Posts tagged twin cities
Posts tagged twin cities
Across Minnesota, the ratio of 759 students to each counselor in grades K-12 ranks among the worst in the nation — 49th, ahead of only California. The American School Counselor Association recommends a 250-to-1 ratio; the national average is 457 students per counselor. Lagging state funding is blamed for the shortage in Minnesota.
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The four counselors will do traditional one-on-one work with students, helping them cope with issues from family divorce and homelessness to bullying and building friendships.
I had no idea this was a problem in Minnesota. Glad that at least one district is getting funding to improve the situation.
Faber said the point of the program is to treat parents as partners in their child’s education. “We see a lot of parent involvement things that really look at parents as a deficit, that they don’t know how to do something, so we’re going to swoop in and show them how,” he said. “What this model works on is that the parent is an asset that has some knowledge that we don’t have.”
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Pay or no pay, Crossroads teacher Hurvitz is on board. “When the community cares and everybody’s there to support each other, the children will thrive. That is the whole key; we’re not working in isolation.”
Kids at Home is primarily designed to provide lower-income Richfield residents with greater housing stability so that children aren’t forced to transition in and out of schools, a goal which remains the focus of city staff and counselors who work with the program.
More than half of Minnesota’s superintendents have taken such a pay freeze for at least one of the past three years, according to the Minnesota Association of School Administrators.
Despite this, median pay for east-metro superintendents has made a steady climb in recent years. Between 2002 and 2010, median pay jumped 14 percent above the rate of inflation, handily outstripping the 4 percent increase in median pay for full-time teachers.
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Pat Anderson, the former Minnesota auditor, thinks her office’s investigation brought about some improvement, but not as much as she’d hoped. “Districts are still back-end-loading contracts, so superintendents almost have an incentive to leave,” she said.
(From oldest to most recent)
Dozens of Minnesota’s charter schools could close (Star Tribune)
As a result, 64 charter schools, with perhaps 13,000 students, have yet to nail down an authorizer for the 2011-12 school year. Leaders at some schools — especially those with low test scores or other problems — worry they won’t be able to sign on a new authorizer in time to avert closure.
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Some charter schools have thrived in the years since 1991, when Minnesota became the first state to pass a law enabling the special public schools. But others have been plagued by low test scores, mismanagement or even theft.
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Charter schools have always had to have outside oversight, he said, but “to be honest, in the 1990s, sponsors … largely signed on the line and went away.”
Stop Calling Schools Failures (Minnesota 20/20)
It was particularly encouraging to hear Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), former Secretary of Education for George H.W. Bush, say that our nation “need[s] to get away from Washington announcing whether schools are passing or failing.” Sec. Duncan further added that “no one likes how NCLB labels schools as failures even when they are making significant gains.”
Minneapolis schools go after the language gap (Star Tribune)
To introduce students to rich vocabulary earlier, Andersen’s elementary students have science lessons in English beginning in kindergarten, regardless of their comfort level with the language.
In three years, the 5-year-olds will take state exams that brim with idioms that make little sense to non-native speakers.
Here’s To You, Minnesota Teachers (Minnesota 20/20)
Most conservatives would argue that teacher quality can be measured by student achievement quantified by test scores. Want to improve the quality of a teacher? No problem, just tie their salary incentive to the test scores.
But that ignores the fact that most teachers choose to teach because they actually enjoy working with students, recognize a need, or believe in a child’s potential.
Gifted. Talented. And invisible. (Pioneer Press)
Delly is the only African-American student in her seventh-grade class at the Dimensions Academy, Bloomington’s 6-year-old school for the gifted within Oak Grove Middle School.
In her class, she’s deflected jabs at black peers outside the academy. Outside the academy, she’s deflected charges that she’s an “Oreo,” black only on the outside.
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Minority and low-income parents are simply less likely to have the time, resources or confidence to pursue options such as a full-time gifted program, experts say.
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Delly, whose older sister is a Dimensions grad, hears occasionally from classmates that she doesn’t act like an African-American and has to ask, “Well, what does that really mean?”
“We send this message to all the kids in the school that kids of color don’t belong in this echelon,” Fears said. “We’re reinforcing the stereotypes.”
Dayton, GOP compromise on alternative teacher licensure (MPR)
Dayton said the compromise creates a true alternative pathway program to address projected teacher shortages, assures well-prepared teaching candidates with content expertise and increases teacher diversity.
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Under the legislation, anyone wishing to become a teacher through an alternative pathway will have to enter a state-approved program, such as Teach for America. Supporters say additional programs would be created, once the language is law.
Those programs and the people entering them would have to meet certain requirements. All candidates would have to have a 3.0 grade point average, for example. The new compromise includes additional clarification on the kinds of testing and teaching time candidates must have before assuming full control of a classroom.
What might teachers without traditional training bring to the profession? (MPR: Today’s Question)
From the comments (just a sampling of the positive thoughts - there were plenty of negatives shared as well):
What I am saying is to allow engineers, computer guru’s, journalists, chemists and other passionate professionals who are avid for their vocation pass the desire in their respective fields to students who are willing and wanting.
I would much rather have my young student learn from someone who has had a successful private sector career and decides to retire early and teach things with some real world experience than learn from some young person who has spent their entire life in the classroom.
I think this kind of teacher will have the respect of students planning to enter the tech fields. Whereas students unsure of their career direction, or less eager students may need a more traditional teacher. As such, it may not increase the number of tech oriented students, but it would increase their quality, and perhaps their confidence.
I think the best things I would bring are 1) the enjoyment of spending time with kids and young adults and 2) some real-world examples of how their knowledge might be applied.
When those classes are taught by people who have worked in those industries the material will much more useful to students and when they can understand the real world applications they will be better able to see themselves in a related career.
Interactive Map: Return on Educational Investment (Center for American Progress Infographic)
Socioeconomic Gap Key to Closing Achievement Gap (Minnesota 20/20)
The reality is a child who is sick, tired, hungry and scared is not ready to learn. A child whose parents are not able proved or don’t have the tools to create an environment of high expectations is not ready to learn. A child who is moving from classroom to classroom is inevitably behind.
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Economic stability for families should be the number one goal for closing the achievement gap. Giving parents tools to empower their children to succeed is the second.
St. Paul NAACP raising objections over school reform plan (MPR)
The chapter’s executive board said the planned shift back to neighborhood schools from magnets would increase racial segregation.
Both St. Paul Superintendent Valeria Silva and Mayor Chris Coleman say the city’s neighborhoods are more integrated than the schools.
At crux of St. Paul schools reorganization: putting sixth-graders in junior high schools (Pioneer Press)
Silva says the addition of a third year gives more opportunity for close relationships between teachers and students, which will lead to better performance.
But some parents worry that removing sixth-graders would disrupt the academic programs at some elementaries and that sixth-graders are too young to be with junior high kids.
Education experts say it’s not grade configuration that’s most important.
What matters, they say, is making sure the middle-years program is developmentally appropriate to youngsters at a time of immense physical, mental and emotional change.
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But whatever the setup, middle-school kids need opportunities to apply concepts broadly, Gartrell said, and they benefit from an interdisciplinary approach in which teachers work in teams. The mistake, she said, is treating them as “just smaller high-school kids.”
St. Paul school plan is OK’d (Star Tribune)
“This board is stepping out to truly integrated schools versus what we have now which is not remotely what was intended 30 years ago on the heels of a court challenge,” said board member Anne Carroll. “I commend those efforts although they were designed to serve white students. They weren’t designed to serve students of color. This new plan is specific to serve the students we have in our districts now and the ones we will have in the future. It’s about … making sure it’s working well for our kids.”
Under the plan several magnet programs will end, citywide busing will be greatly reduced and many schools will be relocated by 2014.
Education funding makes up nearly half of the state budget that is facing a $6 billion projected shortfall, but school districts such as North Branch argue they’ve already cut to the bone.
“We’re at a time now where there are no more escape hatches,” said Brad Lundell, director of Schools for Equity in Education, a group of 58 districts threatening to sue the state if funding inequities aren’t fixed this year.
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But that 1993 state Supreme Court ruling also said that every student has a fundamental right to equal education. But how is that possible when the money’s dried up?
The answer to that question will directly affect the state’s more than 830,000 students and 52,000 teachers.
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“This was set up to suck money from one part of the state and drop it into another,” Garofalo said. “A place like North Branch is getting ripped off by the school funding formula, paying into a system and the money is not coming back to their students. They’re getting their clocks cleaned from a state that is not funding education in a fair and equitable manner. It’s going to change this year.”
Phil Krinkie, president of the Taxpayers League of Minnesota, isn’t so sure that lawmakers are up for the fight. He says education spending has virtually doubled the last decade even though the number of students is about the same.
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Krinkie suggests all teachers should be made state employees and school district boundaries redrawn to save money.
I usually don’t pay much attention to anything said by the Taxpayers League, because… well, let’s not get into that. But, since our previous governor made a promise not to raise taxes (and stuck by it for 8 years, negative effects on the economy be damned), I have to listen a little bit.
Krinkie’s suggestions would scare the crap out of me, if I thought they held any merit or thought that anyone else would think they were a good idea too.
San Miguel Middle School in Minneapolis, St. Mathias School in Hampton and St. Joseph School in Red Wing are slated to close at the end of the academic school year.
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San Miguel, an independent school administered by the De La Salle Christian Brothers in the Minneapolis Kingfield neighborhood, has 60 students who come from economically challenged backgrounds, said school president Benjamin Murray. Students pay no tuition, only $200 book fees. He said the school needs about $850,000 to operate each year and wasn’t getting enough from donors to stay open in the long term.
A mobile home park of about 700 residents incorporated as a city is among Minnesota’s poorest communities.
More than a quarter of the residents in Landfall live in poverty, which the federal government defines as individual income of about $11,000 or less. The city is east of St. Paul on Tanner’s Lake.
While income may be low, residents say Landfill is also very affordable. Josh Mars moved to Landfall from St. Paul with his young son about a year ago. Mars says he was able to quit a second job and spend more time with his son since his move to Landfall.
Many suburbs have become more diverse in the past decade. For example, nearly one in every five residents in North St. Paul and Cottage Grove are nonwhite, compared with less than one in 10 in 2000. More than one in five residents in Maplewood are nonwhite, and in West St. Paul, one in four residents are nonwhite.
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[Minnesota] is No. 1 in high school graduation rates — 91 percent
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He urged caution, however, about thinking a high school education was enough. Pekel said the only real differences in income and competitiveness resulted from post-secondary education.
And he said much of Minnesota’s K-12 system isn’t geared toward continuing education.
He said many communities — such as Forest Lake and the Anoka-Hennepin school district — don’t emphasize post-secondary education. That’s because traditionally, it’s been possible to live a comfortable middle-class life without it.
“But there is a real question about whether their children will be able to live the same lifestyle on their own,” said Pekel.
Another worry for Pekel: students of color.
“Those groups are growing the fastest. They are the future of Minnesota,” said Pekel.
The worst schools are urban high schools in which about half the students graduate. “All of these schools are essentially dropout factories,” said Pekel. “That is a huge crisis.”
In the metro area, of 141 communities with a population over 1,000, all but one have graduation rates higher than the national average. In Brooklyn Center, 83 percent of residents over 25 have a diploma, compared with the national average of 85.
When it comes to finishing high school, Washington County ranks among the top 10 counties in the nation. Ramsey County has the poorest residents in the metro area, while Scott County has one of the lowest poverty rates in the country.
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Among the seven metro counties, Ramsey has a bit of a split personality. It has the highest proportion of people 25 and older without a high school diploma (10 percent), but also the highest share of residents with graduate or professional degrees (15 percent). The latter figure may be because of the 15 colleges and seminaries in the county, which also has the seat of state government in St. Paul.
In that city, 38 percent of residents have a four-year college degree or more, compared to 43 percent in Minneapolis. But 12 percent of Minneapolis residents and 13 percent of St. Paul residents didn’t finish high school.
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Ramsey County has the lowest median income, at $52,329, and a quarter of its residents receive Social Security. That county is the metro’s poorest, with a higher proportion of residents, children, families and female-headed households in poverty.
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In St. Paul, 6 percent of households are considered “linguistically isolated,” meaning all family members 14 and older have difficulty with English. Among Spanish-speaking households, 28 percent fall into that category, as do 35 percent of households speaking Asian and Pacific Island languages.
