State education accountability site is anything but

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Here’s the good news: The state has a website – Accountability Minnesota – that is promoted as a way to hold state agencies accountable to clear goals.Here’s the bad news: The education goals are generic, the data is suspect and the “Learn More” web links send the reader to multiple sites that advocate school choice. The website is www.accountability.state.mn.us. It’s run by the Department of Administration and was launched last December to “provide performance information from 94 specific goals among 25 Executive Branch agencies and offices,” according to a December press release. Visitors can click on several buttons that lead them to sites focusing on goals for health care, public safety, education and so on. The sites state the goals, list how they are measured, offer some charts that explain the goals, and gives web sites where readers can go for more information. Continue Reading

“Friends” show one path for charter school sponsors

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“There’s only one bully in the school – that’s me!” Leon Cooper jabbed a thick finger at his chest. “We don’t have any gangs, or drugs, or fighting. The kids know they have to leave that at the door…If you don’t have discipline and order, you can’t have a great school.” Cooper is the principal and superintendent of Minneapolis Academy, a South Minneapolis charter middle school. Continue Reading

Proposed budget would cut $12M from state financial aid

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Tighten your belt and pull out your wallet — financial aid is under the axe at the State Capitol. Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s 2010-11 budget recommendations included a $12.75 million cut to state financial aid options, though the cut is far less than Pawlenty called for from other state agencies. MN Daily Editor’s Note: This is the first in a three-part series about Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s proposed changes to the state’s higher education budget. The cuts would fall onto the Minnesota Office of Higher Education’s financial aid offerings, which cover everything from work study programs to the Minnesota Indian Scholarship. The largest portion of state financial aid, the $291 million State Grant Program, remained untouched in the proposal. Continue Reading

U departments begin working on preliminary budgets, tuition may rise by 7 percent

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The University of Minnesota is bracing itself for the cuts in Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s proposed budget. The University’s funding will be reduced by $151 million dollars over the next biennium, a reduction of about 11 percent, according to a statement by University President Bob Bruininks. But the roughly $75 million the governor is proposing to cut next year is only part of the problem, University Chief Financial Officer Richard Pfutzenreuter said . With other essential expenses like the utility bill, debt, leases, technology licensing fees and the cost of fringe benefits, the University needs to make up about $133 million from next year’s budget, Pfutzenreuter said. “The budget problem the University faces is always larger than any money the state gives us, but this year the state cut us $75 million,” he said. Continue Reading

U, MnSCU: The budget boondoggle

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The University of Minnesota is not the only public higher education institution in the state casting a worried glance at the state’s economic future.Spread across 32 schools, with enrollment numbers ranging from more than 300 to almost 17,000, the schools that make up the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MnSCU) system face the same challenges as those of the University — and are using some similar solutions. Gov. Tim Pawlenty has recommended a $146 million cut to MnSCU ’s budget over the next two years, a 10.7 percent difference. At a Feb. 5 Senate Higher Education Policy and Finance Division hearing, MnSCU’s Chief Financial Officer Laura King presented a doomsday scenario of the effects such a cut could have on the system:
-If the cut was made up in only tuition revenue, tuition would increase 11 percent. -If the cut was made up in only staff reductions, more than 1,000 people would lose their jobs. Continue Reading

Boxed in by bad policy

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There are about 1,800 principals in Minnesota. Each oversees a school that has been affected by the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law. While NCLB was created in Washington D.C., it has permeated education down into each classroom. NCLB has forced principals to make draconian choices to meet NCLB requirements, choices made more difficult in Minnesota’s atmosphere of declining funding and diminished results. Click here to read the full report (PDF). Continue Reading

All-Minnesota Perpich Arts Education Center threatened

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It’s been eleven years since Sally Volar graduated from the Perpich Center for Arts Education (PCAE), but she says that her life would be totally different if she hadn’t gone there. For her day job, Sally works with homeless and urban youth as a social worker, but she also plays violin with various world bands around the Twin Cities, and explores the art of photography. Much like the curriculum of the Perpich Center, which teaches not only technical art classes, but arts-integrated curriculum, Volar infuses art in everything she does, whether through her work with youth, or pursuing her music, or simply living her life in a creative and artistic way. The 24-year-old Perpich Center is more than an arts high school — it’s a state agency whose primary purpose, set by Minnesota law, is to “provide assistance in arts education to school districts, including professional development, funding and educational programs around the state.”
This year, Governor Tim Pawlenty’s budget recommends that the outreach functions of PCAE end by 2011, and the school will be turned into a charter school. Under the governor’s plan, the teacher training, curriculum development, and outreach that PCAE currently provides would end, and state funding for students would decrease dramatically. Continue Reading

Charter school changes?

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A pair of legislators plan to propose a new charter school moratorium until other changes are made. That is one of nine reforms in the to-be-introduced 2009 School Reform and Accountability Act. At a news conference, Rep. John Lesch (DFL-St. Paul) and Sen. Kathy Saltzman (DFL-Woodbury) said better oversight is needed to ensure that education dollars are spent effectively at charter and contract alternative schools. “There have been enough concerns heard so that we need to take a closer look at what is going on,” Saltzman said. Continue Reading

Computer classroom

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Online learning is on the rise everywhere. A 2008 survey by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation found e-learning increased more than 12 percent in 2008 and predicts even more interest in 2009 as Americans seek to retool skills because of the recession. Smack in the middle of the Internet learning trend are women, who make up the majority of online learners. Not only did an American Association of University Women (AAUW) survey find that 60 percent of online students are women, it discovered that the majority are over 25 years of age. “Anyone with a busy lifestyle-and women do have busy lives, trying to balance work and family-benefits from the flexibility offered by online instruction,” said Susan Gibbs Goetz, associate professor and director of undergraduate and graduate education programs at the College of St. Continue Reading