Thinking back just a few weeks ago to our 55^th Institute “Bridges to the Future,” while I led the panel on Early Childhood Education it was awesome to see over half of MESPA’s active members in one room! Not only are you already providing excellent leadership in our K-8 schools, but many of you have exemplary early childhood programs for three- and four-year olds and many are in planning stages for adding early childhood education to your school community.

Yes, and all this with 13% less funding than our schools had eight years ago.  Minnesota education funding has not kept pace with growing costs and demands. Since 2003, state early childhood through grade 12 funding has gradually declined by $1,296 per student. By 2006, Minnesota’s effort toward funding education was 9% below the national average. The Education Week: Quality Counts 2010 – State Report Card gives Minnesota a “D” in school spending.

In combination with decreased funding for Minnesota schools: class sizes have increased; support staff has decreased; numbers of second language children have increased; state poverty levels have risen; and yet our test scores have not fallen. Our ACT scores are some of the highest in the nation. I say “hip, hip, hooray” that we have maintained no drop in reading and math scores given the lack of adequate funding, the increased stress on our families during the past few years, and the number of students with greater needs. The amazing fact that our scores haven’t dropped speaks to the positive and effective work of Minnesota educators.

As Minnesota’s K-8 education leaders, we recognize that we have an achievement gap and know we could more adequately address that gap with increased medical, dental, and social services, and early childhood programs co-located in our school buildings. This co-location of whole-child, whole-family programs is being done efficiently in many sites and could be brought to scale by a collaboration of public local, county, and state resources – plus private resources (dental and health clinics). In addition, interventions that would yield the most effective results are: lowering class size, extending the school year, funding professional development for teachers and principals, and increasing funding directly to the school sites!

The federal “Turnaround School Models” that we have heard much about offer a flawed approach to increasing student achievement in our lowest achieving schools. They rely on only two or three years of prior MCA-II test scores, and most importantly, their growth model is based on only the MCA II:  one test. Many of you have effective indicators of evaluating student growth which you use to re-direct instruction throughout the year. Yet, we continue to make huge educational judgments based on one test score that does little to help teachers and principals diagnose learning problems in a timely manner. Again, as the state’s K-8 education leaders, we understand the fact that we need to improve, but to do this we need fair formative assessments and multiple measures of student growth.

When the School Improvement Grants were first released from the U.S. Department of Education (USDE) in August 2009, the National Association of Elementary School Principals (our national association) and MESPA both urged USDE to reconsider the four proposed models for education reform, all of which required the replacement of the principal. It was our belief that the Transformational Model provided the most authentic and genuine approach to school improvement, if it were amended so that the principal was not automatically replaced. This model is designed around continuous use of data to inform instruction, extended learning time, and high-quality professional development that enhances instructional strategies and develops teacher and principal effectiveness. The critical item, key to the model, is that it provided for greater control of staffing and budgeting at the school site.

At this writing, the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) has identified thirty-four of our lowest achieving schools, half of which are charter schools, most with a non-licensed leader, director, or principal. The other half is a mix of high schools with low graduation rates, middle schools, and a few elementary schools. We are not defending substandard principals or teachers – and we recognize there may need to be a leadership change before genuine progress can be made in some schools, but we also know there are many other factors that affect student learning, the achievement gap, and low performance. These thirty-four schools have been assessed based on one test, without regard for other valid measures of their school communities. Rather than firing the principal right out of the box, let’s acknowledge there may be other extenuating circumstances that have led to low student achievement. Let’s give these principals and teachers in our lowest performing schools the same resources that the “Turnaround Model” calls for and give them autonomy to produce results! Then and only then, after an opportunity to implement changes and evaluate results, will we be able to assess their level of success.

Sam Ewing said, “Good leaders inspire people to have confidence in them.  Great leaders inspire people to have confidence in themselves.”  Thank you for the leadership you provide for our children in Minnesota.