Reimagine Minnesota Purpose
• A commitment to create lasting equity and excellence in education for all students.
• Ensure the constitutionally guaranteed right to an adequate education of all students by creating a comprehensive collective action plan to address integration, access, opportunity and educational achievement.
In March 2016, a group of metropolitan superintendents gathered together to discuss the future of education in the State of Minnesota.
Specifically, the superintendents acknowledged that ensuring equity and excellence for all students is the most pressing issue in education today.
They also recognized that the demographic composition of our state was rapidly changing and that Minnesota would have an older, more diverse population throughout the state in the coming years. Our K-12 education system is the foundation for the upcoming workforce yet our educational data and statistics show that schools and districts need to improve all of the educational markers that serve as benchmarks of success in the current educational system.
We Must:
• Value and respect all students
• Value and respect parents, families, family structures and caring adults
• Value education team members
• Value and respect diverse cultures
• Hire and support an effective and diverse staff
• Provide robust and relevant teacher training, preparation and evaluation
• Build trusting relationships
• Provide opportunities to include student, community & parent voice in decision making
• Create community, family, alumni collaboratives that are valued as assets and included in education decision making process
• Provide and incorporate positive and empowering images from diverse populations in everyday learning settings.
We Must:
• Provide a personalized education plan for all students
• Guarantee rigorous course offerings for all students
• Create learning experiences that provide relevant skills and knowledge for the workforce and/or higher education
• Develop meaningful, culturally competent curriculum and instructional programs in all subjects
• Require multiple learning opportunities and curricula regarding differing cultural, social and historical narratives
• Eliminate bias and predictability based on race
• Create school schedule that accommodates personalized learning plans: i.e.: experiential and applied learning programs– time of day, length of teacher day, holidays, calendar year
• Develop a plan that identifies opportunities for family and adult development that supports student success
We Must:
• Provide equitable funding formulas that support all students and districts regardless of geography and community
affluence
• Provide equitable resources, facilities and technology to support student excellence and achievement
• Establish non-political governance of education, including development of standards, etc.
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Need for adult understanding academic reciprocal relationships, design and delivery of instructional practices; academic identity and belief in students; and for creating accountability systems and support. Need to define the purpose of relationships with families and students and teachers and frame them in terms that test standards of engagement. Need to build understanding about depth and authenticity of academic relationships and other ways of meeting academic needs of students who may learn differently from “me.”
Need curriculum that includes absent narratives, collective identity (individual, interpersonal, community) and accountability. Need to align teacher preparation and professional development with a historical understanding of current context and expectations that all students will pass.
Need to choose a non-biased state assessment that informs curriculum and instruction that increases expectations for “ME.”
Need to develop racially conscious systems to encourage, train, recruit, retain and support teachers and educators of color.
Need to address the entrenched values, beliefs, assumptions and mindsets of the dominant culture perpetuate the status quo and inequity in our educational system.
Need for action initiatives within our internal structures and systems need to be unified and focused on supporting each learner.
Need to remember that “we" are the system and responsible for addressing the rigidity by incorporating the student voice, sanctioning healthy risk to encourage creativity and innovation and making a structural commitment to professional development in an interconnected way so that equity is the plate vs. something on the plate.
Need for restructuring statewide education funding with an emphasis on providing resources that ensure equity, access and opportunity for each student.