Article #3
The Intellectual Corruption of Federal and State Education Policy
By the late 1990s, a movement for academic standards and objective assessments ultimately produced No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in 2002, but telling disaggregated data results proved embarrassing to the education establishment, which went to work on those Democrats (in Minnesota, the DFL) to which the teachers unions give so bountifully; and those on the right, supporters of Republicans, came to object to strict federal mandates. No Child Left Behind gave way to waivers under the Obama administration’s Race to the Top moniker, which in Minnesota produced the murky Multiple Measurement Rating System (MMRS); and then the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA, 2016) produced the even murkier North Star Accountability System (NSAS).
The latter system, rolled out by Brenda Cassellius and staff at the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) in autumn 2018, like MMRS relieves the pressure on school officials by relegating objective measures such as the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments and the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) to status as just one factor among many--- including graduation rates, student attendance, incremental academic progress over time, incremental progress of English learners--- for rating school and district programs. Cassellius and the other North Star explicators at MDE asked the public to believe that six Regional Centers of Excellence (RCEs), each staffed with seven or eight members (totaling 45 for all six centers), are going to provide the needed assistance for addressing the abysmal academic performance of Minnesota’s students.
This North Star Accountability System has continued to prevail under Education Commissioners, Mary Cathryn Rickter, Heather Mueller, and now Willie Jett--- all appointed by Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. The chronic ineffectiveness of the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) is witnessed in a recent (autumn 2022) Minnesota State Office of Legislative Auditor’s (OLA) report. The report’s importance, beyond the specific revelations and recommendations, concerns the reality of incompetence at the Minnesota Department of Education that underpins the report.
The OLA report reviews MDE oversight of four programs: American Indian Education (AIE),
Achievement and Integration (A&I), World’s Best Workforce (WBWF), and Regional Centers of
Excellence (RCE). WBWF legislation in Minnesota was passed in 2013 and A&I was given that
appellation and updated in the same year. These programs anticipated federal Every Student
Succeeds Act (ESSA) legislation then under development and passed in Congress in 2015.
WBWF programs purportedly have the five-fold goal of closing the achievement gap, readying
all students for school as kindergarteners, promoting grade-level literacy for all third-grade students,
preparing all high school graduates for career or college, and sending all high school students forth to
graduation. Similarly, A&I goals are to reduce academic disparities, pursue racial and economic
integration, increase student academic achievement, and increase equitable educational
opportunities. None of the programs under WBWF and A&I have achieved their aims and have no capacity to do so. These programs serve only to meet the legalistic requirements of ESSA and the
state response to ESSA known as the North Star Accountability System.
Minnesota school districts submit annual reports to MDE concerning programming for WBWF
and A&I, but none of the programs are effective in increasing student proficiency for those lagging
below grade level, typically serving only a fraction of the “protected groups” (African American/Black,
Hispanic/Latino, American Indian/Indigenous students, and those receiving free/reduced price lunch)
targeted for increased proficiency. Further, as the OLA report conveys, MDE does little besides
receiving the reports and reporting in turn to the Legislature: no follow-up in terms of investigating
program effectiveness ever occurs.
As to AIE, state legislation and MDE implementation is also ineffective. The legislation, passed
in 2021, serves the aim of closing the achievement gap “between American Indian students and their
more advantaged peers.” In this case, MDE is given an explicit statutory responsibility to develop a
strategic plan for addressing the achievement gap, and to consult with the American Indian
community, evaluate the state of American Indian education in Minnesota, approve pertinent district
and charter school plans, assist districts and charter schools in meeting goals, and approve
preparation programs for teachers of American Indian language and culture. The OLA report finds
that MDE has not met most of these statutory responsibilities.
The OLA report, reflecting negatively on the efficacy of WBWF, A&I, and AIE programs and
MDE oversight, is more favorable to the Regional Centers of Excellence (RCE). But the evidence cited
in offering the positive comments is very thin. The success cited involved just 20 percent of schools
served. Although RCE staff members are not formally employed by the state of Minnesota, most of
those involved in addressing academic proficiency have been teachers certified and operating within
the same system that has produced such wretched proficiency rates (just 46% in reading and 53% in
mathematics for white non-Hispanic students, with achievement gaps of 37, 30, and 29 percentage
points between non-Hispanic white students and their American Indian, African American, and
Hispanic peers respectively).
There are only 57 total staff members at the six RCEs (located in Sartell [11 staff members],
Mountain Iron [10], Thief River Falls [10], Rochester [15], Marshall [9], and Fergus Falls [6]; the
Minneapolis Public Schools and St Paul Public Schools supposedly receive direct MDE support similar
to that provided by the RCEs. There are over 2,100 traditional and charter schools in Minnesota with
a total of 843,404 students. Considering that RCE staff members total only 57, this means that there is
one staff member for every 37 schools and for every 14,797 students. Given the establishment
qualifications of RCE staff members and those high ratios, the notion that RCES can address lagging
student proficiency rates in Minnesota is preposterous.
Corrupted by a flaccid approach to education, those who make policy at the national and state levels are incapable of designing or implementing knowledge-intensive, skill-replete curriculum or articulating a viable approach to teacher training.
No federal or state level bureaucracy will ever result in knowledge-intensive, skill-replete
curriculum or improve teaching quality in the school districts of Minnesota and throughout the United
States. Because of our mania for local control, only a locally centralized school district could
superintend the needed overhaul.
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