The Republican governor blames the statewide teachers union and the DFLers it keeps on a short leash. DFLers blame the governor, arguing that if he were serious about education reform he'd have found a way to make it happen.
Meantime, other states will compete for hundreds of millions in federal Race to the Top money, a pool of a financial aid meant to encourage school reform.
While they all talk amongst themselves, one of the nation's largest achievement gaps between white students and students of color persists here. The improvements in productivity Minnesota will need to pay its bills (among them, we might note, public-employee pensions) recede further into the future.
It's odd that Minnesota couldn't muster a competitive Race to the Top application. This is a school-reform program instigated by Democratic President Barack Obama (who was favored in 2008 by 54 percent of Minnesota voters) and designed to encourage the kinds of changes touted by Republican Tim Pawlenty (elected in 2002, re-elected in 2006, a near-miss as a VP candidate in 2008 and on the presidential trail for 2012). School districts are begging for money, demographers are warning us of trouble ahead, and states that in the past ate our dust are now preparing to eat our lunch. It's just odd.
It's not as if a sackful of tax money sent from Washington (after Minnesota sent a larger sackful TO Washington) would make all the difference. Many variables combine to produce our achievement gap; the rate of public spending might even be the least of them.
But this debate raised issues that Minnesota must keep working on, whether it competes for this sackful or not. The state's application for the first round of funding was criticized for not having a clear strategy for developing the best teachers; for the state's modest gains in improving achievement and graduation rates, particularly among minority students; for not linking teachers' pay with student achievement; and for not having support from teachers and the teachers' union.
One reviewer of the state's first application said opposition from teachers "may reflect the practical and political challenges the state will face implementing the plan."
As we read this, the union's resistence to reforms in the way teachers are evaluated, compensated and trained is part of the problem, but not the whole problem. We support alternative paths to certification and we, at times, have seen unions as blocking reforms we feel would be useful.
But we also understand that the issue is complex. For example, while there is a move to allow limited-training teachers into the classrooms to share their expertise and experience, there is an equally strong push to make education programs for regular classroom teachers more rigorous. It isn't a snap-your-fingers solution.
Minnesota needs to take this loss of federal funds as another wake-up call, a reminder that the problems that afflict public education nationally are also problems in Minnesota, and that we need to identify and focus on these problems.
At the top of our list is the achievement gap separating white and minority students. If we don't begin to whittle away at this problem, the loss of a federal grant will be the least of our problems.
There is a "race to the top" going on in education,
whether we like it or not, and Minnesotans concerned
about losing our educational edge have to kick it in
gear, and soon.