profile of Learning repeal battles. A friend of mine and fellow parent alerted me to the process-based Profile, which was enacted in administrative rule during the Jesse Ventura administration by the then-Department of Children, Families and Learning under its commissioner, Christine Jax. By establishing statewide academic requirements in rule rather than through legislation, the Ventura administration avoided all of those bothersome public hearings and legislative oversight. Complaints to my then-state senator yielded polite letters full of edubabble and reassurances that parents should pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, after all, the state of Minnesota knows best (summed up in the nanny state admonishment, "Just breed 'em and feed 'em").

My most memorable experiences as a member of EdWatch include:

• Organizing and conducting an EdWatch education workshop in 2001 (just after 9/11)
• Celebrating the repeal of The Profile of Learning
• Having my picture taken with Michele Bachmann at her desk on the floor of the Minnesota Senate, on the first day of her first term
• Visiting Bachmann months later in her freshman office, with the window facing into the parking garage, and seeing that photo on her bulletin board
• Visiting Republican legislators, meeting legislative staff, and learning the secret routes around the Capitol and State Office Building
• Being appointed by Governor Tim Pawlenty to serve on the Academic Standards Committee to help draft new academic standards with the renamed Department of Education under commissioner Cheri Pierson Yecke
• Helping to create an early version of the EdWatch web site, as well as my own web site (Minnesota Education Reform News) and blogs
• Being inspired by some amazing conservative activists and conservative Republican legislators and candidates

The EdWatch principles of parental control of their children's education, knowledge-based curricula, and individual liberty will be promoted by a successor organization led by EdWatch board member Karen Effrem. The new organization, Education Liberty Watch, is currently being formed.

Senate GOP should vet Dayton appointments the old fashioned way: on their merits

In Minnesota, as in Washington, the Senate has the duty to confirm appointments made by the executive branch. But unlike Washington, D.C., Minnesota’s confirmation process used to be about the resume and qualifications of the nominee at the beginning of their term.

Used to be? Until 2004, that is, when Steve Kelly, Chairman of the Senate Education Committee used the confirmation process to conduct a two-year job review of Commissioner Cheri Pierson Yecke because he disagreed with the policies she was successfully promoting on behalf of Governor Tim Pawlenty. 

No one with a straight face could argue Yecke was not qualified to be commissioner. A native Minnesotan, she was a former teacher with classroom experience. She had a Ph.D. in education policy. She had already served as commissioner of education in another state and was a high ranking official at the federal Department of Education. Minnesota had never seen anyone more qualified to run the state education department.

But her confirmation was not about her qualifications. Kelly didn’t even bring up her confirmation until halfway through Pawlenty’s first term in office. He then held two hearings spanning six hours of testimony about the Pawlenty education agenda and her part in getting it accomplished. The hearings turned into a "witch hunt" lead by Kelly.

The DFL-controlled Senate denied her confirmation at 3:00 in the morning on the last day of the legislative session, while the public was sleeping.

Governor-elect Dayton won the election, and he deserves to appoint a commissioner of education who shares his values, but former Senator Kelly’s conduct must not be rewarded with a Senate confirmation of his own. Republican Senators like David Hann, Gen Olson, and Geoff Michel who had front-row seats to the unfair scrutiny applied to Yecke should send a signal now to the Dayton administration that a Kelly nomination would be dead on arrival.

Alternative licensure need not mean "lower standards"

Education Minnesota teachers union president Tom Dooher is speaking out in television ads against an alternative licensure proposal for teachers now before the Minnesota Legislature. Dooher says that the proposals would "lower standards to become a teacher in Minnesota." While alternative licensure would certainly challenge the status quo, "alternative" need not mean "lower" standards.

The bill, SF 2757, "Alternative Pathways for Teacher Licensure," would provide qualified, trained reinforcements to existing teachers, from the ranks of recent college graduates and experienced workforce veterans. Nonprofit efforts like Teach for America have proved that this can reap significantly improved educational outcomes for students in even the toughest environments. According to its web site, "We believe that the best hope for ending educational inequity is to build a massive force of leaders in all fields who have the perspective and conviction that come from teaching successfully in low-income communities."

Alternative licensure is supported by Republicans and DFLers in Minnesota and the Obama administration.

While such a system would release new energy and expertise to struggling schools, it could also dilute Education Minnesota's influence over all things K-12 in the state, including teacher training and compensation, tenure, and statewide education policy. Lawmakers and voters do have a choice to make: doing what's best for our children, or continuing to do what's best for the teachers union.

Tim Pawenty: Education Governor, 2010

I started this blog in 2003 when I was appointed to Governor Tim Pawlenty's Academic Standards Committee, under the leadership of then-Education commissioner Cheri Pierson-Yecke. That newly-appointed Commissioner Yecke restored her department's name to Education from the "Department of Children, Families, and Learning," and replaced the fuzzy, process-oriented Profile of Learning with the more knowledge-oriented state academic standards, is a testament to the sweeping, high-velocity changes made possible by the 2002 elections. In 2002, Pawlenty beat DFL candidate Roger Moe by eight points, with 80 percent of Minnesotans voting. Republicans held an 82-52 majority in the state House, while the DFL held a slim 35-31 majority in the Senate. Since then I have documented on this blog Pawlenty's persistent advocacy for meaningful education reforms.

Under a year to the end of his administration, Pawlenty this week unveiled another sweeping education reform agenda. Some of his initiatives are new, some are dusted off from previous legislative sessions, and some are being touted by the governor as an attempt to attract federal education funds, but all are consistent with his ongoing commitment to innovative education reforms. They include:

Expanded Q Comp Minnesota's Quality Compensation for Teachers — Pawlenty's signature education reform includes professional development, teacher evaluations, and a performance-based alternative pay system. In 2010, Pawlenty proposes an extension of the program to include principals and strengthening teacher preparation.

Alternative teacher licensure — providing jobs for mid-career professionals and providing "real world" prospective to classrooms would be a win-win from this proposed new pathway to teaching. If you have any doubts about how well this could work, take a look at a similar approach used by Teach for America.

Easing the expansion of successful charter schools — nationally-proven programs like KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) would be encouraged by Governor Pawlenty to expand in Minnesota by streamlining the charter school application process for them.

In a statement, Pawlenty said, "The national education reform landscape is changing and leading reform states are adopting these kinds of changes. Eventually these measures will be enacted here, too. The only question is whether Minnesota will lead or be late to the game."

How west metro schools stack up

Now that the Minnesota Department of Education has released the 2009 Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments II results, I pored over the high school data to compare the test results among west metro school districts. I added per-pupil spending and enrollment data from School Data Direct to see if I could find any relationships among test data, spending, and district size (the latter two are the most recent published data).

District	Math (11)	Reading (10)	Science (HS)	Per Pupil Spending 05-06	Enrollment 07-08
Hopkins	66.0	84.7	48.1	$10,253.00	7,672
Minnetonka	64.4	92.5	76.0	$8,311.00	7,974
Orono	60.8	92.1	73.9	$7,850.00	2,662
Osseo	41.8	75.9	50.5	$9,287.00	21,859
Robbinsdale	41.7	69.0	43.1	$9,126.00	12,891
Wayzata	71.5	90.5	72.7	$8,189.00	9,990
Minnesota	41.6	74.2	50.0	$9,159.00	840,565

MCA-II scores are not the only indicator of school performance, but they are one way that you can compare all districts in the state. Another is composite ACT scores: students in all of these districts are performing comparably well.

Although Minnetonka, Orono, and Wayzata score above state averages on the MCA-II standardized tests, contrary to what you might expect, they spend significantly less per pupil than the state average. Part of this is due to the fact that these districts receive less money from the state due to, well, politics. One glance at Minnesota School Finance, a primer for legislators on K-12 education finance, confirms this. The funding formula and plethora of categorical aids are ostensibly in place to ensure equal outcomes for all students, but is there a direct link between spending and performance?

It used to be that our independent school districts (and local governments) were funded by local property taxes, until the so-called "Minnesota Miracle" largely shifted these burdens to the state, which collects sales and income taxes. Because sales and income taxes are more sensitive to economic conditions than property taxes, they are subject to wildly varying levels of collection. The system also relocates much accountability from the school district and city hall to the corridors of power at the state capitol.

Although the Minnesota Miracle of wealth redistribution supposedly jibes with Minnesotans' sense of fairness (any law that robs Peter to pay Paul will always have the support of Paul), it has the effect of making government less transparent and responsive to taxpayers.

Unalottment: don't let this crisis go to waste

"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before." —Rahm Emmanuel, Obama White House Chief of Staff

In his July unalottment, Tim Pawlenty has an opportunity to put a nice bow on the signature education reforms of his two terms as Minnesota's governor. Although Pawlenty has been reluctant to cut education funding at all this biennium, holding education (mostly the teachers union) harmless will be problematic given that K-12 education consumes 39.1% of the state's $35 billion budget.

As detailed in an e-mail to supporters and their 2010-2011 budget recommendations, EdWatch sees unalottment as Pawlenty's opportunity to cut education programs that are ineffective and "undermine parental authority and autonomy."

Among the items on the EdWatch hit list are some programs that EdWatch has opposed for years:

Early Childhood Family Education (ECFE) (Current: $51,850,000, Governor: $44,745,000, EdWatch: $0) - EdWatch reports that ECFE, "according to the Legislative Auditor, shows no evidence of developmental gains for children and only some increase in parental feelings of effectiveness."

Head Start (Current: $40,200,000, Governor: $40,200,000, EdWatch: $0) - This program is widely assumed to be effective, but EdWatch claims that "More than 600 studies show the lack of effectiveness of this program, there are several studies showing emotional harm to participants, and Minnesota already received $189.5 million in federal funds over the last two federal fiscal years for this."

International Baccalaureate (IB) - EdWatch would cut $2.7 million for IB tests and programs. It has long maintained that Advanced Placement (AP) programs are "locally controlled, prepare students better for college, comport with MN academic standards, and are far less expensive." In fact, some school districts have passed in adding IB course in favor of AP for these same reasons.

Kindergarten Readiness Assessment and Intervention Program (Current: $573,000, Governor: $574,000, EdWatch: $0) - According to EdWatch, this assessment "uses very vague and subjective criteria based on very vague, subjective, and politically correct outcomes, The Early Childhood Indicators of Progress. This ridiculous assessment gives fuel to the Nanny State falsely claiming that 50% of Minnesota children are not ready for kindergarten."

The EdWatch recommendations include a total of eight education items and eight health and human services items that are education-related. Governor Pawlenty and Education Commissioner Alice Seagren should seriously consider these proposed cuts as they work through unalottment.

House Ed Finance bill nixes Q Comp, Truth-In-Taxation meetings

In an e-mail to constitutents, Rep. Sarah Anderson (R-Plymouth) alerts us to a few troubling provisions in the House Omnibus K-12 Education Finance bill (HF2):

• Cuts education funding $1.9 million (14 percent) when shifts and one-time federal aid are excluded. According to Anderson, all revenue sources considered, this bill is $185 million less than the Governor's plan. So far, so good!


• Enacts a historic funding shift of 27 percent, thus delaying when schools get paid. Gyrations like this really play havoc with districts' financial operations. Just imagine if your employer tried this with your paycheck, or if your business payables got stretched out to 90 or 120 days. How would you like it?


• Repeals Q Comp program that rewards teachers based on performance. Repealing this popular and successful program is a bad idea!


• Eliminates Truth-in-Taxation public hearing requirement for property tax increases. Just what we don't need, less transparency in government.


• Imposes $5 billion school funding proposal in 2014 with no identified source of funding. Well, this seems to be the trend in government spending these days!

The bill and its Senate companion (SF1328) are currently in conference committee.

NCLB: feds out of education in 2008

Minnesota schools could emerge from the financial and administrative burdens of the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) if conservatives in the state and in Congress have their way.

In Minnesota, Sen. Geoff Michel (R-Edina) has announced that he will introduce a bill in the Senate to withdraw the state schools from the federal program. Although some estimate that the state would thereby forfeit $250 million in federal funding, "Michel said the state can absorb the loss of federal funds because of all the money it would save by not having to adhere to the law. Indeed, a legislative auditor's report released in 2004 said that Minnesota schools would have to spend tens of millions of dollars to meet No Child Left Behind's requirements (Star Tribune, January 1, 2008, "No Child Left Behind: GOP senators want it to be history," by Norman Draper)."

The bill is also supported in the Senate by Senate Minority Leader Sen. David Senjem (R-Rochester), Sen. David Hann (R-Eden Prairie); and Sen. Dick Day (R-Owatonna). The effort has had bipartisan support in previous years, although DFLers will be pressured by the Education Minnesota teachers union to "mend it, don't end it." Election year politics will also complicate the bill's support.

At the federal level, The Academic Partnerships Lead Us To Success Act, or A-PLUS Act (H.R.1539/S.893) would restore state and local control in education, while continuing to improve academic achievement through state-level academic standards and testing. The House bill is co-sponsored by Minnesota Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann (MN-6), Rep. John Kline (MN-2), and Rep. Jim Ramstad (MN-3). Neither Minnesota Senator is a co-sponsor of S. 893.

Was choice of Everyday Math predetermined?

The St. Michael-Albertville Schools (STMA) are currently in Year 1 of a several-year long curriculum review cycle for their math curriculum. As in many school districts, the process attempts to bring the various stakeholders together (teachers, the curriculum director, parents) to look at the current curriculum, assess needs, and select a new curriculum (often the latest edition of the current product).

So are these curriculum reviews merely an exercise to endorse a predetermined outcome? Or is there genuine openness to new ideas?

While we all assume that everyone has the best interests of education and the community at heart, once you get involved in one of these processes as a parent or community member outside the "educracy," you may wonder if your voice is making a difference. I think it all depends on who's at the top. When I sat on the Minnesota Academic Standards Committee for Social Studies, I knew that then-Education Commissioner Cheri Pierson Yecke did her best to ensure that all stakeholders, the entire state actually, had a say in our work. No one claimed that our final product was perfect, but a continual review cycle at least provides the opportunity for continual improvements.

A Scholar's Notebook reader on the STMA math curriculum review committee, Jill Schwarz, shared her impressions of the process in a letter to the editor of her local newspaper, the Crow River News:

A few things regarding the choosing of Everyday Math have not been addressed in any official documents for the public, including school board minutes, committee meeting minutes, etc. I will try to address some of them, and give you the parent view. There were two parents — I am one of them — who dedicated a great deal of volunteer time to attending meetings and pouring over information and materials in hopes of having an impact on what math is chosen for the elementary students at STMA.

After all of the many vendor presentations and additional meetings following these presentations in the spring, comments were make that convinced us both that most if not all of the teachers on the committee were never intending to consider any other curriculum and that the much celebrated "parent involvement" in curriculum choosing was convenient window dressing.

The other parent wisely formally resigned, and I foolishly stayed on. I had already compromised, as I am a strong supporter of traditional math, Saxon Math in particular. There was a compromise curriculum, called SRA Real Math, that the other parent and I mistakenly believed would bridge the gap between what the parents and teachers/administrators wanted. SRA blends the reform math (lots of real world word problems, for instance) and parent friendly aspects like using common math language and problem solving techniques that all parents had to learn in school themselves. There are many more problems to work towards mastery, the basic facts are integrated instead of how we have to add that in with Everyday Math, calculator use is much less, and estimating is not overdone. Basically SRA seems to understand that some kids do learn by being creative and discovering, and group work is sometimes ok, without taking these ideas to the far extreme and forgetting that repetition and drilling and basic facts are just as important to reach all of the kids.

I was thrilled to discover a program that used only one method for solving long division for instance, and that it's the method we all already know and can teach our kids if they need help. I was thinking "hooray — no more parent workshop meetings in the evenings to teach us how to help our kids with their homework!" However, this hope was soon dashed. All of the arguing and suggesting and discussing brought us right back where we started — with the choice that was already made. The new edition of Everyday Math has become more teacher friendly but sadly we are all going to be getting parent letters to read and save so we have a clue as to what our K-5th grade kids are doing in math. It will inform us as to why in the world our kids are running around the house counting clocks (so they can discover that clocks are in the real world) and cutting and gluing pictures of foods (to realize that prices are in the real world)...these are not real math activities.

The irony is, the MCAs are written according to the state standards, which are rumored to be moving away from this reform math and more to the middle...like SRA Real Math. So get that tutor company phone number handy, it's going to be another booming 7 years for them. Or choose to homeschool like I plan to do. Better yet, make a fuss with the school board, send them your stories and evidences you can find. Perhaps for probably the first time ever the pilot year for EM can be it's last year in a district.

I will never know if it would have made a difference to attend the school board meeting where this decision was accepted by the board. I felt is was more important to get my son to the doctor and on meds for possible pneumonia right away, and I could not do both that night. He is now well, but the state of math in our district is far from it.

The manufactured crisis in kindergarten readiness

The good news is that the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) evaluated a random sample of children entering kindergarten in the fall of 2006, and found that only 3-10% of this cohort had not acquired a skill, knowledge, or behavior in a selected "developmental domain."

The bad news is that the kindergarten readiness industry, led by the powerful Ready4K lobby, is still pushing its aggressive, "it takes the government to raise a child" takeover of parenting.

Ready4K's mantra is "Only 50% of Minnesota’s children are fully prepared for kindergarten." It is based on a glass-is-half-empty view of the 2002 counterpart to the aforementioned Minnesota School Readiness Study: Developmental Assessment at Kindergarten Entrance Fall 2006. If you count only the "Proficient" group, then yes, about half are in this group (in 2006, between 52% and 71% in the five domains studied), but if you count the "In Process" group, then you could also say that "between 90%-97% of Minnesota's children are fully prepared or almost fully prepared for kindergarten."

You won't find the following table on the Ready4K web site or in its TV advertising, even though it is the foundation for its entire legislative agenda. Look for yourself and see if you can find the kindergarten readiness crisis:

Domain	"Not Yet"	"In Progress"	"Proficient"
Physical Development	3%	26%	71%
The Arts	6%	36%	58%
Personal & Social Development	8%	35%	57%
Language & Literacy	10%	36%	54%
Mathematical Thinking	9%	39%	52%

Ready4K also doesn't show you this statement from the MDE study:

Because children develop and grow along a continuum with great variability, the goal of these studies is to assess children’s proficiency within and across these developmental domains and not establish whether or not children are ready for school with the use of a composite "ready" or "not ready" score. [Emphasis added.]

What you will find featured quite prominently by Ready4K is its legislative agenda, i.e., government funding wish list, which in its original form in 2007 totaled an even $300 million.

While state spending targeted to at-risk populations makes sense (for example, the $6 million signed into law this year for Governor Tim Pawlenty’s early childhood scholarship program for families of at-risk pre-kindergarteners), Baby Ed programs like universal preschool or all-day kindergarten aimed at all Minnesotans are at best an unnecessary expansion of the nanny state.

Newspapers acknowledge school choice

The Star Tribune brightened my day with an editorial ("Charter school cap is unwarranted") endorsing charter schools, and by extension, school choice. "The door should remain open to create innovative schools for Minnesota students," said the Star Tribune.

Charter schools do not represent the ultimate in local control. They are taxpayer-funded, government-controlled public schools. They are subject to the same alphabet soup of state and federal mandates, from the MCA-IIs to IDEA to NCLB. Private schools and homeschools still provide the most direct control to parents over their children's school curriculum and environment.

Yet, as the Strib points out, "...charters are just part of the menu of educational choices. Out of 800,000 public school students, more than 100,000 attend some type of alternative, contract or charter program — all under the public school umbrella."

(The Strib doesn't mention that Minnesota's 2004-2005 private school enrollment, according to the Minnesota Department of Education, was 86,914, and homeschool enrollment for the same period was 17,135.)

The weekly Sun Newspapers recently ran an ambitious, multi-part feature on school choice that featured public, private, charter, and even home schools. Minnesota parents should take advantage of this state's school choice options. Not all states enjoy the same freedom to choose the best school for their child's needs.

Bill would dump No Child Left Behind in Minnesota

No Child Left Behind is in my mind the largest intrusion of the federal government into state policy, and the biggest federal boondoggle, in my lifetime...They have actually created a cash subsidy to encourage states to lower standards.
—David Jennings, as interim superintendent of the Minneapolis public schools, Star Tribune, September 21, 2003

A pair of bills with bipartisan support (HF 2007 and SF 1768), including Senate authors Sen. David Hann (R-Eden Prairie) and Sen. Warren Limmer (R-Maple Grove) and a raft of DFL authors in the House, would withdraw Minnesota from the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).

Although such a move would also cause Minnesota to lose federal education funding, it would also allow the state's schools to emerge from a variety of federal mandates, many of which are unfunded or underfunded, which would free up money currently being spent to comply with these mandates. The state would actually save money and regain more control over its schools by withdrawing from NCLB!

According to the National Council of State Legislatures, many states are considering measures such as Minnesota's, ranging from resolutions or memorials requesting Congress and/or the President to provide waivers or other means of flexibility and/or additional money to cover its mandates; bills that would prohibit the state from spending state funds to comply or state that they will comply only in areas fully funded by the federal government; and bills or resolutions "opting-out" of NCLB and returning all related federal funding.

Constitutionally, eduation is a state function that should be administered by the state and locally-elected school boards, not "regional" boards, the federal government, or the United Nations. The Legislature should pass this measure swiftly, and Governor Pawlenty should sign it into law this session. It would be a major victory for the local control of our schools.

Pawently's education agenda preview

Our approach when it comes to early childhood will be to focus on kids who are at risk and disadvantaged. —Gov. Tim Pawlenty

Governor Tim Pawlenty gave a preview of his education agenda to Star Tribune columnist Lori Sturdevant in yesterday's Strib. Presumably, Pawlenty will give a more detailed overview in his upcoming State of the State address.

About the best way to improve education: "We'll have a robust set of offerings in education. It will certainly include high school redesign and reform.

"The data are pretty compelling. School performance on average chugs along pretty well in grade school and middle school, and then with the exception of the high performers, it tanks in high school. We're putting a lot of money into a four-year experience that is not producing much academic ROI. We have to find ways for children in the middle, and certainly those who are at risk, to be engaged, passionate, on task, and advancing well in high school. We'll have a significant proposal when it comes to that."

What happened to putting 70 percent of school funds in the classroom? "We are going to do 70 percent whether the Legislature passes it or not. We'll make sure the department [of education] makes sure there's a rigorous, uniform measurement of where the resources go, and make that available to the public in a user-friendly form."

The stakeholders to whom Scholar has spoken say that these "x% of funding to the classroom" proposals sound good, but it is largely an accounting gimmick: like when you go to the doctor's office, whether insurance pays for it depends on what code they assign to the procedure. A more meaningful reform in this area would be to scrap the UFARS accounting system for a more straightforward, transparent system. Paging Pat Anderson!!

And early education? "There's an endless number of things that are good ideas in education. You could construct a list of 75 things that would be really good to do. But it has to be prioritized, in the context of the resources that we have available.

"For example, all-day kindergarten. It's a nice idea, and something we are open to. But if you do it full-blown, it's $320 million a biennium. The data says it helps, but in an era of limited resources, doesn't it make more sense to dial in resources to disadvantaged kids? Our approach when it comes to early childhood will be to focus on kids who are at risk and disadvantaged."

Perhaps the state of Minnesota's slide into cradle-to-grave, nanny state socialism at least won't accelerate during the second Pawlenty administration (statewide smoking ban aside).