Integration Revenue is Focus of Legislative Town Hall on Education

Opposition to integration funding cuts dominated an Omnibus Education Bill input session sponsored by the MN House DFL Caucus at Arlington High School in St. Paul on Wednesday, April 20th.

As policy observers know, omnibus bills are crafted by the Legislature, currently led by the Republican party, while the Governor's priorities are established in a budget bill brought forth by the Democratic party.

"This is my 19th year in the Legislature, but the first time I have ever carried the budget bill for the Governor," noted Rep. Mindy Greiling, District 54A, who has served under all non-Democratic governors prior to this year.   "There isn't one thing in it that I oppose."

Greiling could not say the same for HF 934, the Omnibus Education bill currently under consideration at the Legislature, a bill she cited as one that is moving opposite the equitable direction set by PS Minnesota. This organization has advocated for an entirely new state education funding formula-- one that assigns additional formula weight to "at-risk students"-- since the release of its first report in November 2006.

Following Greiling (and event-convening Rep. Debra Hilstrom's) lead, many of the approximate 300 district officials, school board members, and educational advocates in attendance voiced concerns on the tack being taken by the current MN House leadership.

Several speakers saw the notion of eliminating integration funding to fly in the face of closing the student achievement gap between white students and students of color.

"All Minnesotans can agree that what attracts & builds the economy is an incredibly strong workforce," said a St. Paul school board member. "But today is much different from 1960, as some districts have as many as 70% students of color, with 50% who speak a different language at home .... We have to have all people live and work together, and it's incredibly foolish to cut the integration funding," the board member added.

Beyond just the infusion of dollars for existing districts to use for integration-related activities like after school language programs, home-school liaisons, and teacher diversity training, there are a few districts in the metropolitan area that were voluntarily created for the sole purpose of integrating-- with the East Metropolitan Integration District (or EMID) being one.

Based on input provided by two EMID students who praised their educational arrangement as "providing a second home for students who find it too stressful at their first home," the elimination of integration funding in favor of statewide innovation  programs (as key Republicans have proposed) may put such districts in jeopardy of discontinuation.

St. Paul & Mpls. Schools Superintendents

Yet another reality of integration funding involves the most sizable  student constituency that it serves-- English Language Learners (ELL), which consists of students for whom English is not the primary language spoken at home. "In working with ELL students, we're not just talking about new arrivals, but refugees, and integration funding helps these people in a proper way," said Minneapolis Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson.

Bruce Hentges, a St. Cloud Area School District school board member, remarked that "some have tried to divide us" on the issue of integration aid, before adding his district "identifies with Minneapolis and St. Paul" on the potential that integration will be removed from the education bill under consideration.  According to Hentges, greater than 50% of St. Cloud's student population qualifies for the Free & Reduced Lunch program, and the district also has a significant number of of English Language Learners.

Hentges then encouraged the Dayton Administration to "hang tough" and asked: "What things will the Governor hang do to ensure equitable education funding across the state of Minnesota?"

"We will not compromise by pitting one group, school, or city against another," replied Minnesota Education Commissioner Brenda Cassellius.

"In 1971, Governor Wendell Anderson held out until November, and we got the Minnesota Miracle that funded our schools," Rep. Greiling reminded the assembled group.

A Brief History of Integration Revenue

While broad efforts to integrate school systems have been going on since the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case in 1957, Minnesota's integration revenue program specifically funded just the Minneapolis, St. Paul and Duluth districts between 1987 and 2000-- to the tune of $56 million in the final year of this stretch.

Beginning in 2001, additional districts were added into the program based on new eligibility criteria set by the Minnesota Department of Education.  For the 2010-11 school year, about 110 school districts required to file integration plans received $93 million, with 70% (or $65 million) of it coming from state sources and 30% (or $28 million) from local property tax levies.

In 2005, the Office of the Legislative Auditor was tasked with the responsibility of evaluating MN's Integration Revenue program.  In its review, the OLA found the purpose of the integration was not clear, that school districts varied widely in how it used its integration monies, that the Minnesota Department of Education had not provided consistent oversight of the program, and that the integration revenue funding formula has had some unintended consequences.

Principal OLA recommendations included revising the integration formula, and also giving the Department of Education the authority to approve the integration budgets of the Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Duluth school districts, who together, received over 40% of the $93 million integration dollars spent statewide in the 2010-11 school year.  The Department of Education, which was led by Republican Commissioner Alice Seagren at the time, supported every recommendation the report contained-- a level of departmental acceptance almost unheard of in the realm of state government auditing.

In January 2011, the Minnesota School Integration Council performed a comprehensive review of the current Minnesota desegregation rule and Minnesota Statute Section 124D.86, which governs the use and allocation of integration revenue.  The Council's recommendations included:

1. Clarifying the purpose of integration policy
2. Establishing and enforcing accountability measures
3. Identifying and supporting effective practices tied to results
4. Seeking partnerships and supporting collaboration &
5. Distributing resources to meet outcomes

Now it is up to the Legislature and the Governor's administration to see where the program will go from there.

Primary sources for this integration report: 
September 2010: Minnesota School Finance, A Guide for Legislators 

A Framework for a New Minnesota Education Funding Formula 

OLA School District Integration Revenue Evaluation Report

Statewide Taskforce on School Integration Report

MN's Top High School Orators Inspire Faith for the Future

Sharply-dressed contestants in hallways stand, gesture and rehearse their presentation before no one in particular.  Chanhassen High School's  central commons is filled with the energy of people who have completed a round of presentations three months in the making.  A special kind of spring is in the air--- it's the Minnesota State High School League's  Class A High School Speech Tournament.

Speakers talented and skilled enough to make it to state have given their particular presentation up to 100 times, with 40 to 50 of them occurring in ten, 3-round regular season meets,  a sub-sectional and a sectional competitions.  A participant generally selects and prepares a speech from just one of 13 different categories, each with its own set of ground rules:

1. Creative Expression: W	8. Informative Speaking: W
2. Discussion: NW	9. Original Oratory: W
3. Duo Interpretation: NW	10. Serious Drama Interpretation: NW
4. Extemporaneous Reading :NW	11. Serious Poetry Interpretation: NW
5. Extemporaneous Speaking :NW	12. Serious Prose Interpretation: NW
6. Great Speeches: W	13. Storytelling: NW
7. Humorous Interpretation: NW

 
For the Class A State Tournament, 24 different speakers begin in each of the categories.  A third of those will make the finals, with places being determined from a Finals round.  Just like the students who give the speeches,  judges, too, have their favorite categories.  As noted in the 13 types of speeches listed above, each category is further expressed as a "writing" or a "non-writing" category, which factors into whether a particular subject is "cut out" for her or him.  Ultimately, speakers need craft a piece that not only speaks to them, but to an audience as well.

After all the shaping & evaluating applied to the presentations of these state tournament speakers during the season, you can be assured their work will resonate.  Listening to them will be its own reward.

In fact, the "slate of eight" in the Original Oratory category was so persuasive, a content recap of them is included here for you.  Presentational deliveries by the students were crisp, clear, and commanding.

Here are the rules of Original Oratory: A speaker delivers his or her own persuasive composition, the makeup of which can only be 10% quoted material.   Not concerned with solving the great problems of the day, this presentational form is meant to supply an insight or guidance. 

1. Digital Devices & Effects on Sleep: Angela leads off with this statistical whopper:  90% of teens have cellphones, and an astonishing 60% of them frequently stay up late to text.  This practice has many harmful effects, most of which relate to a lack of sleep.  The lighting display of the message is bright enough to effect circadian rhythm, by impacting the retina for 1 hour after exposure.   Checking email is equal to taking a double shot of espresso.  Obesity increases due to drop in appetite-regulating hormone, and concentration is a challenge.

2. Vaccine War: America's Fight Against Science:  Brendan framed his work around this salient statistic--  25% of Americans believe thymerosol creates autism, despite this being disproven by science.  This is the primary cause behind an "anti-vaccination" movement in the U.S.-- which is also bolstered by the view that people have seen no outbreaks from diseases like polio since the 1950s, so why worry?  Disease rates in some areas are reaching 1800s level proportions, as many people disregard scientific fact, and misread the concept of risk.  Currently, there are only 10 different vaccinations required, while many medical experts believe that any one person could handle up to 10,000,  if they had to.

3. Our Sister's Keeper: Despite the courageous work of a Human Rights team and folks like Mozdah Jamalzadah-- the Oprah of Kabul, Afghanistan-- Nicole points out that women are still not equal in that country.  The speaker lays out the situation-dependent relationships the US has had with the Afghans.  After the Soviet Union invaded the country in 1979, the U.S. provided the Stinger to insurgent forces in 1988.  In the vacuum that ensued, the Taliban took control in 1998, creating turmoil and a set of continuing abuses.  Even today, only 18% of women in the country can read or write.

Concluding admonitions: to "look upon Afghanistan's women as a reflection of our past selves" and to serve as our brothers' and our sisters' keepers.

4. Echo Chambers: Carl provided a much-needed lecture for any increasingly modernized culture:  Be careful that media technology is not something that keeps you in a like-minded bubble and away from situations that allow for spontaneous interaction. While technology is meant to open up the world, too often it intensifies a barrier against being exposed to different ideologies, news, people and ideas.  Through things like Amazon, Facebook, and Tivo, unexpected topics are often filtered away.

Many practice little to no critical thinking.  This social malady breeds overconfidence, extremism, and contempt for others.

We insulate ourselves from opinions that might wobble our soapboxes.  Our opinions should not be immovable objects.

5. Nursery University: Begun in Manhattan, there's a concerning education movement afoot in Shelby's view : Parents are feeling the need to getting kids into premiere educational institutions in their preschool years, paying the equivalent of a year's college tuition to get them into the preschool  of their choice. Speaker questions whether these placements are truly critical for future success, as trends toward earlier competitiveness intensify.  The pattern is exacerbating educational inequalities.

Such parents might reexamine their educational priorities and let kids be kids.

The commons is abuzz between rounds of the MSHSL State Speech Tournament.

6. Geographic Illiteracy:   Maile asserts "Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic are where education reform efforts end."  In her view, Americans have grown tragically ignorant of the country & world at large. Among the basket of telling statistics: only 1/2 of U.S. Citizens can find Washington DC on a map.  Creating geographically proficient people is useful to understanding federal policy. In an increasingly interconnected planet, it is also useful for appreciating a raft of physical & cultural aspects of the world, including weather patterns, climate change, erosion, demographics, migration, language, and resources.

A definitive conclusion:
"If we are to keep our position as a world leader, we need to take the time to get a deeper understanding of that world."

7. Direct Election Dreams:  Isaiah would like to see a one person, one vote voting system in America. Our electoral system, the result of a political compromise over a 200 years ago, has had devastating effects on politics and is detrimental to our election process. Five Presidents from Jefferson to Bush have taken office without a majority of the popular vote.

Through it's "winner take all" effect, it distances too many people from the voting process. The electoral college doesn't allow third-party candidates to compete. As support, Isaiah provides the statistic that nationally in 1908, voter participation stood at 60%, while in 2008, that figure was just 41%.

Big backers of the notion include 1962 US Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren and John B Anderson who wrote "The Electoral College Should be Abolished."

8. I Kinda Maybe Sorta Like You
    
We aren't committing ourselves to quality, direct, or sincere communication posited Priyanka. Instead of expressing our thoughts and feelings, we are repressing them.  We are not always honest, for fear of being insensitive to others.  Being too nice/too caring can be counterproductive, and the thought of rejection keeps us imprisoned from addressing important situations.

A galvanizing 2009 statistic suggests that 67% of us either don't express what's on our mind or we "change" our minds to agree with everyone else.

There are worse feelings out there than "rejection" and "regret" is one of them.


So polished and so convincing are each of the Class A's Great 8 Original Orators in the final round of the tournament.
A person can't help but believe the future will be brighter when these people are in positions of leadership.

Read about the State's First 4-time champion in the informative speech category and the overall 2011 State Speech Tournament Recap. The first is under the "John's Journal" tab at the linked page.

Bush Foundation to Provide Unprecedented Support Through Teacher Effectiveness Initiative

 April 11th Parents United Summit

Attendees of a Parents United for Public Schools conference were reminded Bush Foundation President Peter Hutchinson is not one to "tiptoe through the tulips" where public education is concerned. 

Hutchinson's path-breaking style surfaced when he became the first "private" superintendent of Minneapolis Public Schools while heading Public Strategies Group in 1993, and his new leadership on a $40 million, 10-year Network for Excellence in Teaching initiative designed to buttress a beleaguered teaching profession illustrates he still strides long for schools.

Parents United Executive Director Mary Cecconi invited the Bush Foundation president, Minnesota Board of Teaching's Karen Balmer, and St. Paul Federation of Teachers' Mary Cathryn Ricker to its annual summit-- held April 11--  with the intent of providing "a much deeper look at effective teaching than what has been provided in the newspaper."

In his part, Hutchinson kicked off the trio of presenters with a bold spiel citing a "Big 3 problems" in education:

1. Overall student attainment is mediocre and not getting better.
2. The education system is becoming a drag on the economy (a view he's been reluctant to share publicly).
3. There is an almost unmentionable set of disparities between the students of different races in Minnesota.

Add in the statistical projection that 70% of jobs will require a post-secondary degree or certification over the next decade (while only 27% of current high school graduates are doing so).  You now have the basis for why the Bush Foundation is investing considerable resources in teacher effectiveness--  the single most important factor in creating academically successful students.

Along with the 3 educational beliefs above and the increased need for graduates goes this fitting "demographic": 25,000 teachers (half the teaching corps of the three participating states) are expected to retire during the next 10 years.  As a result, the 14 institutions of higher education* participating in the Bush initiative have committed to producing those 25,000 teachers.

Unlike most other teacher quality initiatives that assist teachers once in their professional environments, the Bush initiative will be helping the collaborating institutions prepare teachers by recruiting candidates, giving them earlier student teaching experiences, and supporting them professionally after becoming full-time educators.

If the initiative develops as intended, partnering institutions will not only cultivate good teachers by targeting scholarships and preparing their candidates, they will also maintain relationships with graduates after they are placed in the teaching field.

"Instead of the 2nd semester of a student's senior year being the first time she works alongside a classroom teacher, these programs will have students co-teaching in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, & 4th years of their undergraduate programs,"  Hutchinson said in emphasizing a distinction that will help people determine whether teaching is for them at an earlier stage of their teaching track.

Once a candidate from the consortium becomes employed, his performance will be "guaranteed" for the first 4 years of his career by the college granting the diploma.  Any professional development needs during that time period will be the degree-granting institution-- not  the employing school district's--- responsibility to provide.  To build that bridge between the teaching institution and employer, longitudinal data links will be developed to strengthen the status of the teaching degree programs.

Lonni Skrentner--a 39-year  Edina Public Schools educator and current Edina school board member--  likes the initiative's earlier focus on student teaching and the post-graduation support components.  Although she did not embrace all of  Hutchinson's claims & statistics and has a hard time understanding how any recruitment approach will work given the vast amount of teacher bashing out there, she appreciated Hutchinson's "guts, perseverance, and willingness to get into the weeds" on the subject of teacher effectiveness.

The Bush Foundation's Teacher Effectiveness Initiative is "huge undertaking" that concerns the "futurity" of kids, said Hutchinson.

Let's hope it adds value to the education system going forward.
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*The 14 higher education institutions in the NExT Teacher Partnership are: Minnesota State University @ Moorhead and Mankato, St. Cloud State University, University of MN Twin Cities, Winona State University, Augsburg College, Bethel, Concordia, Hamline, St. Catherine, & St. Thomas Universities,  North Dakota State University, Valley City State University (ND), and the University of South Dakota.

Solving Mr. Johnson's Dilemma with the Tools of a Writing Renaissance

April 21st Update: Teacher Magazine  features a wonderful collaborative writing piece and nice set of digital composing tools (e.g. Wikispaces, Google Docs, Glogster.)

Mr. Johnson, a retired English instructor, spoke of the instructional dilemma he had during his teaching days:  

"If I did it right and gave students the assignments they needed to increase their writing proficiency, I was overwhelmed as an instructor and ultimately unfair to myself.  But if I did it wrong by not giving enough assignments, I would be shortchanging the students.  Either way I felt guilty."

Over the long course of academia, the discipline of writing has stood alone where student assessment is concerned.  While some writers aspired to have their work read by large numbers of people 'one day,' nearly all needed to endure having their work read by a few readers at time-- their current English teacher, Mom, & maybe a standardized test essay reader more recently-- up through their undergraduate years.

Thankfully developments in the last quarter century have produced some fine ways for addressing "Mr. Johnson's dilemma:"

Process Writing is perhaps the most significant among them.  If you happen to be a parent of school-aged children, you may have never heard of process writing.  Mounds View High School writing instructor Liv Rosin, who is a curriculum contact person for a program called College Writing Lab, explained it is a formative type of instruction in which a writer's work-in-progress is subject to interventions by both an instructor and a student's writing peer group.  This approach, which is now the norm in many high schools, differs from the traditional writing approach where a writer works alone before submitting the final product for an instructor's judgment.

Most educators prefer formative assessments to summative ones due to their capacity to diagnose, then allow students to improve upon their work before moving on to the next class or grade level.

For those school districts who still find the labors of process writing instruction too heavy a curricular burden, long-time writing proponent Paul Carney has just the "online shop" for them.  A no-nonsense educator who saw far too many graduates receiving diplomas who didn't have the second "R" of  "readin', writin' & 'rithmetic" mastered, Carney developed  Step Write Up  for 8th graders and Ready or Not Writing for high school students.  Under both programs, students whose schools enroll in the free program can submit either school-assigned pieces or independently-crafted ones for a college ready assessment from a Minnesota college English instructor.

Nowhere does the virtual world of the internet become so practical as in the case of Carney's supplementary creations, which are recognized by both Democratic and Republican leaders at the Minnesota Department of Education who realize there has been a decline in the writing of many graduating seniors.

By now, you could be asking what type of feedback is available for addressing Mr. Johnson's dilemma at the elementary level.  After all, the group interactivity of process writing might fly a little high for K-5 kids, and students aren't eligible for the services of Step Write Up until the 8th grade.

A Minnesota-based website called Kidblog provides budding grade school writers the opportunity to have their work absorbed by the most intriguing audience type of all-- similar-aged students of other countries! Kidblog was recently the subject of this front-page, above-the-fold, Sunday feature:Pioneer Press Kidblog Piece. Begun by Matt Hardy-- an Eden Prairie, MN, elementary teacher in 2007-- the site not only makes keyboarding miraculously fun, it has also sufficiently allayed safety concerns enough for 500,000 elementary-aged writers & readers to be sharing their thoughts and life experiences with new friends across the planet.

Taken together, these new programs, processes, and platforms have combined to truly make the days we live in an unparalleled period for the art of writing.  Add in the technological changes allowing for the rapid, digital "deconstruction" of a piece and near-instant publishing capabilities-- and calling this period a Renaissance for Writing is not too strong a description.

At the very least, our educational culture now has what it takes to solve "Mr. Johnson's dilemma."

Does MN's Teacher Evaluation Bill Mesh with Secretary Duncan's NCLB Reauthorization Efforts?

April 3rd Item Update:  Gov. Dayton and MDE Commissioner Cassellius share a  desire to go where research findings lead them to improve teacher effectiveness and close the achievement gap.--- Attributed to Rep. Pat Garofalo in Star Tribune's This year, may this state witness the art of compromise by Lori Sturdevant.

Original Entry of March 30:

Memo to MN Education Policy Makers: Before approving the groundbreaking new teacher evaluation bill that cleared its first hurdle in the House of Representatives, please consider U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan's ongoing campaign to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act.

"I've said repeatedly our department must continue to support and encourage innovation, not force compliance," Secretary Duncan testified to the House Education and Workforce Committee on March 9.

In the currently available version of Minnesota's HF 945, Article 1, Sec. 1, Subd. 1: teacher effectiveness would be linked to student performance with this language: 

"When determining a school's effect, the data must include both statewide measures of student achievement and, to the extent annual tests are administered, indicators of achievement growth that take into account a student's prior achievement.  Indicators of achievement and prior achievement must be based on highly reliable statewide or districtwide assessments."

Sect. 5, Subd. 1 of HF 945 then constructs a teacher evaluation structure by establishing a  "mechanism for translating the performance data into a five-part teacher effectiveness rating scale."

Big Question #1: Should we take MN's "effectiveness" language to be the innovation that Secretary Duncan encourages or the compliance that he warns against?

We've often heard the phrase "hold harmless" where education policy is concerned.  On the topic of reauthorizing the now 10 year-old NCLB law, Secretary Duncan specifically holds the NCLB Act responsible for the challenges districts and states face:

"Almost everywhere I go, I hear people express concern that the curriculum has narrowed," the Secretary has said. "I think the law is too punitive, too prescriptive, and it's led to a dumbing down of standards, and a narrowing of curriculum," Secretary Duncan stated regarding a "must-make" policy change at the federal level.

Duncan asserts that 80% of the nation's schools will be labeled as failures this year, and by law, all of them will be subject to an identical set of interventions, regardless of a given school's individual student needs.  If that happens, the schools with the widest gaps in achievement are most at risk of continued failure, which worries him deeply since the whole point of the law is to ensure that the schools with students most at risk are served. Duncan also contends the current law "created dozens of ways for schools to fail and very few ways to help them succeed."

In its place, Secretary Duncan does support a system of accountability based on individual student growth, one that "recognizes  success" and "holds all of us accountable for the quality of education we provide to every student in the nation." This shift in policy direction would represent a "sea change" from the current law, which simply allows every state to set an arbitrary bar for proficiency, and measures only whether students are above or below that bar.

Duncan also advocates a common sense law that is "tight on goals and loose on the means of achieving them", instead of the reverse as it is now. Towards that end, many states are are already developing robust student data systems so they can measure student growth, so the academic bar can be truly be raised.

Big Question #2: Will the passage of HF 945 properly leverage the longitudinal data systems being built in Minnesota school systems?

By mandating  and prescribing "one size fits all" solutions, Duncan says: "NCLB took away the ability of local and state educators to tailor solutions to meet the unique needs of their students, and that is fundamentally flawed.  This law is fundamentally broken, we need to fix it, and we need to fix it this year."

Secretary Duncan himself is not averse to the idea of teacher evaluations:

"At the end of the day, the best way to make  a difference is with effective, well-supported teachers.  The best way to achieve that is with stronger teacher recruiting and training programs linked to rigorous teacher & principal evaluation systems.  That work is underway all across America, and if we do our part by fixing the law, we can accelerate that progress."

Calls for meaningful teacher evaluation have been issued by everyone from Minnesota Education Commissioner Brenda Casellius to the Minnesota Education Association to the American Federation of Teachers to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Big Question #3: Would the teacher evaluation methodology set out in HF 945 accelerate progress toward a rigorous educator evaluation process-- or will it decelerate it?

Given the landmark nature of this teacher evaluation legislation, let's all hope & pray that any such efforts adequately address some important questions before the bill becomes a full-fledged law.
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You can listen to Duncan's entire 13-minute set of remarks to the House Education Workforce Committee (the primary source for this analysis) between the 10:40 and 23:40 points of the following C-Span video: