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What reforms need to be made to the K-12 education system to ensure that the current and future workforce in Minnesota is college and career ready, competitive in the world market and meets the needs of Minnesota businesses?
The business community supports reforms to the education system to improve student outcomes. The underlying issues of all reforms that must be implemented in Minnesota are based on the need to close the achievement gap. Having a more competitive education system that prepares all students for college and careers after high school will lead to a world-class workforce being produced in Minnesota.
The Minnesota Chamber of Commerce believes that there are key improvements to the K-12 system that will improve the state's global economic competitiveness and close the achievement gap. These include but are not limited to:
Effective teacher in every classroom: Making sure an effective teacher is in every classroom is the key factor to elevating academic performance to world standards for all students. Teachers play an important role in the lives of children, often leaving an impact that lasts a lifetime. Teachers are fundamental to guiding and training our future workforce. They are the heart of our education system and should be valued for their important work. Minnesota needs to ensure that our best people are leading our classrooms. It is for these reasons that the Minnesota Chamber wants to ensure that an effective teacher is in every classroom.
There are some fundamental ways to ensure that every classroom has an effective teacher, including but not limited to, having alternative pathways for licensure, teacher evaluations, create incentives for highly effective teachers to go into the most at-risk schools, hold teacher preparation programs accountable and define what an ineffective teacher, effective teacher, and highly-effective teacher is.
High school graduation requirements and college and career readiness: The quality of Minnesota's future depends on the ability for the school system to produce a highly educated and skilled workforce. While many students in Minnesota perform well on U.S. standardized tests and graduate on time, an increasingly unacceptable number of Minnesota students leave the K-12 system unprepared for higher education or the workforce. These shortcomings will have a negative impact on the state's workforce and, ultimately, our economy.
It is for these reasons that the Minnesota Chamber supports the requirement of high school graduates being able to demonstrate that they meet the minimum state graduation standards. The math Graduation-Required Assessments for Diploma (GRAD) requirement – or an equivalent – should be reinstated and the reading GRAD requirement should be continued. In addition, a science and social studies GRAD requirement should be required.
If an end-of-course exam is similarly developed for required subjects, students should be required to meet a score that demonstrates the student has a basic understanding of the topic.
Literacy requirements: Children who are unable to read at grade level by the end of third grade have higher rates of school dropout, suppressing individual earning potential as well as general ability to live a successful life. It is for these reasons that we support legislation that requires students to meet this benchmark.
Other factors that will improve Minnesota's preparation of the future workforce and college include the following:
Academic standards: Minnesota must train its students to be the best in the world. Without correspondingly high standards, the state cannot achieve this goal. In accordance with this position, the Minnesota Chamber supports at a minimum adoption of the Common Core standards. The state academic benchmark standards and testing methodologies should be compared against international competitors. Minnesota should learn from top-performing countries and revise and raise standards accordingly. Growth models that measure student progress against state standards must be used. Sufficient progress must be made so all students master state standards before graduation.
In an effort to continue to track how Minnesota ranks internationally, the Minnesota Chamber supports the ongoing participation in TIMSS and the Program International Student Assessment (PISA) and corresponding communication strategies for the public to be aware of Minnesota student performance on a global scale.
Quality principals and superintendents: School leaders contribute an important factor in the success of a student and the creation of great schools. Due to their importance, a leadership assessment should be conducted prior to a principal being hired. Principals set the vision, guide instruction, build the budget, unite the team and lead the drive for results. They are also responsible for training teachers to use student data to drive results. Principal evaluations should be mandated and conducted by the district superintendent (or the superintendent's designee), and should use student data to conclude the principals' effectiveness.
Principal jobs are an extraordinary mix of small details and big ideas, of crisis management and long-range planning. In this time of increasing national and international demands on schools and students, principals must be highly capable as instructional leaders. For those reasons the Minnesota Chamber supports the expansion of both the Leadership Academy and the Principal's Academy.
The Minnesota Chamber also supports adoption of alternative pathways for principal certification.
School choice: Providing all students with access to, and information about, quality public school options is essential. Information should be user friendly, comparative and easily accessible through multiple communication tools. Open enrollment, education tax credits and deductions also improve school choice. These options force much needed competition into the school system and eliminate barriers that students face in accessing programs that meet their specific needs. Also forcing competition among school districts for enrollment is student-based funding formula rather than a program-based formula.
Miscellaneous and other services: State standards require students to attend school for a specific number of days. Taking into account multiple factors, the specifics of the school calendar should be within a school district's control.
Encourage community-based support of after-school, weekend and summer mentoring and tutoring programs. Programs should provide academic support, build critical thinking skills, and offer students the opportunity for real-world experiences. Programs should be modeled after programs worldwide that have proven track records in raising student achievement.
Teacher contract accountability: Many will only characterize the level of state aid for education as being adequate if it is annually increased. However, the current economic challenges do not allow for funding to continue to grow as it did in past decades. Instead districts need to be held accountable for operating within their means, especially regarding their teacher contracts. This contract is their largest expense.
While per-student revenues have continued to rise, school boards generally sign employee contracts that consistently outpace available revenues. As a result, districts conduct levy campaigns to close the gap in revenue. School districts and school boards should not be allowed to sign a contract for which they do not have the funding.
As a result, the Minnesota Chamber recommends:
Teacher pensions: It is projected that over the next 10 to 20 years half of the current teachers in Minnesota will reach retirement eligibility. This shift provides an opportunity to align teacher compensation and retirement benefits to a private-sector model. With this large shift of teachers moving into retirement in the next decade, changes must be made immediately that align new teacher contracts to private-sector defined contribution plans and allow school boards to decide, based on their budgets, whether they can match a percentage of teacher retirements savings for the teachers entering retirement.
Our state's demographer tells us that growth in our workforce is decelerating and will continue to do so until 2025. More so than ever, we need every high school graduate to be ready for work or higher education. A 2010 Georgetown University study stated that nearly 70 percent of Minnesota's workforce will require some higher education. To get students to the point of being able to graduate from high school, the system must start requiring more of students at a younger age. In addition, the populations that are growing in Minnesota are the same segments of the community that are on the wrong side of the achievement gap. Every child must be educated and prepared to participate in the workforce. A large part of Minnesota's current student population is lacking in such academic success. In 2009, only 34 percent of 11th-graders passed the state math standards. Educating every child is not only important to families, but it is also a key factor in building the kind of economy that makes Minnesota a great place to live.
Almost every district shows a significant number of students falling farther behind in the skills necessary to succeed in today's economy. Evidence shows that despite diverse challenges, all students can meet high standards when they are challenged.
Minnesota's educational challenge is clear: Bring student achievement up to world standards and simultaneously accelerate the learning of the students who are the farthest behind. Both of these problems are solvable. The Business Plan for K-12 Education proposes to do this by targeting resources to underachieving students and investing more in education's lynchpin – teachers. Both are the key to rise above our challenge and to preserve a high standard of living for all Minnesotans.
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