High-Stakes testing officially dead — for this year

Education policy folks and Minnesota’s high school juniors can stop holding their breath about this year’s math graduation test:  with the stroke of his pen, Governor Tim Pawlenty has turned the once-high-stakes test into a dead letter.  A compromise solution was reached earlier this year by the Governor, and both houses of the state legislature, that would permit students to retake the test three times, prior to graduation.  Pass or fail, though, no-one is barred from graduation.   Legislators were concerned that, since the test results come back a few weeks into summer vacation, high school Juniors wouldn’t have much time to take remedial courses and retake the test before they have to start studying for finals, or graduate.  

According to the Strib’s Emily Johns, though, the real reason is that the test is too hard.  

Filed under: Minneapolis, Minnesota, Achievement Gap, Education, Education Policy, GRAD test, Minneapolis Public Schools, Minnesota, Testing, Tim Pawlenty

T-Paw sides with the Family Council, vetoes anti-bullying bill

 

 

Image: Wikipedia

With Saturday’s veto, Governor Pawlenty sided with conservative opponents of an anti-bullying bill meant to protect Minnesota’s K-12 students from being harassed in school for their sexual orientation, disabilities, and an array of other qualities that routinely attract teasing.  Repeating an argument used by the Minnesota Family Council, the governor wrote “the proposed legislation is duplicative of current law which directly and clearly prohibits bullying of any type against any student for any reason.”

As I highlighted in a story for the Minnesota Independent in February, the state’s current “model policy” only protects students from teasing based on race or religion, and sexual harassment.  Although it can be interpreted to include all students, many say this relies on a principal taking a stand against other forms of bullying that aren’t specifically prohibited.

“In small towns, it can all depend on one teacher or a principal who makes it their mission” to make the school welcoming, says Leigh Combs, the LGBT Kids Abuse and Prevention coordinator at Minneapolis-based Family and Children’s Service. “It’s different from town to town.”

According to the Strib, 

The bill’s author, Sen. Scott Dibble, DFL-Minneapolis, said he was “extremely disappointed” by the governor’s action and said he thought he had reached a compromise with Pawlenty on the language of the bill.

The “Safe Schools for All Bill” is passed the Minnesota House and Senate with large margins, so it remains a possibility that the bill’s backers will re-introduce the bill next session, and override Pawlenty’s veto.

Filed under: Minnesota, "Safe Schools for All" Bill, LGBT, Scott Dibble, Tim Pawlenty

Q Comp not expanding this year

The K-12 education policy bill that Governor Tim Pawlenty signed into law earlier this week did not include money to expand Q Comp to all of Minnesota.  The program, also known as “Quality Compensation,” is T-Paw’s pet plan that links teacher pay to a combination of their student’s performance on the MCA tests, and participation in professional development.  As a 2008 investigation from the state’s non-partisan Legislative Auditor highlighted, the program is too young to know if it actually improves teacher quality or student performance.  MPR’s Tom Webber has the story.

Filed under: Minnesota, Achievement Gap, Education, Education Policy, Education Reform, Q Comp, Teacher Quality, Tim Pawlenty

Does he or doesn’t he? Pawlenty claims unallottment authority, but school districts not sure

Norman Draper’s piece on the $1.75 billion education accounting shift, in today’s Star Tribune, points out that while Pawlenty may claim the authority to shift payments without legislative approval, this is by no means accepted.  

What, wondered [Peggy Ingison, Minneapolis Public Schools' Chief Financial Officer], happens if the Legislature decides not to approve such shifts?

“It puts us out on a limb,” she said. A big funding shift, she said, merely compounds the problem of schools getting no new money while facing increased costs due to inflation.

Most of the Capitol press corps seems to accept that Pawlenty will get his way somehow, particularly since there will probably be no special legislative session this year.

Filed under: Minneapolis, Budget Crisis, Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty, Unallotments

Education likely to take a hit with Accounting Shifts (Updated and Bumped)

With the desperate, impassioned efforts to override Tim Pawlenty’s vetoes essentially over, most of the high drama around this biennium’s budget is essentially over.  Like other sections of the budget, E-12 Education takes a hit through accounting shifts — where the state delays paying this year’s per-pupil funding until next year — but DFL education champ Rep. Mindy Greiling (DFL – Roseville) is calling it ‘good enough’, because the core legislation does not reduce school funding.  

According to MPR’s Polinaut blog, the shift will be worth $1.775 billion, or almost 13% of the $13.7 billion appropriated by HF 2.  To fill the holes in their budgets, districts will have to borrow enough money to tide them over into the next fiscal year, when the state money will be delivered.  This, though, increases each district’s debt burden, reducing the amount of money they can spend on classrooms, busing, etc. because they will have to pay interest on the borrowed money.  In terms of immediate, local impact, this could speed up the closure of three St Paul elementary schools that were originally slated to close after the 2009-10 school year.

Update (5/19/09; 11:30am): Bill Sailsbury of the PiPress says Pawlenty may delay repaying the nearly-$1.8 billion in shifts until the 2012-13 biennium.  Wow!  That’s gonna smart.  Particularly because he’s been so resistant to raising additional revenue, instead of hoping that the economy will quickly recover, and revenues will rise to provide education funding for that biennium AND money to pay back the shifts.  

Because the DFL essentially threw their budget proposal back in the governor’s face after he vetoed it the first time, the Governor will likely make good on his threat to unilatterally unallot what spending he doesn’t like, come June 1.  Pawlenty hasn’t said he will target education for cuts, but it’s still up in the air until he makes his decisions public; furthermore, several school districts around the state are in statutory operating debt, or very near, and unallotments may sink them if they are not handled sensatively.  PIM’s Dan Feidt has Speaker Kelliher’s take on Pawlenty’s plans:

12:50 a.m. update: Speaker Kelliher talked to a former governor and “friend” about unallotment and fiscal responsibility on the way in. The unallotment statute was put in for emergencies, she says, “probably an extreme stretch” of what was intended by the statute. If a DFL governor did this kind of unallotment, there would be a similar concern. “it will be the sixth time in history… and for him, the third time using the tool.” It was his “backstop” or “walkaway point” which he was willing to use to walk away. Kelliher expects there may be people who use to try unallotment, she says.

Filed under: Minnesota, St Paul, Budget Crisis, Education, Education Funding, Large-Scale System Change, St Paul Public Schools, Tim Pawlenty

Conference Committees and Education Funding — Why I love MN Budget Bites

They sit in conference committees so we don’t have to.  I admit, I’m a bit of a wonk (My weekend reading will be pouring over a big chunk of data from Minneapolis Public Schools that accompanied the administration’s original proposal), but even I try to avoid legislative sessions like the plague.  Fortunately, there’s Minnesota Budget Bites, who’ve got a very readable rundown on the three competing E-12 budget proposals from the House, Senate, and Governor Tim Pawlenty, that are being hashed out in conference committee this week and next.   Some highlights:

• Use of federal stimulus dollars
• Dollar figures for several reform innitiatives, including the House’s New Minnesota Miracle ($0 — they just want to put the funding formula into law, so it can slowly be phased in from 2014 on), and T-Paw’s expansion of the Q-Comp pay-for-performance program and financial rewards for districts that raise students’ test scores ($91 million for the latter, an unnamed combo of state and increased local contributions for the former)
• Local property tax relief 

Filed under: Minnesota, Budget Crisis, Education, Education Funding, Education Reform, Mindy Greiling, Minnesota, Q Comp, Stimulating Stimuli, Tim Pawlenty

Q-Comp “not ready for prime time”

As Governor Tim Pawlenty pushes for his prized education reform, called Quality Compensation, or Q-Comp, to be made mandatory for all school districts, the state non-partisan Legislative Auditor has just released a report criticizing oversight of the program, and claiming there’s not enough evidence yet to measure its effectiveness.  This could spur opposition to the Governor’s new education funding ideas as legislators consider Pawlenty’s proposed budget.

Filed under: Minnesota, Budget Crisis, Education, Education Funding, Education Policy, Education Reform, Mindy Greiling, Office of the Legislative Auditor, Q Comp, Tim Pawlenty

Friday national news round-up

 

The caption contest is still open!  Come up with a better title for the Friday national education news round-up than, well, the Friday national education news round-up.  The prize is my gratitude, and perhaps your name in the title, if you can find a clever way to work it in.

The Round-up

• San Diego teachers, schools argue about teacher quality 
• Don’t eat the peanut butter!
• St Paul faces a $25 million deficit — expect layoffs, the board is told
• Education Week (sign-in required) on the future of ELL education
• T-Paw suggests an increase in education funding — if schools sign onto his pet program that some have criticized in the past as a union-busting measure
• The Washington Post has the transcript of Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s confirmation hearing
• National Public Radio’s education podcast

In local news, a memorial service will be held at 2pm at St Paul’s Como Park Pavillion for Kathy Kinzig, the much-beloved founder of EcoEducation who died in December after a long battle with bone cancer.  She was 43. 

From the announcement:

“Kathy was the person who figured out that kids didn’t need to go into the woods to learn about the environment — it’s in your own back yard.  The Urban environment’s flora and fauna include workers, residents, business, colleges, dogs and cats, boulevard trees and weeds asserting themselves through the cracks in the sidewalk, which all leave their mark on the health and well being of the city’s eco system.

“Eco Ed serves students and teachers in grades 5-12 at about 14 public and charter schools in the two cities, with a waiting list as long as your arm.  It provides a couple of curriculums which can be taught across disciplines, or through social studies, science and humanities classes, called “City Connections” and “Urban Stewards.”  The programs teach kids how to identify problems they want to solve in their communities and then gives them the tools (through community resource volunteers, buses, equipment, materials) to go forth and make change.  Kids even do grantwriting and make presentations to Eco Ed staff to make their case for additional dollars. “

Filed under: Announcements, National, Arne Duncan, Budget Crisis, Education, Education Funding, ELL, Minnesota, National Issues, Secretary of Education, Teacher Quality, Tim Pawlenty

K-12 Education NOT Cut

Confirming what many educators had hoped, Governor Tim Pawlenty did NOT cut any K-12 or Early Childhood education. We’ll see about next year, though. When I spoke with her an hour ago, Rep. Mindy Greiling (DFL- Roseville; Chair, K-12 Finance Committee) speculated that T-Paw might look to cut some education funding in the upcoming fiscal biennium, although the Governor has said he would like to protect that money.

The folks who really took the brunt this time around are:
- States and Counties
- MN state reserve accounts (entirely depleted)
- University of Minnesota and Minnesota State Colleges and Universities
- All state agencies were told to cut 10% of their budgets
- Human services spending (state Medicaid, teaching hospitals, and a variety of grant programs)

Hopefully more to come on the Human Services side of things….

Filed under: Minnesota, Budget Crisis, Education Funding, Mindy Greiling, Tim Pawlenty

Sacred Cow or Sitting Duck — In budget crisis, are education funds on the chopping block?

Photo by Lisa Yarost, Flickr

(Originally published at the Minnesota Independent 12/15/08)

Will state funding for education take a hit in efforts to close Minnesota’s gaping $5.3 billion state budget deficit?

State Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller, DFL-Minneapolis, thinks so. “Do the math” was his pessimistic analysis at a panel in Bloomington last Tuesday, pointing to education’s 40-percent share of the state budget. Without new taxes, significant cuts throughout Minnesota’s budget will have to be made, and education’s huge share of the budget makes it a tempting target, said State Rep. Mindy Greiling (DFL-Roseville) in an interview on Friday.

Ask public school officials, though, and they’ll probably tell you what Lois Rockney, the chief financial officer of St. Paul Public Schools, says: After years of underfunding, “[t]here’s no fat left to cut” in school districts’ budgets.

Filed under: Minnesota, Budget Crisis, Education, Education Funding, Larry Pogemiller, Mindy Greiling, Minnesota, Policy, St Paul, Tim Pawlenty