Coming Face to Face with the
Corruption That is the
North Star Accountability System on 24
September 2019
At 6:00 PM on Monday, 24
September 2019 in Conference Center B at the Minnesota Department of Education,
the MDE Commissioner Brenda Cassellius’s aide Michael Diedrich and others
conducted an information session focused on the North Star Accountability
system. This is the system of purported
accountability now being foisted on the public in the latest failed proclamation
hailing a program that nevertheless has no chance of raising academic
performance of Minnesota students.
Of
the approximately 2,000 schools in Minnesota, 485 of them have failed to
demonstrate acceptable performance along
several indicators: graduation rates,
attendance, academic progress for English learners, general academic progress,
and proficiency as demonstrated on the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs). Note that the latter indicator, which is the
only measure that reveals the actual proficiency levels of students in a given
academic year, now is a mere inclusion in an array of indicators. Much mention was made at the meeting of
reference to how schools now have multiple ways of demonstrating that they are
making progress; the matter of academic
performance is not clearly in focus, as was the case during 2002-2016 before
Congressional jettisoning of No Child Left Behind and the passage of the new Every
Student Succeeds Act. The Every Student
Succeeds Act and the North Star Accountability System designed by staff at the
Minnesota Department of Education allow for considerable more wiggle room for
failing schools to claim some level of success:
Perpend,
on the latter matter:
One
MDE presenter gave his approval to a case in which a school has done a
particularly good job of cleaning up around and plugging bullet holes in
lockers, indicating that this could be a case of what MDE staff is touting as
“Quick Wins.”
I
kid you not.
And
some members in the audience comprised heavily of people from Minnesota Public
Schools systems gave verbal expressions of approval.
I
kid you not on that, as well.
After
the meeting had proceeded through three presentations and the clock indicated
that we had rolled past the hour point, with less than thirty minutes to go, I
raised the following question, with introductory comments as follows:
“There
are to be six Regional Centers of Excellence, staffed with a total of 45
members, so that each center will have seven or eight people providing
assistance.”
“That’s
about right,” the presenter responded.
I
continued:
“Back
in the late 1990s and very early 2000s in the time of the Minnesota Basic
Skills Test, the school systems of Minnesota demonstrated that they could not
even educate an acceptable percentage of students at a grade 8 level. Then we had No Child Left Behind and more
embarrassing academic results, at that time with the MCAS; No Child Left Behind was attacked by the
left (Education Minnesota, Minneapolis Federation of Teachers, DFL) and right
(when the right figured out, “Oh, yeah, these are central government
mandates”), so that we then had the Multiple Measurement Rating System, the
Every Student Succeeds Act and with it the current North Star Accountability
System.
“My
question to you, then, is:
Do
you at the Minnesota Department of Education live in a fantasy world, or are
you knowingly perpetrating this hoax on the students of Minnesota?”
The
crowd, comprised mainly of public school administrators and teachers, sat in
stolidly stunned silence. The presenter
stammered that answering that question would take a lot of unpacking.
I
said, “Sure would. Go ahead and unpack
it.”
“Not
now,” he said.
And
I then responded, “Well then, would you meet me in a public debate”?
“No,
I wouldn’t,” he said.
“Of
course, you wouldn’t,” I asserted, “because you don’t have the ability. You know that I’m correct about the new
system being a hoax. You’d be defending
the indefensible.”
Members
of the audience, all of those retorting representing either Minnesota school
districts or the MDE, then began to issue rejoinders to me. I challenged two more MDE members and one
school district representative to a refereed public debate. There were no takers.
One
of the previous presenters came to the fore and threatened to call a security
guard.
“And
on what basis would you do that?” I asked.
“Disturbing
our meeting,” came the reply.
Michael
Diedrich, I kid you not once again, hastened out of the room to summon the
nearest security guard.
I
just laughed.
As
the last presenter made one more lame presentation, Diedrich returned with the
security guard as both remained at the back of the room (I was sitting right up
front). The presenter concluded, called
for questions, there were no takers, and the meeting was over.
I
rose slowly but was the first to stride up the aisle. I expected a few people to meet me in the eye
with angry stares, given the dominant composition of the crowd representing the
state department and the school districts culpable for the academic results
that have no more than sixty percent (60%) of our students reading and
performing mathematical tasks with grade level proficiency.
But
not a single person met my eye.
I
continued my trip up the aisle, staring a hole in Michael Diedrich’s
prevaricating countenance.
But
I turned amiably to the security guard and said, “Hey, good to see you,
man.” He shook my proffered hand. I strode out the door smiling at the
stupidity that I had witnessed on the part of the audience at this charade of a
meeting. But I had three attending
thoughts as I strode to my Toyota Matrix and drove home:
With
regard to public and official attitudes about K-12 education; people variously
>>>>> are dimwitted on the issues;
>>>>> are dissembling officials or their
sycophants;
or
>>>>> they just don’t care.
