LearnmoreMN Blog

College readiness: The foundation of Minnesota’s future

By Robert Jones, April guest blogger

Nearly 34 years ago I arrived in Minnesota as a 26-year-old newly minted Ph.D. from the University of Missouri. As the son of a Georgia sharecropper and a product of both a segregated public school system and the Civil Rights Movement that brought about its demise, I had traversed a road less traveled by African-Americans in general and males in particular. I had not only finished high school, but also had obtained an undergraduate and two advanced degrees in science-based disciplines and landed a dream job as an assistant professor of agronomy and plant genetics at the University of Minnesota. I chose Minnesota not only for its professional fit, but also for the quality of its public schools — reflecting my desire for my five-year-old son to have better educational opportunities than I had experienced.

Much has changed over the last three decades, not all of it positive. Readers of this blog undoubtedly know that Minnesota has slipped from being a model of excellence in public education to being a state where the academic achievement gap looms largest. The gap cannot be explained by the high performance of our white students. In fact, in many cases students of color in Minnesota score below students of color in other states. On the 2009 national NAEP exam, for example, African-American fourth graders in Texas and Georgia scored higher in reading than their counterparts in Minnesota. Minnesota’s Hispanic students also performed significantly below Hispanic students in Texas, Louisiana, Georgia and Mississippi.

More than 58 years after the landmark Brown vs. the Board of Education decision, and in view of all the economic and intellectual resources available in Minnesota, we should all be profoundly troubled by our state’s shameful results.

The social, economic, and moral consequences of the achievement gap should alarm every Minnesotan. The future of our communities and our state depends on ensuring our children are prepared for and successful in some form of postsecondary education. A recent study anticipates that by 2018 — the year today’s sixth graders graduate from high school — at least 70% of jobs in Minnesota will require some postsecondary education. To make sure today’s sixth graders have a bright future, by 2018 we will need to significantly increase the number of students graduating from our community, technical and four-year colleges.

Reaching this goal will be impossible if we do not find a way to close our state’s achievement gap. According to Minnesota’s state demographer, the percentage of residents in the Twin Cities region who are Latino, black, and Asian is expected to increase from 23% to approximately 35% in 2035. The white population in the Twin Cities, in contrast, is not expected to grow after 2015. If nothing changes, we are headed for an increasingly racially, economically, and educationally segregated community. And to quote author James Baldwin, “These are our children and we will either benefit or suffer from what they become.”

At the University of Minnesota, we are deeply concerned about these trends and are committed to leveraging resources and partnering with K–12 schools and educators to prepare students for success in college — and not just at U of M campuses. Our Urban Research and Outreach-Engagement Center (UROC) is collaborating with the Northside Achievement Zone and other organizations on literacy and school readiness initiatives that could be models for all economically challenged urban communities. Our College of Education and Human Development is redesigning its teacher preparation program as faculty members advance research aimed at eliminating the gap and improving outcomes for all students.

In my office, the College Readiness Consortium reaches out to schools statewide through Ramp-Up to Readiness™, a school-wide guidance program that helps students master the knowledge, skills, and habits they need to succeed in college — whether at our institution, a MNSCU college, or a private campus.

Many school success and college readiness efforts are going on in schools, colleges, faith communities, and nonprofit organizations across the state, especially in the Twin Cities. A recent assessment identified more than 500 initiatives now working to close the achievement gap. The pressing question is, why hasn’t the work of a multitude of well-intentioned people succeeded in eliminating the achievement gap? And how can we leverage our work to achieve the results our children and our state so desperately need?

I believe the answer is that in the Twin Cites we are “program rich but systems poor.” I also would suggest that a comprehensive framework developed in Cincinnati called Strive may in large measure provide the solution — and will explain why in my next post.

It takes a village

By Sarah Dixon, December guest blogger

Two weeks ago I shared a model called Response to Intervention (RTI) as a way to eliminate what educators sometimes call a "wait to fail" culture. This culture, where students take one high-stakes test each year to determine their progress, often leaves students too far behind to catch up. RTI uses constant monitoring, instead of that one annual test, and provides struggling students with help (interventions) that have been demonstrated in studies to work. The challenge for schools is to provide extra staff to implement RTI effectively.

"It takes a village to raise a child" is a quote widely attributed to an African proverb. While a child's immediate family members are their first and most important teachers, too many children struggle in school because their family support system is unable to help. This is where community comes in. Go to any school in America and you will find community volunteers. They read to children, provide tutoring, chaperone field trips and much, much more.

Wouldn't it be great to combine the power of RTI with the passion of community volunteers? The Minnesota Alliance With Youth is making this a reality.

The Alliance provides AmeriCorps Promise Fellows to schools. They work with school staff to use data to target the right support to the right youth at the right time. Promise Fellows serve as a bridge between the school district and community organizations to work with students in grades 6-10 who are at risk of dropping out. Teachers use RTI interventions during school hours and community members continue those interventions after school through mentoring, service learning, academic support and family engagement.

Case study
Clare Dudzinski is one of four AmeriCorps Promise Fellows working in the Northfield school district this year. Clare provides tutoring in the core academic subjects (English, math, science, and social studies) to 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students at Northfield Middle School, and helps to coordinate the Middle School Youth Center (MSYC), a free, after school drop-in program aimed at strengthening academic and social skills. Clare frequently partners with the TORCH (Tackling Obstacles, Raising College Hopes) coordinator, who works with students who are low-income, minority, or first-generation college students. These students are already demonstrating improvements this year in attendance, engagement, organizational skills and assignment completion.

Clare is continuing the tradition of AmeriCorps members who are making a difference in Northfield. In 2006, the graduation rate for Latino students in Northfield was 36 percent. By 2010 the percentage rose to more than 90 percent. According to the ServeMinnesota 2010 Annual Report, "the individualized support provided by AmeriCorps members was an essential ingredient of this success."

Community Partners
So, individuals are volunteering at schools nationwide; so too are community organizations. Partnership is at the heart of the Minnesota Alliance With Youth. Collaboration is the key to ensuring young people have the resources they need to be successful.

In Northfield, it's the Northfield Healthy Community Initiative and Northfield Union of Youth/The Key. Dozens of other organizations are partnering with the Alliance, including Big Brothers Big Sisters, Girl Scouts, Wilder Foundation, the 4-H program, and many more. We partner with organizations within the communities we serve and we partner with larger organizations regionally or statewide. These organizations represent the nonprofit, for-profit and public sectors. It is a powerful list of passionate, giving people.

With Youth
We also partner with youth, one of our most precious untapped resources — all of us will benefit from meaningfully engaging young people in our lives. At the Alliance, youth and adults are equal contributors in our work. A diverse group of youth serves on our Minnesota Youth Council to provide their perspective in dialogues with legislators and local officials.

We encourage organizations, adults and youth interested in helping youth reach their full potential to contact us at www.mnyouth.net.

Eliminating a "wait to fail" culture

By Sarah Dixon, December guest blogger

Say what you will about No Child Left Behind, it has shown us two things: a stubborn achievement gap between students of color and white students and the value of data in helping students achieve. It has also taught us that one assessment at the end of the year is too little, too late — a "wait to fail" culture that often leaves students too far behind to catch up. I am convinced the next great step in education is a model that meets the needs of struggling and at-risk learners proactively, long before students take that spring high-stakes test.

This model is Response to Intervention (RTI), and it's been around for a few years. According to a 2008 study by the University of Colorado-Boulder, every state in the U.S. and the District of Columbia "indicated some emphasis on RTI either in current practice or in development." In Minnesota school districts, some are in year one, two or three of implementation and are just starting to see results.

What is RTI?
Put simply, the RTI model is an educational approach that provides a standards-based curriculum to all students and additional, progressive help (interventions) to students that are falling behind. While this sounds a lot like the way education has been delivered for generations, it differs in two ways:

1. It's about constant monitoring. According to the National Association of School Psychologists, parents and school staff agree that RTI's student progress monitoring techniques provide more instructionally relevant information than traditional assessments.
2. It's about effective help. The interventions used in RTI have been demonstrated to work in randomized controlled trials.

How does RTI work?
RTI has three basic components: school-wide screening, progress monitoring and tiered service delivery, and fidelity of implementation.

Every student is tested at the beginning of the school year to find out where they are at in relation to the curricula. Additional monitoring of student progress on assignments, quizzes and exams occurs constantly. When students show signs of lagging behind, teachers and other staff provide extra help. If progress isn't made, more frequent, more intense help is provided, sometimes including special education services. Critical to student success is the fidelity of implementation — or the commitment to having the RTI program in place and the teachers' ability to use the process in his or her instruction.

But it's hard. Implementing RTI in a way that becomes ingrained in the culture of a school, where teachers understand how to read the data and then apply a menu of interventions with individual students takes training, coaching and time. In addition, cash-strapped schools face major hurdles when proper implementation means hiring extra staff.

Some organizations, including the one I lead, Minnesota Alliance With Youth, are offering schools assistance in implementing RTI. The Alliance facilitates an innovative community approach to provide support to students falling behind that complements what the school is doing. We place AmeriCorps Promise Fellows in schools that meet a number of criteria in a competitive grant process. The AmeriCorps members build capacity by involving community members — something schools don't have time to coordinate. This partnership encourages student achievement through service learning and civic engagement opportunities, stressing high quality in- and out-of-school activities. The essence of our approach is this: providing the right support to the right youth at the right time, with the right scale, intensity and duration.

Later this month I'll post another blog that delves deeper into the benefits of community engagement in the lives of our youth. If you are interested in helping youth reach their full potential, please let us know at www.mnyouth.net.

Helping adult learners be successful

By Anne Marie Leland, October guest blogger

As Minnesota State Economist Tom Stinson said earlier this month, “Focusing just on expenditure cuts may be short sighted — productivity growth and long term cost saving may require investments which increase short term expenditures.”

Suggesting that the state consider expenditures that don’t have a “right now” economic impact may be considered difficult in light of the current Minnesota budget woes. There is ample data and rationale to suggest otherwise when we consider the population of Minnesota adults who are low-wage and educationally underprepared.

As discussed in my first post, postsecondary education is critical for our economic competitiveness. By 2018, 70% of all jobs in Minnesota will require some postsecondary training beyond high school. Currently, 40% of working adults have no high school diploma, only a high school diploma or have some postsecondary education (no degree or certificate). Current demographics make it impossible for this need to be filled solely from new high school graduates. Minnesota FastTRAC aims to be a key strategy to help close that gap by creating adult career pathways for low-wage, low-skilled Minnesotans.

According to the 2008 US Census — American Community Survey, Minnesota has a significant population of working learners, ages 18-64, who may not have the basic skills required to enter and succeed in postsecondary education. Of these working learners,

• 251,210 have no high school diploma or GED
• 892,744 have a high school diploma but have not entered college

Adults with basic skill needs entering postsecondary and career and technical education (CTE) programs are often at a disadvantage. Adult working learners face a myriad of other challenges — the need to work, support a family, upgrade digital literacy skills — that make persisting in education difficult. Typical challenges for some of these adults include lack of:

• affordable childcare
• transportation
• knowledge in enrolling in postsecondary education
• study skills compared with expected college behavior
• time to enroll in education due to economic and family constraints
• successful experiences in traditional education settings
• stable housing

According to the 2010 US Census, there are now about 544,000 Minnesotans in poverty, comprising 10.8% of the state's population. About one million or one in four, are considered near poor with incomes less than 200 percent of the poverty threshold. When set in the context of Minnesota’s poverty rate hurdles that face low-wage, low-skilled adults present a challenge when addressing the skills gap.

For some, it is difficult to think about investing in adult education when there are comparable issues facing our youth. Yet, there are very strong linkages between investing in parents’ education and positive outcomes for their children.

FastTRAC partners see at least three promising connections between the Minnesota FastTRAC initiative and the state’s early education efforts:

1. As the evidence shows, increasing parents’ educational levels is good for their kids, and FastTRAC is based on nationally promising career pathway models to assist low-wage adults in particular to access education, good jobs, and family-sustaining careers;
2. Possible connections between existing early childhood education programs and FastTRAC adult career pathway programs to systemically pursue “dual generation strategies” and provide the quality child care/supportive services adult career pathway participant need; and
3. FastTRAC adult career pathway programs in the early childhood education field to help prepare quality early education practitioners (who can really relate to the low-income parents of the children in these programs).

As noted by Tom Stinson, increasing productivity — especially among our state’s working adults — is a prudent and wise investment. The FastTRAC model fits this paradigm in that it has the potential to greatly increase productivity for the target population of low-skilled adults AND the investment can be made through the proven use of re-directed existing funds and collaborative partnerships.

For an up close look at a local FastTRAC program in Southern Minnesota, please watch this video and hear from students, service providers and employers.

Middle schools: Strengthening the connection

By Sally Wherry, September guest blogger

Can we act on what we know? Research has identified the strong link between a student’s experience in the middle grades and the likelihood of graduating from high school (Balfanz). Specific risk factors for dropping out include course failures in math and/or reading, missing more than 20% of school time, and receiving poor behavior grades in a core class. Studies have also indicated that during the middle grades it is possible to identify up to 50% or more of eventual dropouts. Advances in technology now allow us to gather powerful information leading to targeted help for middle school students. And Minnesota has been responding with policies and programs to assist our middle schools.

Beginning in 2006, the Minnesota Legislature appropriated funding to reimburse districts for the cost of assessing 8th grade students with the ACT’s EXPLORE test and 10th grade students with the PLAN test. Aligned to the ACT, these assessments provide parents, students and teachers with valuable early college and career readiness benchmark information. Of the more than 40,000 Minnesota 8th graders who tested in 2010-2011, 40% of these students met three or four of the four readiness benchmarks, however 25% of those tested met none of them. Since the fall of 2008, MDE has trained over 700 counselors to use EXPLORE and PLAN data to promote college and career readiness. To apply a medical analogy, it’s not enough just to take your child’s temperature...appropriate treatment is necessary if he registers significantly above 98.6.

So what are we doing? We know that Minnesota’s student to counselor ratio is almost 800:1, making the implementation of additional support systems and networks critical. In order to assist every Minnesota middle school student to not only graduate from high school, but also be prepared to successfully pursue postsecondary education and career opportunities, we need to increase their awareness of the importance of the choices they make.

• When students choose a sequence of more rigorous courses, it opens up the widest variety of choices for colleges and careers. In 2010-2011, MDE launched a campaign to provide Minnesota 8th graders with information regarding college and career readiness in order to encourage more rigorous course-taking in high school, especially for students in underrepresented groups. This project provides information to students and parents in a variety of ways. Additionally, a framework of tools, resources, strategies and WebEx presentations related to the research-based core components of preparing students for postsecondary success has been developed for middle school educators.
• Ramp Up to Readiness a program of the University of Minnesota’s College Readiness Consortium, also aims to increase the number and diversity of students prepared for postsecondary success. Students develop personal postsecondary plans and are then supported by a multi-year framework of specific goals, steps, curriculum, rubrics, and an evaluation system. This program spans the middle school/junior high grades through high school, providing a much needed link.
• Beginning in 2006, MDE and McREL partnered with four Minnesota high schools, to launch a pilot program, the Minnesota Model of Systemic High School Redesign. Since then, working in collaboration with the Minnesota Association of Secondary School Principals (MASSP), more than 86 principals and schools across Minnesota have become involved in training and networking. Middle school principals then indicated they desired an aligned model as well, so in 2010, MDE launched a middle level school redesign initiative. The goal of both of these efforts is to provide cost-effective, research-based support for our secondary schools, leading to increased success for all of our students.

A new opportunity for community involvement with middle school issues is coming up later this month. Consider attending a conference on Sept. 27 at TIES in St. Paul that aims to promote community and statewide collaboration leading to high school completion and postsecondary success. And of course, efforts to support our students do not begin and end at the doorstep of our schools. This month’s issue of Blueprints, MDE’s online high school newsletter, identifies additional collaborative efforts occurring across Minnesota.

We must combine and leverage our efforts to ensure that all Minnesota’s students not only graduate from high school, but are also effectively supported during their middle school years on the path leading to postsecondary readiness and success.

Student success must be everyone's business

By Julie Plaut, August guest blogger

Six years ago, Minnesota Campus Compact held its first meeting focused on how colleges and universities committed to community engagement might increase student enrollment and retention in college. One of the participants’ comments really stuck with me: Campuses already know how to create systems that boost student success. They do it for student athletes, often providing both financial assistance and structured academic tutoring, as well as encouragement to enroll in the first place and a sense of belonging from their team. Since the institution has a stake in their success/eligibility to play, faculty members are expected to alert key staff if an athlete isn’t performing well in a class. This allows someone to reach out, find out what’s going on, and offer support early — success isn’t just considered the individual student’s responsibility.

That meeting happened at Augsburg College, which offers a striking example of how an institution can apply a similar approach to supporting students more generally. Augsburg’s entering class has gone from 11% students of color in 2005 to 40% in the last two years, in part because the college deliberately set out to build relationships with college access programs and to remove obstacles that could prevent lower-income students from enrolling. Scholarships are now available for participants in any college access program, and instead of requiring admitted students to pay a $150 deposit before their financial aid has kicked in, students may write a letter committing to enroll. Graduates of a nearby K-8 school, where scores of Augsburg students do service-learning, also qualify for scholarships. Many people at the college are deeply engaged with the surrounding Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, and it matters that they see the mostly Somali residents as neighbors, partners, and potential students, not simply service recipients.

The college has paid attention to retention as well. A strong connection with Admission Possible, for instance, has AP college coaches on campus and AP alumni hired as staff in student service areas. There may still be issues to address, but the institutional commitment to enrolling and supporting a more diverse student body is clear — and that’s an important step.

“Student success must be everyone’s business,” according to the authors of Student Success in College. It's not enough to know that an educated workforce is critical to our collective well-being, or even to offer diffuse college access programs. We must change policies and cultures to advance education as a public good. What other examples of effective systemic change have you seen? What other changes do you consider necessary?

Looking to the Mayo Clinic, and the "village" of Cincinnati, for comprehensive and collaborative models of education success

By Dane Smith, April guest blogger

As we strive toward our goals of much higher post-secondary attainment and reducing our racial and income achievement gaps, let’s consider the Mayo Clinic. This world-famous institution, a point of pride for Minnesota, might seem like a strange model for school improvements. But health care and medicine, like education, is fundamentally a human-helping-human enterprise. And the concept of healing is fitting as we try to address what ails our education system.

"The Mayo" earned its reputation by: considering the whole health of each patient in the most comprehensive way possible, dedication to the principle that "the needs of the patient always come first," coordinating the efforts of its entire group of doctors, and devoting much of its resources toward research and evidence, according to Wikipedia. (As the father of a daughter whose life was saved by Mayo’s collaborative expertise, I actually have firsthand knowledge of the Mayo formula.)

Similarly, we strongly believe that the ideal strategy for improving education investment in Minnesota must be comprehensive, student-centered, collaborative and evidence-based.

There actually is  a growing consensus nationally that the entire cradle-to-career pathway must be tended and improved, as outlined in a national "Broader, Bolder Approach," with its guiding principles for educational redesign. While we should demand improvement in K-12 teachers and principals and administrators, we are missing the boat completely if we neglect the fact that about half our kindergartners, mostly from low-income families and disadvantaged minority neighborhoods, are not fully ready to learn when those professionals first see them. And education must begin by better equipping new parents for their weighty responsibilities.

This or that "silver bullet" — school uniforms, alternative teacher licensure or merit pay, all-day kindergarten — are not likely all by themselves to move the needle dramatically on educational outcomes. And we simply can’t hope for this or that individual miracle-worker in the school system to save our struggling students. Rather, the African proverb "it takes a village to raise a child" comes to mind. And although that phrase might be a little overused in recent years, this very comprehensive and collaborative mindset was crucial to success over the last decade in Cincinnati.

The graduation rate for Cincinnati Public Schools district increased from 51% in 2000 to 80% in 2009. And the graduation rate differential between African-American students and white students not only narrowed to nearly equal standing in that time but has remained at similar levels since 2006. Achievement scores for the district improved significantly. And perhaps most important, college enrollment and readiness have bumped up too: colleges in the Cincinnati area are reporting that more of the city’s high school graduates are enrolling, and more students from the local area are entering academia prepared for the challenges — and staying in college.

The Cincinnati story truly was a group effort. Cincinnati’s success involved multiple interventions along the entire pathway, from cradle to career launch, not just one or two of those "silver bullets," such as lower class sizes, aggressive testing or assigning pass/fail grades to schools. And the overriding lesson is that the school district was not alone in its efforts to reform schools and improve achievement for all students. The local business and philanthropic community, parents and community groups, teachers unions and even national experts on school change (including Minnesota’s own Joe Nathan, director of the Center for School Change at Macalester College) played a key role. More about the Cincinnati experience is available on our website at Growth & Justice, which also features our own Smart Investments in Minnesota’s Students agenda and project, detailing a comprehensive, evidence-based strategy for driving Minnesota toward a 75% higher education attainment rate by the end of this decade.

Education has always been a public responsibility in Minnesota and the United States, for the very good reason that it is essential to our common good, our economy and the quality of life in our community. Education really is everybody’s business, extends well beyond the school and before and after the school day. Mayo and Cincinnati teach us that comprehensive and collaborative are the right way to meet this responsibility.

IB equips students for changing world

By Jon Eversoll, February guest blogger

So who else says the IB has strong programs? Consider Newsweek magazine’s list of “America’s Best High Schools.” In 2009, 36 of the top 100 were IB schools. The list’s author, Jay Matthews, additionally cites U.S. Department of Education studies suggesting the best way to prepare students for college is with rigorous courses.

But rigor in the IB doesn’t simply mean more pages to read and problem sets to solve. In challenging students with real-world issues and concepts, the IB develops inquiring learners who seek to understand the perspectives of others. Students do volunteer work at every level. They are instilled with attitudes and attributes — balanced, caring, communicator, knowledgeable, principled, to name a few — that will serve them well throughout their years. In fact, these are some of the traits New York Times columnist David Brooks held up in his article “Amy Chua Is a Wimp” as more cognitively demanding than memorization or an unwavering focus on a task.

Acquiring these skills starts early. In the IB Primary Years Program (preK-5), students explore six transdisciplinary themes — such as who they are and how the world works — which invite students to look beyond themselves. For example, while researching their local Minneapolis community, students may investigate other river cities in the world, asking how and why they are similar and different.

Making meaningful connections to the world continues in the Middle Years Program (grades 6-10). Here students may look at how mathematical functions are used every day or, while studying metals in chemistry, reflect on how we best use our resources. In history students might ask, “why do societies change?” Recent events in the Middle East underscore the importance of such questions.

The culmination of the IB is the Diploma Program (grades 11-12). Students doing the full diploma take six classes covering many subjects, including another language. Most courses are two years long and subjects train students to be practitioners of the discipline. Art as an artist. Biology as a biologist. All include externally assessed oral and written exams. Strong scores can earn college credit.

And the IB is for all students. A study at the University of California  suggests that IB students, in particular those from low- to moderate-income families, have higher GPAs and graduation rates than comparable non-IB students.

Our children will succeed by being flexible thinkers and well-rounded citizens. Indeed, Minnesota’s IB schools equip their students with the attitudes, skills and knowledge to live in this changing world. Whether it’s through the IB or other programs, this is exactly the kind of preparation our students need.

Calling for a constellation of ideas on closing the achievement gap

By Margaret Anderson Kelliher, January guest blogger

I will not pretend to be a professionally licensed educator, but I come from a long line of teachers starting with my great grandmother. She was educated at what was then Mankato Normal School, now Minnesota State Mankato, and taught in a one-room school house. My mother was an art teacher at North St. Paul High School for a stint in the late 1940s. And I have developed and taught a course at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs on negotiation for the last couple of years.

Having teaching in my genes often makes me wonder what exactly makes a great teacher. How does innovation in teaching and learning happen?

This question has led me to an author who has written on the topic of innovation. Steven Johnson’s book, Where Good Ideas Come from: a Natural History of Innovation, contains lessons for educators, parents, students, inventors and entrepreneurs. Johnson lays out a few important concepts that are important to the genesis of good ideas and how good ideas grow, improve and take hold. I think one of the most important points of the book, which is applicable to teaching and learning, is “idea as a network” and the expansion that takes place when an idea is networked. Johnson calls this chapter “Liquid Networks.” He lays out key components of a network: it needs to be densely populated — like the billions of neurons in your brain; and plastic — able to adjust to new situations. When an idea is alone it is likely to die — it needs other ideas and concepts to crash into to form more fully.

The work of McGill University psychologist Kevin Dunbar is highlighted by Johnson. Dunbar went out and watched scientists in their labs and conducted interviews. He refers to this approach as in vivo (in the wild) — the wild of science labs. His findings are striking. He found that it was rare to have discovery happen in a single moment with a single scientist, but that the most important ideas emerged at the conference table where ideas were shared.

To improve teaching and learning we need more shared moments of ideas, observations, data and connections. To close the achievement gap in Minnesota we need more master teachers sharing their ideas with one another school by school. Too often we over-emphasize the individual teaching star or student, but what we really need to create is the conditions for the Milky Way — constellations of ideas that create the network of success for teachers, and ultimately for students.

For Minnesota to have the next breakthrough in medical devices, genomics research or food science we need more conference tables. To improve the outcomes in teaching and learning we need more time together and less time apart. If we care about the good ideas and innovation — we can start today. Circle the chairs around the table and discuss the ideas, theories and outcomes and we can leap forward.

Equity and quality needed in K-12

By Carlos Mariani Rosa, September guest blogger

From the vantage point of the two public places I occupy: the chair of a state legislative committee on education and the director of a nonprofit focused on advancing the academic success of students of color, I want to share my assessment of Minnesota’s success in properly educating all students for the rigors of our world: we are doing a lousy job.

I won’t belabor the depth and diversity of statistics that back that assessment, including: the graduation rates of African-American boys, the college retention rates of white students and the high school standardized test results of ELL students. The Minnesota Minority Education Partnership has spent a decade reporting these outcomes and you can find those online.

Minnesota’s education system does great things, but not for all students, and in some communities not even for the majority of those students. We fail miserably with students of color but we also don’t produce the best K-12 outcomes — defined as college-ready for maximum global engagement — for all students, including white students.

Equity and quality may seem to be separate ideals but I believe in this case, they are one in the same. For example; only 34% of white students are deemed college-ready by ACT test results. And while this measure is only 16% for Latinos, the correct goal for that community is not to achieve the 34% white student outcome — which is too low — but for Latino, white and all other student groups to achieve 100% readiness rates.

While it’s true that an individual can attain quality academic outcomes in almost any school, it is also true that the odds of doing so diminish when the student is in an environment that fails to drive the same level of quality for other students. And make no mistake on this point: legislators invest over a third of our state budget to produce nothing less than quality from every student. We don’t do that in order to validate unequal advantages pre-existing in society upon students’ entrance to our public schools.

Generally speaking, all students are greatly influenced by school community dynamics. Students improve when they challenge themselves, but also when they are challenged by their community of classmates.

And increasingly that classmate community in Minnesota schools is a racially and ethnically diverse one, made up of students with different learning styles and world perspectives that our system has yet to develop competency with in order to drive quality.

And so it’s not just equity that suffers, with students of color persistently showing up in the lower end of achievement measures. Overall quality suffers, with all students unable to push the boundaries of their gifts by virtue of being part of a system that signals its acceptance of low achievement. All kids — black, white, brown — profoundly get this message.

We are more linked to one another — across race and culture — than we have been led to understand. While “closing the gap” is indeed about race equity, racial equity is about all of us.

I’ll blog next on the recent failure of our state’s political systems to move education reform ahead — and I’ll include myself in that critique.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts.