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K-12 Education

Issue

What reforms are necessary to ensure that Minnesota's K-12 education system is preparing students to meet the demands of our global economy and domestic workforce needs?

Policy

Raise standards.

Minnesota must aim to train Minnesota students to be the best in the world. Without correspondingly high standards, the state cannot achieve this goal.
  • Benchmark state academic standards and testing methodologies against international competitors. Minnesota should learn from top-performing countries and revise and raise standards accordingly.
  • Implement superior international models and standards for learning.
  • Increase the rigor of math and science education.
  • Continue statewide testing to determine progress toward meeting state academic standards. Report results on a timely basis to students, schools and the public.
  • Support a general fund appropriation to help fund the analysis and publication of results of the 2007 Trends in International Math and Science Study (TIMSS). Without an effective communications strategy, the public will not understand how Minnesota students perform in math and science on a global scale.
  • Support value-added assessments to gauge individual student progress toward proficiency on grade-level standards. Sufficient progress must be made so all students master high school graduation requirements before graduation.

Ensure competition at every level of education.

Competition stimulates innovation, flexibility and quality. This is true for all organizations including the education system. It is clear that one learning model cannot serve the educational needs of all students.
  • Support expansion of charter schools as long as there are appropriate financial controls. Charter schools force innovation into the public school system and allow students equal access to attend a public school that best meets their individual needs.
  • Support post-secondary enrollment options (PSEO), open enrollment, education tax credits and deductions. These options force competition into the school system and eliminate barriers students face to accessing a quality education.
  • Support a student-based funding formula rather than a program-based formula. A student-based funding formula allows competition among school districts for enrollment.
  • Ensure that the funding formula does not create disincentives for students to participate in post-secondary enrollment options and early graduation. Currently districts lose a large portion of the funding linked to a student's attendance. In this situation, schools have a disincentive to encourage student participation in PSEO.
  • Allow schools to bid and contract for all services (i.e. teaching cooperatives, building maintenance or building space, food service, etc). Contracting with teacher cooperatives may be the most cost effective means of obtaining specific teaching skills and/or serving certain student populations.

Recruit and retain quality teachers.

Excellent teachers are fundamental to improve education.
  • Support performance-based teacher compensation (i.e. Q Comp). Measurements should consider individual, department and school achievements in a way that encourages the most successful teachers to share knowledge with fellow teachers.
  • Support differential salaries for certain types of teachers (i.e. market-competitive pay for math and science teachers, monetary incentives for excellent teachers to teach children in poor performing school districts).
  • Support alternative teacher certification. Certification standards must give evidence of a deep understanding of the subject matter being taught. Midcareer professionals with expertise in a specific subject should have an alternative route to teacher certification that allows them to learn teaching skills, but does not force them to begin their teaching education from scratch.

Close the Achievement Gap.

Reduce performance disparities among different demographic groups of students. All students, regardless of background or geography, must meet established standards in order to compete in the workforce.
  • Support alternative compensation for high-performing educators that choose to serve in schools with the highest numbers of students identified as at-risk.
  • Provide all students with access to, and information about, high quality public school options. Information should be user friendly, comparative, and easily accessible through multiple communication tools.
  • Support school choice options such as open enrollment, charter schools and tax credits. These options are important to improve the performance of students from various demographic groups who struggle in the traditional K-12 system.

Establish financial transparency.

Support financial transparency so revenue and spending decisions are available and understandable to the public.
  • Re-enact the structural balance law which requires districts to report their expected revenue and expenditures. Reports should certify that revenues are sufficient to finance all contracted obligations. Hold superintendents and finance directors accountable for compliance.
  • Create financial reports for the public. The reports should be easy to understand, follow a universal system and be limited to one page.
  • Require the Report on Curriculum, Instruction, and Student Achievement goals, which are submitted annually to the Department of Education, to be measurable. The goals set by districts must be focused on measurable results in student performance. This report is a tool for the public to evaluate district progress and may be used to discuss local funding issues.

Business Impact

Minnesota's economic competitiveness depends on the ability of its school system to produce an educated and skilled workforce. While many students in Minnesota perform exceptionally well on standardized tests and graduate on time, an unacceptable number of students fail to learn the basics. Employers continue to report that students are simply unprepared for the demands of the workplace. The 2006 Minnesota Business Barometer Survey, (350 businesses polled) found that only 22 percent of respondents thought high school graduates were prepared to enter the workforce. Minnesota's public post-secondary institutions reported that, in 2003, 36 percent of accepted Minnesota high school graduates needed at least one remedial course.

With the two main consumers of K-12 graduates reporting that there is room for improvement in the system based on the quality of the output, it comes as no surprise that 41 percent of the 2006 Business Barometer respondents believe public schools need to reprioritize spending to improve schools. Businesses want to leave those decisions to the education and teaching experts. However, the business community knows that competition works and believes it is necessary to improve the current K-12 system. In the 2007 Minnesota Chamber Public Policy Poll, one question asked "what one thing should be done to improve education in Minnesota". The most common response was to insert competition into the K-12 system. Businesses expect better results for the significant public investment made in the K-12 system.

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