Commentary; Posted: 1/3/07
3 keys to education in Minnesota
Joe Nathan
Education Columnist
Before getting too far into the new year, let's honor three things that help make Minnesota education distinctive and among the best in the nation.
First ñ a terrific organization called Minnesota Center for Academic Excellence. This group, headed by Dr. Les Martisko and based in North Mankato, does many things to encourage attention to young people who challenge themselves in academic areas.
One of their best (free) products is Reach for the Stars, a listing of the vast array of Minnesota academic competitions held each year. You can find Reach for the Stars on their Web site: www.mncae.org./reach_stars.html
Reach for the Stars lists dozens of academic competitions in geography, history, math, science, social studies and a variety of other fields. Our research showed that more than 90,000 students participated in one or more of these competitions in 2006.
The Minnesota Center also hosts annual celebrations of outstanding Minnesota educators and students. They bring much needed attention of some of Minnesota's finest!
Second, congratulations to Minnesota's legislators and State Department of Education for recognizing that we need to have higher standards for young people. This resulted in somewhat lower students pass rates of statewide tests, announced in November.
Minnesota graduation standards, especially in mathematics, had been some of the lowest in the country.
As Charlie Kyte, executive director of the Minnesota Association of School Administrators noted on his organization's Web site: "It is a credit to Minnesota that we are one of very few states continuing to set a higher bar for our students and our schools. The short-term angst will pay off in the long run with better prepared students."
Finally, congratulations to Minnesota New Country School, a charter based in the small southern Minnesota town of Henderson. The U.S. Department of Education recognized MNCS as one of eight charter high schools around the country that are "closing the achievement gap."
MNCS was the only rural high school cited in a new federal publication describing these eight high schools. You can find it at www.ed.gov/admins/comm/choice/charterhs/report.pdf.
As noted in an earlier column this year, it's time to stop the debate about which are better, district or charter public schools. Over the last year, I've described a number of district schools that have outstanding records of preparing students for college, and high percentages of students passing state-wide tests.
Unquestionably, there are outstanding district and charter public schools.
One of my resolutions for 2007 is to spotlight success, and describe what we can learn from outstanding efforts.
Reader comments help me learn, and sometimes change my mind. So as we move through the new year, please respond and react. With reader permission, I post all letters sent to me on the Center for School Change Web site (you also can keep your communication to me private if you wish).
Best wishes to readers, and to the folks described above, who have done so much to help improve public education.
Joe Nathan, a former public school teacher and administrator, directs the Center for School Change, Humphrey Institute, University of Minnesota jnathan@hhh.umn.edu.
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