Not too long ago, states across the nation pointed to Minnesota as a model in education. We were consistently ranked as one of the top states in the nation for educating our children. What happened? We stopped encouraging real education and began falling in the trap of testing, testing, testing. We absolutely must return to a state that adequately funds our schools. We must stop putting all our efforts into believing that testing alone will improve and foster the skills our kids need in today’s fast-paced, global marketplace. Forcing our teachers to concentrate only on how many students pass a standardized test takes away much of the value of teaching – helping students to learn to love learning, to be good thinkers, to be good citizens, to be creative and entrepreneurial.
How do we return to Minnesota’s rightful place as a nation leader in quality, cost-effective education? First we need to start appreciating what our teachers do and give them what they need – reasonable class sizes and materials and resources to do the job. Then we need to get out of the way. We have dedicated so much of our time and money to criticism and “reform” that we haven’t supported what teachers and students can do. Let’s support our teachers and schools, remove the testing requirements that are not effective, eliminate the time-consuming, unproductive mandates, and invest resources for our students and teachers in the classrooms across Minnesota.
As did many Minnesota leaders who have come before us, we, as a state, must commit to making the decisions necessary to invest in a solid education for all of Minnesota’s children – our most important resource! A good education shouldn’t depend on where you live, how much money you make, or whether your kids are gifted test-takers. It is the birthright of every Minnesotan.
Hard-working Minnesotans deserve decent, good-paying jobs. But, many of these jobs require higher education and with the tuition increases Minnesota has experienced, that’s getting hard for everyone, especially middle class families, to afford. In the Minnesota House, I am the chairman of the Committee on Higher Education and Workforce Development. That’s a useful combination because as important as education is for its own sake, most people go to college to get a good job. So we need strong, affordable public colleges and enough decent jobs to go around.
Historically, Minnesota leaders have made sure that middle class families could afford to send their kids to college. In the past, for adults who needed to build a new career or improve their skills, Minnesota leaders made it possible to go back to school without putting their future earnings in hock for years to come. Not any longer. For the past several years, Minnesota’s governor and his executive branch have abandoned its commitment to public higher education. Though our laws say that the state will pay 2/3 of the cost of instruction at a public college while tuition covers 1/3, under Pawlenty’s “No New Tax” pledge, we have flip-flopped those percentages so today the state only pays about 1/3 in many of our public institutions, thus leaving students and families to cover 2/3 with their tuition and fees.
What can we do? We need to give students and families better options for financing their education. When I was in college I could work my way through school at minimum wage working about 15 hours a week. Students now would need to work over 60 hours a week to pay their way. A program that would give students the option of working as tutors, mentors, or advisors to other students; assistants to faculty in exchange for college credits; or, alternatively, a state service program along the lines of Americorps in which students could have loans forgiven after college through community service would allow a new generation to work their way through or embark upon their adult life with little debt.
But how do we make sure that our college students have jobs when they graduate? That takes significant change. We have to support Minnesota businesses and efforts by Minnesotans to start and expand businesses. We have to increase the state’s investment in research at our higher education campuses in fields such as bioscience that can improve people’s health and quality of life and through the use of our Minnesota resources develop the future of energy and green technologies.
We must then ensure that Minnesota companies have the opportunity to be part of the manufacturing and production of the outcomes of those research efforts.
To recapture all of Minnesotans’ countless opportunities, we must support our higher education students – our future! — by making college affordable and creating the future workforce that will allow Minnesota to reemerge on the national stage as the educational and economic leader that it is.
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