Steve Kelley op-ed piece

[jbnr51]

So it's my second Steve Kelley-related post in a couple of days....but he has a good op-ed piece out currently, regarding the recent article in the Trib saying that Minnesota lost a great patriot when Yecke was hired in Florida. Naturally, Kelley had a few choice words on the matter....:


Telling the Truth about Education
Steve Kelley

In an ideal society, education would be the one area everyone agreed should be untouched by politics. People like Gov. Pawlenty, his former Education Commissioner Cheri Pierson Yecke, and editorialist Katherine Kersten (“Yecke bound for a more receptive climate” Star Tribune, 9/1/05) would not use spin, political rhetoric, or myths when talking about education. They would not let political ideology get in the way of truth where the education of children was concerned.

There are, however, a few facts that get in the way of their fairy tale:

As in many areas of education, such as open enrollment and charter schools, Minnesota was a leader when, in the late 1980s and early 90s, we were one of the first states to scrap “seat time” as a measure for graduation and begin designing rigorous standards for what our kids learn, along with tests to ensure they were learning. We created the Profile of Learning as a standard, and the Basic Skills Test and Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment (MCAs) to test them.

These efforts were at least 15 years old when President Bush mandated but did not fund the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) in 2002; and even older when Yecke was hired in 2003. To claim that either NCLB or Yecke were responsible for bringing standards and testing reform to Minnesota is absurd.

Pawlenty appointed Yecke with the task of leading the effort to create new standards in line with NCLB. However, she brought with her a narrow, ideological view and a single-mindedness that offended many and slowed the process considerably. The new standards adopted in 2003 were the result of a compromise effort by legislators, teachers, parents, students and Yecke—a process Yecke often found distasteful. She’d rather have it her way than compromise to make Minnesota education better.

While the standards were replaced in 2003, the measures of testing them (the Basic Skills Test and the MCAs) were not. Therefore, the recently-released math and reading test results are based on the old standards. They have nothing to do with the new standards that Yecke was involved with. The credit heaped on her by Pawlenty and Kersten is unfounded and undeserved.

The recent test scores are impressive. We have invested the appropriate resources to those areas and the results show that. But how is it that reading and math received enough resources even though under Pawlenty education funding has remained flat?

The truth is, math and reading were able to receive enough money to produce good results because resources were taken away from other areas. Advanced Placement class sizes have skyrocketed. Huge cuts were made in social studies, the arts, music, and physical education to make sure that kids would score well on the math and reading tests.

Math and reading are important measures of learning. But they’re not the only measures, and it is unfair to test the quality of a school on such a narrow basis. Minnesota needs to send the message to schools and kids that all subjects are important. That knowing history and economics is as important to success as knowing algebra and grammar. That music and the arts are vital to ensuring the creative minds of our kids are cultivated.

Research shows a relationship between learning in the arts and the development of cognitive skills and abilities used to succeed in other subjects. Creativity will be an important mark of whether our kids can compete globally. Microsoft founder Bill Gates recently noted that although China has been able to compete with America when it comes to math and science, they still envy and struggle to capture the creativity and ingenuity that permeates our educational systems. A well-rounded education is what has made America great.

The reading and math scores should serve as a reminder of what kids can accomplish when given the appropriate resources. Unfortunately, Pawlenty’s actions demonstrate that he does not believe in a well-rounded education system. He refuses to listen to the dozens of parent groups that have formed around the state out of concern of the lack of funding for their schools. Could these thousands of parents really be wrong?

Pawlenty is about partisan politics, as was Yecke. To them, what is said is more important than what is accomplished. Division is more important than unity. In 2004, the Senate demonstrated that unity in education is essential; that education deserves someone who has the ability to put politics aside and bring people together to accomplish things for our kids. Minnesota education did not deserve Yecke, and that is why her appointment was not approved.

Steve Kelley is a DFL senator from Hopkins and a candidate for governor in 2006.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

1. Twenty years ago the comparisons were with Japan, not China

I'm not up on the details of education in China, but while Japanese students do very well in math at all levels and master a complex writing system in their first nine years of school, the schools are also very strong in music and art.

[jbnr51]

2. The Japan comparisons scared us back then

But then Japan's economy tanked in comparison to the US's. The difference now is that China is rapidly industrializing and has about 6 times the population Japan had. Much more of a threat to our economy as China becomes a market for modern goods and not just gasoline and steel.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

3. It didn't actually *tank*

It's more like its bubble collapsed--and, not coincidentally, it began faltering when it adopted more American-like customs, such as allowing big box stores to drive small businesses out or firing middle-aged workers. In addition, the Feds kept the dollar artificially low, so that in the early 1990s, the yen was at 80 per dollar (as opposed to the more normal 110-130), which made their exports expensive in the U.S.

That is when they started heavy-duty outsourcing to China.