OPINION | Minnesota rising to early childhood education challenge

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My personal misgivings about the competitive Race to the Top structure aside, I do wish Minnesota well in its quest to receive a $45 million grant from the RTTT Early Learning Challenge.Minnesota recently submitted its application for the early childhood round of the federal education grant competition, and there’s a lot of good stuff that’s built into the proposal. After collecting input from dozens of major stakeholders and three state agencies, the proposed plan—most of which will likely go into effect whether or not we get the federal grant—represents a significant step forward in building a cohesive statewide system of early childhood programming.The Minnesota Departments of Education, Health, and Human Services are willing to pool $105 million dollars, which would be complemented by the $45 million in federal money if we win the grant, to better standardize the goals, assessments, and transparency of early childhood programs in the state.Already home to a relatively robust early childhood framework, Minnesota still lacks the kind of significant participation that would really make a difference in improving long-term outcomes in education. This is in part a matter of access, making sure high quality programs are operating with enough capacity in the right areas. By advancing the use of a statewide quality ranking system, we will be able to better determine which programs represent the best investment and provide the state-level support necessary to increase their presence in high-need areas.The application also includes a proposal to better define a career and skills lattice for early childhood program providers. Hopefully, this will allow early childhood programming to maintain consistency in its staff quality as it continues to expand.Perhaps the proposal most likely to be controversial is the planned universal assessment and data system. Continue Reading

OPINION | Occupation U.S.A.

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As the Occupy movement grows, pushback continues from some conservative quarters. Hippie-punching is easy, and it’s been a while since there’s been a truly substantial series of non-Tea Party protests, so I can in part understand their happiness to spar with an old foil in new clothes.For those who want the Occupiers to go away, however, I’ve got a radical proposal: help them get an occupation.Even better, help the people who aren’t at the protests get an occupation. If this was really just about lazy college students, nothing would chop the legs out from under the movement like a working class near full employment.The thing is, this isn’t actually about lazy college students. The educated-but-unemployed twenty- and thirtysomethings that have become the public face of this movement are just the smoke that set off the alarm. The fire started years ago, and its real victims are the people who don’t make it in front of the cameras.To place all the responsibility for their own employment on the Occupiers’ shoulders is ridiculous. Continue Reading

OPINION | Teacher conference season

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My first mid-term conference as a teacher took place in the school’s gymnasium. I sat at a table in the corner, feeling like a bit of a fraud. I’d been teaching for just over a month, and now had to speak as some sort of authority on how students were doing? I barely had a handle on how I was doing!As I scanned the gym, I saw faces paled by anxious uncertainty, flushed with reports of good news, and clenched in sorrow, disappointment, or confusion. As my first “customers” approached, I felt my heart race…Let me back up.The term “parent-teacher” conference is too restrictive to really describe what happens at schools like mine. Continue Reading