The Fraudulent Regional Centers of Excellence (RCEs)
The chief initiative on which the success of the North Star Accountability depends is a cooperative arrangement with six Regional Centers of Excellence (RCE), located in Rochester, Marshal, Sartell, Thief Rive Falls, Mountain Iron, and Fergus Falls; additionally, the Minneapolis Public Schools and St. Paul Public Schools act as their own RCEs, purportedly in consultation with and the support of MDE staff. In all, the sites have only 45 staff members, meaning only seven or eight staff members per RCE.
This all a massive gambit.
Here is an introduction to the RCEs in the words of staff at MDE, from the department’s website:
Minnesota’s Regional Centers of Excellence (RCE) deliver a wealth of support and services straight to schools -- and it’s working. Centers are staffed by specialists with a full range of expertise, including math, reading, special education, English language development, equity, graduation support, implementation, data analysis, school leadership and district support.
For districts or charters with
schools identified under the accountability system, the RCEs provide
on-the-ground assistance to create the capacity and conditions that support
change and continuous improvement. The Centers partner with leadership teams to
facilitate school improvement efforts focused on equity for underserved student
groups.
Once designated, comprehensive support and improvement (CSI) and targeted support and improvement (TSI) schools must conduct a needs assessment, build and strengthen leadership teams, and develop school improvement plans, but they don’t have to go it alone. The schools can get help from Minnesota’s Regional Centers of Excellence. In addition to content expertise, center specialists offer an outside perspective on schools’ efforts to increase student outcomes.
In 2015, the Regional Centers of Excellence were named one of Harvard Ash Center’s Top 25
Innovations in Government.
In attempt to sell the putative Regional Centers of Excellence to the public, the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) has posted feel-good features of certain staff at RCE sites.
One of the chief mantras of education professors and the education establishment with which they infect their vacuous notions is that of “critical thinking,” of which they do so little but that they use as a smokescreen behind which lurks massive failure to provide vital knowledge and skill sets to the students of Minnesota.
Regarding the Regional Centers of Excellence, state officials claim and convey the following:
August 20, 2018
The Regional Centers of Excellence (RCEs) work in conjunction with the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) to help schools make long-lasting improvements to student learning, providing hands-on support to help guarantee that every student has the opportunity to reach his or her full potential. The RCEs are made up of a team of education specialists, called advocates, who travel across the state to help guide schools and districts through the process of identifying needs, creating an action plan, and implementing changes to improve student outcomes. RCE school advocates specialize in the areas of literacy, equity, math, special education, English language development, high school graduation, and principal and district support.
The most important resource advocates bring districts is active implementation, a systems-based approach that links all of a system’s moving parts and builds a process that creates a way to sustain the good work being done by schools. Advocates do a lot for their schools and bring their unique backgrounds and expertise to each unique situation and challenge.
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Article #5
How the Reader May Discover the Full Fraudulence of The
Regional Centers of Excellence (RCEs)
Readers may contact staff at these Regional Centers of Excellence to inquire how much they have improved the schools of Minnesota, testing my assertion that they have not improved and cannot improve student proficiency to make any aggregate difference whatsoever:
Regional Centers of Excellence
Directors Name and Region Phone Number Email Address
Lowell Haagenson Central Lakes Region Cell: 320-492-9092 lhaagenson@mnce.org Resource Training and Solutions 137 - 23rd Street South Sartell, MN 56377
Tara Lindstrom Northern Pines Region Cell: 218-410-8111 tlindstrom@mnce.org Northeast Service Cooperative 5525 Emerald Avenue Mountain Iron, MN 55768
Becca Neal Northern Sky Region Cell: 218-686-9719 bneal@mnce.org Northwest Service Cooperative 114 - 1st Street West Thief River Falls, MN 56701
Jane Drennan Southeast-Metro Region Cell: 507-696-5572 jdrennan@mnce.org Southeast Service Cooperative 210 Wood Lake Drive Southeast Rochester, MN 55904
Nicole Lydick Southwest Prairie Region Cell: 231-878-1925 nlydick@mnce.org Southwest/West Central Service Cooperative 1420 East College Drive Marshall, MN 56258
Staci Allmaras Western Lakes Region Cell: 218-255-1650 sallmaras@mnce.org Lakes Country Service Cooperative 1001 East Mount Faith Fergus Falls, MN 56537 Minnesota Department of Education - Regional Centers of Excellence Support Name and Region Phone Number Email Address
Toni Cox RCE Program Manager Cell: 218-416-2416 toni.cox@state.mn.us Minnesota Department of Education c/o Northwest Service Cooperative 114 - 1st Street West Thief River Falls, MN 56701
Tyler Livingston Director, Division of School Support Office: 651-582-8427 tyler.livingston@state.mn.us Minnesota Department of Education 1500 Hwy 36 West Roseville, MN 55113
Greg Keith Chief Academic Officer Office: 651-582-8316 greg.keith@state.mn.us Minnesota Department of Education 1500 Hwy 36 West Roseville, MN 55113
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My assertion that you may test by calling one or all of these Centers is as follows:
These Regional Centers of Excellence, six in number, with approximately 42 total staff members and designation of the Minneapolis and St. Paul public schools systems as their own RCEs, have no capacity to improve education in Minnesota by lifting overall achievement or addressing the particular injustices perpetrated on students on free and reduced price lunch or student populations bearing the bruises of history.
This is a salient example of the kind of hoax perpetrated decade after decade on the students of Minnesota by the Minnesota Department of Education.
Soon after the Minnesota Department of Education presented its North Star Accountability
Systems, the Department announced results of Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs) in math and reading for the 2017-2018 academic year. Just 60 percent of Minnesota students were proficient in mathematics, the same figure as that for 2016-2017; for reading the comparable figures were 59 percent in academic year 2016-2017 and 57 percent in 2017-2018,a two percentage point decline.
In the Minneapolis Public Schools, reading proficiency rose a bit over those two academic years, from 43 percent to 45 percent, with math proficiency flat at 42 percent. In that school district, one-third of graduates who matriculate at colleges and universities need remedial instruction. And most graduates walk across the stage to claim a piece of paper that is a diploma in name only, so deficient are they in key knowledge and skill sets in mathematics, biology, chemistry, physics, history, government, economics, quality literature, English composition, and the fine, vocational, and technological arts.
The North Star Accountability System has no chance to improve basic skills proficiency or to induce local districts to design knowledge-intensive, skill-replete curriculum. The Minnesota Department of Education must be identified and called to account for maintaining the sea of corruption that defines the MDE inept bureaucracy.
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