On Sept. 25, a Bemidji Pioneer editorial was critical of Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s latest plan to “reform” K-12 education. Main points in Pawlenty’s plan are to increase merit pay pressures on teachers and make entry-level exams more rigorous for education students. This micro-managing deliberately sidetracks an honest discussion of the real strengths and weaknesses in Minnesota’s education system.

Key strengths include the highest ACT test scores and just about the highest overall high school graduation rate in the nation. Perhaps because these outstanding achievements challenge the need for the “reforms” the governor is pushing, they have received little attention from the Pawlenty administration.

A main weakness is the declining graduation rate for students of color. According to an annual report by Education Week (NPR, June 4): “Minnesota ranks at the bottom of the 37 states that have consistently reported graduation rates for black students. The rate declined by nearly 10 percent between 2002 and 2005” in the face of No Child Left Behind.

In light of this embarrassing inconsistency, wise leadership would recognize the points of excellence in Minnesota education, but also advocate targeted initiatives to close the achievement gap. Four real reforms would improve educational success for students of color and the education system as a whole:

Provide statewide funding for quality, comprehensive preschool programs and full-day, all-day kindergarten.

Demonstrate and promulgate programs that successfully help low-income parents become directly involved in their children’s education. (Schools that are also service centers for families — and not just institutions for their children — provide one such model.)

Reform the state funding formula for Minnesota’s public schools. Present subsistence-level funding — with the tacit recognition that wealthier districts will supplement budgets through tax levies — perpetuates the achievement gap and means that schools in most communities struggle each year.

Replace the political obsession concerning annual test scores, and teachers’ pay being tied to those scores, with a vigorous but rational expectation that state educators teach all students effectively — and give educators the resources to meet this expectation.

The governor so far has failed to face the real needs of Minnesota’s educators in helping all students gain educational success. His personal ideology has forced him into the diversion attempted in his plan, criticized for good reason by the Pioneer Press.

Will a Republican Legislature work to put Minnesota on the road to true educational reform? Unlikely. Independence from the governor’s ideology can only come with a Democratic Legislature.

Dan Gartrell

professor of elementary and early childhood education

Bemidji State University

Bemidji