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doubling the odds of Minnesota students getting a college degree or a technical education that matches their talents, interests, and the job market.

Imagine all students being able to afford their education. Imagine every child starting school well - ready to learn - and ending well - ready to succeed in life.

Education is Minnesota's greatest opportunity for prosperity and economic security. It is the engine of our economy, the driving force behind our success. Education must be our one true competitive advantage in the face of our rivals in the global economy.


Minnesotans know that education is our greatest opportunity. That's why they support it so consistently while also worrying that we are not getting the results we need from our schools for the money we spend. Virtually every Minnesotan knows stories of students who loved school, were turned around by a special teacher, and flourished in college. Minnesotans also know stories about students who got a bad teacher, families who didn't do their part to support or discipline their kids, or graduates who ended up taking remedial classes in college.

Minnesotans believe in the promise of public education. They also favor a diversity of choices for families not limited to schools owned and operated by government. Most Minnesotans would support more funding for schools but they want it tied to better results. They are afraid that special interest groups are standing in the way of moving forward. They know that business as usual will not be good enough.

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THE FACTS

Ready to Learn

  • Only about 50 percent of the kids who show up for kindergarten are ready for school - i.e., they know their numbers, letters, and colors and have the needed vocabulary.

  • 31 percent of Minnesota children attend all-day, every-day kindergarten versus 63 percent nationally.
Student Achievement
  • Even with all the testing in our schools (largely controlled by the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) mandates), most can only tell us if a student passes, not how much he/she learned or gained in the course of the year. There are a few exceptions, like Minneapolis - which has reported such information for over a decade.

  • The National Assessment of Educational Progress data for 2005 show that while we are a national leader in educational outcomes, our performance is well below where it needs to be if we are to be successful.
  • Education Week reported this year that Minnesota has slipped from #2 in 1999 to #49 in the access to technology for students and teachers. (We managed to stay ahead of Nevada).

Parental and Community Involvement

  • It is impossible for a student to succeed in school without the involvement of a parent or other caring, responsible adult. Public education only works if the government does its job to provide quality educational opportunities and parents do their job of supporting the education of their kids.

  • Students spend only 20 percent of their total waking hours in school. They spend the rest of their time at home or in the community. The "curriculum" they receive during that 80 percent directly affects their school success.

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Bound for College

  • About 25 percent of Minnesota ninth graders become college graduates. That may be a good result compared to the rest of the country, but it is like having a first class ticket on the Titanic when we hit the cold water of global competition. (Between 1991 and 2001 the United States slipped from #2 to #15 in its ranking for the rate of college participation compared to the rest of the world.) Minnesota has no plan in place for improving our rate of college participation - we don't even have a goal for where we want to be.

  • Minnesota high school graduation requirements do not match Minnesota college admission requirements. Over one third of our high school graduates who enroll in Minnesota colleges take remedial courses. Students and taxpayers pay twice for this lack of adequate preparation in high school. (In 2002, 10,000 students took 64,000 credits in remedial courses costing $9 million in tuition for students and their families as well as $9 million in taxpayer subsidies. It also adds, on average, one half of a semester to a student's time in school).

  • Only 20 percent of our students take advantage of the opportunity to complete college work in high school - when they can do it without paying tuition. Students who begin college-level work while still in high school are much more likely to continue on to post-secondary education.

The Price Tag

  • Minnesota invests a lot of state and local resources in education.
    • $170 million for early education (plus another $170 million from the federal government)
    • $9 billion for K-12 education
    • $2.5 billion for post-secondary education at the University of Minnesota (U of M) and the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MnSCU) as well as grant programs for qualified students at private colleges and proprietary schools

    This is such a significant public expenditure that we must demand accountability for results.

  • Rapidly rising costs for employee health care and special education threaten the predictability of school budgets. From 2001 to 2005, approximately 70 percent of school districts experienced growth in the percentage of children eligible for special education. As a result, the amount that districts take from regular education programs to meet federal and state mandates continues to grow.

Opposing Views

The debate over how we get more results from our education system has become polarized. One side says the solution is more money and more subsidies for the schools and colleges run by the government. The other side favors vouchers and market competition (though in election years they, too, will call for more money to win support from key constituents). That side believes we are not getting the results we want because schools are not accountable.

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WHAT MINNESOTANS WANT

Minnesotans want to move forward on Education. Moving forward means making student success the focus and the basis for all of our actions. In so doing, we must align the interests of teachers, administrators, elected officials, parents, and all the other stakeholders with student success. Teachers want their students to succeed and they are not afraid of being accountable for that success. The same is true for other interest groups.

To move forward, our investment in education must deliver:

  • All children school-ready at kindergarten.

  • All students proficient in reading by third grade.

  • All students a year smarter for every year they're in school - no exceptions.

  • All students going on to get at least two years of post-secondary education and at least 50 percent of them becoming college graduates with a bachelor's degree (today, only half of ninth graders continue their schooling after high school and only half of those get a BA or BS degree).

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WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE



Expect early learning and school readiness from every family - delivered at home or in child care settings.

  • Follow the lead of Art Rolnick and the Minnesota Early Learning Foundation (MELF), who cite the tremendous gains for Minnesota's economy if we make a long-term, sustained investment in early learning and the risks we face by not doing so.

  • Establish clear standards for early childhood learning and then measure and report levels of achievement to families and providers.

  • Tie money (both public and private) to attainment of these standards - pay for results, not good intentions.

  • Expand public funding for early childhood education so that every child in a low-income or at-risk family can afford early learning opportunities. Put this money - along with family mentoring services - in the hands of families and let them use it to get the best program for their child. [Cost = $100 million]

  • Make all-day, every-day kindergarten available to every child in Minnesota. [Cost = $150 million]

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Increase and connect both accountability and flexibility for schools, districts, and families.

  • Focus accountability measures on gains in learning - every year, every student, every classroom, every school.
    • Abandon sole reliance on NCLB testing of educational attainment (how many students pass) by adding measurements of educational growth (how much students learn in one year of school).

    • Use these growth measures as a basis for improving outcomes.
      - Learn from the most successful teachers and schools in order to help the rest.
      - Provide opportunities for students who are not getting a year's worth of learning to move to a different classroom or school.
      - Expect improvement from all teachers and schools, especially those producing the smallest gains.
      - Intervene with those who don't or won't improve (replace teachers and/or administrators and re-start schools, if necessary).
      - Link pay and school funding to student success.

    • Aggressively promote the creation of charter schools and other programs to serve students who are consistently not receiving a year's worth of learning or are extremely transitory.

    • Extend the charter school idea to school districts by giving them the opportunity to accept stronger accountability for educational outcomes in exchange for relief from laws, regulations, and other mandates they can demonstrate inhibit their ability to succeed.

  • Challenge and support communities, districts and schools to do more to engage parents (especially those in low-income and at-risk families) in the education of their children by rewarding and promoting effective practices across the state.

Make Minnesota's high school graduation standards stand for something - make a diploma mean, without a doubt, that each student is ready for college.

  • Raise state high school graduation standards to at least the MnSCU admission standards.

  • Guarantee admission to MnSCU to any student who obtains a high school diploma in Minnesota.
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Make attending college attractive, attainable and affordable.

  • Require that every student complete at least one college-level course in high school by taking advantage of the Post-Secondary Education Option, College in Schools, Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate programs to get every student on track to attend college.

  • Double the availability of need-based financial aid for Minnesota students through the Minnesota State Grant Program. [Cost = $150 million]

  • Eliminate the cost of remediation (represents $9 million in tuition savings, plus half a semester of fees, books, room and living costs).

  • Improve the time it takes for students to graduate by tying part of the state appropriation to colleges and universities to the rate at which students complete their degrees (it is 50 percent today)

Stabilize education finances for both K-12 and higher education.

  • Implement the health care reforms outlined in Team Minnesota's plan for controlling health care costs, improving outcomes, and expanding access. These six prescriptions for change will greatly reduce the intense fiscal pressures on K-12 and higher education budgets.

  • Reform special education funding (see sidebar) by developing an option for parents that creates a per-pupil funding mechanism for special education students based on an assessment of their documentation and paperwork - occupying as much as condition. This would establish at the outset the resources available to support each child. Parents would be empowered to take charge of the decisions on how to best meet their child's educational needs.

    This is an approach that is similar to how we provide services to the developmentally disabled. and others would offer parents a range of educational services to meet the needs of their child. The parents would decide which ones to buy while staying within the per-pupil budget available to them. Every service would carry with it a performance plan to achieve a year's worth of learning. Parents would be free to change the service provider based on performance. Moving in this direction will allow parents to feel more in charge, districts to focus on serving families rather than defending their budget, and teachers to focus on teaching not paperwork.

Special Education Funding

These things have come to pass because, in the past, schools mistreated their special education students. Our laws and regulations are based on the assumption that schools cannot be trusted to do what is right for these students. That mistrust is expensive, and all the paperwork may actually be denying students their access to the one resource of most value - a teacher's time.

Special education funding differs significantly from how we fund the rest of our K-12 students. Most of our education budgets are based on per-pupil funding. Districts configure their operations (class sizes, etc.) to fit within the amount available. Special education operates in the opposite fashion. Through Individual Education Plans (IEPs), parents and schools essentially negotiate individual contracts - deciding what services are needed with districts expected to find the funding. In addition, IEPs require significant amounts of documentation and paperwork - occupying as much as 50 percent of a special education teacher's time.

This approach results in unpredictable costs for schools and practically guarantees an adversarial relationship between families and schools. This is all made worse by a broken promise of adequate federal funding. We need to rebuild our special education system to make it more sustainable and more focused on delivering the best outcome for every child.

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Fund Higher Education Research: New Knowledge Fuels Economic Security

Minnesota's economy depends on knowledge for its success. Our competitive position depends on how well we create knowledge and develop the knowledge capabilities of our workforce. Higher education institutions prepare our workforce to compete globally, and they produce teachers who, in turn, strengthen our schools. The University of Minnesota is also the most important resource we have for generating the new ideas we need to move Minnesota forward.

We will create a research and development reserve fund by allocating up to 10 percent or $100 million of any year-end state government surplus. This reserve will be used to accelerate financing for the University's major inter- disciplinary initiatives, including but not limited to:

  • Bio- and nano-technologies
  • Disease prevention
  • Brain development and aging
  • Agricultural, environmental, and energy development
  • Medical breakthroughs and improved patient care

The Big Payoff

Taking these steps will double the odds that our ninth graders will become college graduates. Success will give Minnesota a world class competitive advantage in the global economy. The additional investments needed to make this happen will be more than offset by the savings generated by our plan to reform health care.

How We'll Work Together

Students, parents, the state, school districts, teachers, administrators, colleges and universities, businesses, and taxpayers all have a stake in Minnesota's education system. All levels of government deserve a place at the table when vital decisions are made about the results we want and the price we'll pay to get them.

Working together, we will bring the authority and influence of our respective offices to move these reforms forward.

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Education Minnesota's Great Economic Engine


The Governor (Peter Hutchinson) &
Lt. Governor (Dr. Maureen Reed) will:
  • Appoint a professional, experienced and effective leader as Commissioner of Education and hold that individual accountable for delivering these results.
  • Propose a budget that lays out the investments that need to be made in our education system and how to sustain them.
  • Work with the Legislature to move this budget and other key pieces of education reform legislation forward.
  • Travel around the state talking with Minnesotans about the merits of this plan.

The Attorney General (John James) will:

  • Help develop and review legislation to strengthen accountability for educational outcomes and stablize education funding.
  • Review state education-related administrative rulemaking procedures and practices to ensure they minimize buraucratic frustration while complying with state law.
  • Assist the process of winning any necessary federal waivers associated with reforming the special education funding system and moving away from sole reliance on NCLB testing.


The State Auditor (Lucy Gerold) will:

  • Engage with local governments (school districts, townships, cities and counties) and their elected officials to make them active partners in achieving our educational goals.
  • Facilitate the sharing of "best practices" among these local governments - particularly regarding how cities, towns and counties can support improved student achievement.
  • Ensure that school districts are effectively using state funds to achieve education results.


The Secretary of State (Joel Spoonheim) will:

  • Reach out to non-government organizations and groups - such as local chambers of commerce, education advocacy groups, industry-specific associations, etc. - to bring their voices, insights and creativity into the debate on education reform.
  • Create opportunities for all citizens to offer their reactions and ideas on how we can improve the education system.