EdAction
Maple River Education Coalition PAC
105 Peavey Rd, St 116 
Chaska, MN  55318 
952-361-4931
http://www.EdAction.org
E-mail

February 6, 2000

Where's the Profile Moratorium?

Webster's New World Dictionary: Moratorium — Any authorized delay or stopping of some specified activity.

Let's be frank.  The  "moratorium" proposed by Education Minnesota (the Minnesota Teacher's Union) and Commissioner Jax does not delay or temporarily stop the Profile of Learning.  Under their so-called "moratorium," the Profile of Learning and School-to-Work continue relentlessly through our schools.  One more deception belches forth from the system.

After Education Minnesota's latest poll demonstrated resounding and entrenched teacher opposition to the Profile, they sat down with the Commissioner and drafted recommendations that undermine any attempt to genuinely free teachers from this system.

The good news is that this latest ploy reveals the disarray over this issue at the Department, the legislature, the schools and school boards, all a direct consequence of forcing the Profile and School-to-Work onto our schools.  The system is fundamentally flawed and repellent to parents and teachers.  Opposition is hardening to the Profile of Learning and School-to-Work. So system bureaucrats concluded they needed some wiggle room to get this monstrosity off the ground.

Here's their Proposal:

"1. The state must not hold students responsible for meeting the Profile of Learning requirements for graduation until the standards are independently and collectively analyzed and the system is fully tooled statewide." [emphasis ours]

Comments on the CFL website make it clear, however, that there will be no slacking allowed:

"Though the graduation requirements for this year's tenth graders would be delayed, districts, schools and teachers would still need to implement all parts of the Profile this year." [Emphasis ours]

Will our children be off the hook for two years?  NO! Will teachers be off the hook? NO! Will principals and superintendents be off the hook? NO!

Here's the Commissioner:

"I want the message to be clear: this in no way weakens our resolve or belief in the Profile of Learning..."

So here it is: the system is in place in every school and being fully implemented for every student.  That is causing chaos and fury, but the system will proceed.  For two years, it will not be high stakes for the student.  Completing each performance package will simply not determine their diploma. ... Some moratorium!

"2. ...arrange for an outside expert analysis of the Profile of Learning standards to identify modifications that must be made."

This system has been analyzed by the "experts" and "psychometricians" since its inception.  It is a bad system, and no expert needs to tell us that.  Minnesotans do not want education to be a skills training system.  We want our children educated in a liberal arts, knowledge-based system.  We have a fundamentally different vision for our children.

"3. The Commissioner of Children, Families and Learning should be enabled to pursue rule amendments that are essential to quality implementation of Profile of Learning standards to identify modifications..."

Here the union and the Commissioner are brazenly proposing to expand her power to create her own laws, bypassing our elected legislators. The Commissioner apparently believes the legislature is too uncooperative, too unwilling and too subject to constituent demands.  By transferring more rulemaking power out of the hands of lawmakers and concentrating it instead into the hands of one single unelected Commissioner, citizens lose any role in influencing public policy.

We experienced that reality painfully last month in the decision of an administrative law judge when he ruled that the Department could lower the Basic Skills Test passing score from 80% to 75%.  The Commissioner had all the authority through her present rulemaking powers to disregard all public testimony from parents.

The remainder of their proposal involves reducing the number of packages, requiring them at different times, adjusting their difficulty, reducing the paperwork and providing more time and resources to get the job done.

Let's say you have been eating a steady diet of tainted food that is causing a major medical emergency.  Would you consider the problem resolved by decreasing the amount you consumed, changing your eating schedule, using better eating utensils or eating a little more slowly? No!  When the source of the emergency is the tainted food, you change your diet.  You eat something different.  So it is with the education system that has been foisted upon our state.

A REAL TWO YEAR MORATORIUM

We challenge the legislature, Christine Jax, the Governor, and the teacher's union to implement a real moratorium on the Profile of Learning and the radical School-to-Work system that is redefining our schools.  Establish in its place a genuine system of academic achievement as defined in bills that are presently being drafted.

Let standards be truly academic, not a facade for skills training.  Let the moratorium be a genuine moratorium with schools and teachers and districts free to discontinue the use of performance packages, the rubric scoring system and the single vocational track the state is putting in place for all students beginning in kindergarten.

Let teachers be free to be teachers.  Take the gag off and let them tell the public what they think of this new system without fear of retribution. Let them teach.

Take away the state monitors who have begun appearing in schools to enforce compliance with threats of revoking teacher licenses.

Give Minnesota Freedom in Education.

It is our heritage.  It is our right as free citizens.

EdAction - 105 Peavey Rd, Ste 116, Chaska, MN  55318 
952-361-4931 - edaction@lakes.com - (c) EdAction - All rights reserved.