MCTE Takes Action on Proposed Standards

Someone Stole My State

by Sandy Hayes, MCTE Executive Board Member and Web Master

Maybe "Minnesota nice" isn't the most practical way of looking at issues in today's multiple crises, but it seems we have even been robbed of "Minnesota rational."  We went from a bush-league governor to a Bush-league governor.  The Taxpayer's League floods the airwaves with rabid messages.  We have the Maple River Coalition, with their conspiracy theory that the Profiles of Learning (current state standards) are a socialist agenda to force students into worker bee roles determined by their choices in 9th grade.  And we have a new Commissioner from Virginia (not Virginia, MN) who, since January 29, has done the following:

• put together four levels of math and language arts standards committees whose membership was drawn from internet applications.  Only 20% of these committee members are teachers.  There were no experts solicited nor selected from the internet applications.  Parents (including home schooling parents) outweigh teachers on these committees.
  
  

• given each committee two days to write the standards for their level, in isolation from the other levels.
  
  

• held 14 public meetings around the state to allow public response to the proposals.
  
  

• posted the standards on the Minnesota Children, Families, and Learning Web site, along with commentary from the public.  The comments, posted from Internet response, are one-sided.  Comments from the public meetings, generally 2/3 of which are from educators and are critical of the proposal and the process, were also supposed to be posted.  But with only a skeleton staff at the department, these have not appeared at all, giving a very biased view of public and professional sentiment.
  
  

• emphasized at the public meetings Minnesota's failing grades on our state standards received by the Fordham and Quality Counts reports, while failing to mention (or labeling as "stagnant") the top ten rank of Minnesota students on the NAEP tests of reading, writing, and math.
  
  

• solicited "expert" commentary from Sandra Stotsky and Ralph Raimi, both affiliated with the Fordham Foundation.

The standards proposals were slated for revision by the committees March 29 & 30.  They were originally scheduled to be presented to the Minnesota House on April 1, but in response to the intense criticism of the timeline at the public meetings, the release will be delayed until mid-April.

The Minnesota Senate has an alternate bill (SF639) sponsored by Senator Kelley (http://www.senate.leg.state.mn.us/committee/2003-2004/Education/profile_docs/scs0639a-1.htm).  This bill has been endorsed by the Minnesota Council of Teachers of English.

A clearinghouse for Minnesota standards action as well as response and supporting resources has been maintained at http://www.mcte.org/standards.

MCTE has also been working actively to build coalitions with other state professional content organizations, with the support of Education Minnesota (the merged union of MEA and MFT).

I am very proud of MCTE's work in safeguarding the contributions made by professional educators to Minnesota's tradition of educational excellence.

We will not allow that tradition to be stolen.