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March 10, 2000

House Ed. Committee defeats Northstar Standard

The vote was 20 against, and 15 for the Northstar Standard.  Eight Republicans opposed it, and four Democrats supported it, as follows:
 

Rep. Tony Kielkucki (R-Lester Prairie) did a magnificent job presenting and defending the Northstar Standard.

Thanks to a last minute move by Rep. Mark Olson in Thursday's late hours, and over howls of protest by Rep. Folliard (DFL-Hopkins) and Rep. Entenza (DFL-St. Paul), the committee sent the Northstar Standard bill  (HF3768-Chief author, Kielkucki) on to the K-12 Education Finance Committee (Chr-Seagren, R-Bloomington) with "Recommended to Pass."  That simply keeps the bill alive, available to be heard by Seagren's Committee.  If the Northstar Standard passes in her committee, it will move on to the floor of the House to face a vote by every Representative.  The motion to forward passed, 18 to 14, with Abeler, Ness, Seagren, and Pelowski all switching to the Aye side (from their morning vote against the Northstar Standard), and Dempsey switching to the Nay.

The Profile bill that did pass (HF3618-Chief author, Ness), after numerous good amendments were added, is a true moratorium that requires an act by the legislature in order to be lifted.  In the meantime, it requires the commissioner to develop a plan that will address the concerns raised by a review of two outside contractors.  It also changes some elements of the Profile once the moratorium is off.

The changes include reducing the Learning Areas from 10 to 6, reducing the number of high school content standards required from 24 to 12, reducing the number of required preparatory content standards, incorporating the performance package assessments with the course grade, and allowing Post Secondary Options students and charter schools to opt out of the Profile requirements.  (Remember, the commissioner must approve all charter schools.)

Various amendments to Ness' Profile bill passed.  Some of them include the following stipulations:

• The districts and teachers would not be required to continue implementation of the Profile during the moratorium, and "school districts may develop and implement a system of high academic standards for students" during the moratorium.
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• All references to "performance" and "performance-based assessments" would be replaced with "academic achievement."  Performance is the terminology of the federal STW system which assesses behaviors and skills (performance) rather than what a student knows (academic achievement).
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• The Profile rules describing performance packages and the rubric would be deleted. Rep. Seifert's (R-Marshall) amendment also deleted the statute related to lifework planning (STW).

One important amendment that failed would have added some real academic accountability/remediation through annual norm-referenced tests, as in the Northstar Standard.

HF3618 will next be taken up by the full House where it is again open for amendments.  There it will become the House's version that goes to a conference committee where differences will be "worked out" with the Senate version before advancing to the Governor.

This bill would be a substantial improvement if it comes out of conference committee intact.  The longer a real moratorium is in place, the more people will understand what the Profile of Learning is about and the more they will oppose it.

The question now is whether the House will aggressively defend this bill.  If they do, it will be a significant victory.  Senator Pogemiller, as a member of the original Minnesota Goals 2000 Panel, is one of the principal architects of this radical new system.  If the House conferees cave in to Larry Pogemiller, however, we may end up with a pretty face on the monster.

In one of the more interesting ironies of the day, Rep. Olson (R-Big Lake) described as meaningless the language that the Profile be "developed and implemented independently" of national Goals 2000, since the Profile has already been put in place under Goals 2000 directives.  Rep. Ness (R-Dassel) defended the language by saying he wanted to clarify the separation of powers between the state and the federal governments.

A short time later, Rep. Folliard, posing it in the form of a question, suggested that we would lose federal money by deleting the lifework plan.  Rep. Ness volunteered that, "If there is any financial impact, we'll correct it on the floor."  (Meaning: We'll do whatever the federal government wants if there's money in it for us. What federal money might that be?  It is School-to-Work money, of course. Our School-to-Work contract with the federal government states that all students will develop a lifework plan.)

Notable Quotes:

Folliard (DFL-Hopkins), staunch advocate of the Profile/STW system, supported changing the name of the Profile of Learning to the Northstar Standard, said: 

"Last year I proposed an amendment that would change the name of the Profile to 'high standards.' That didn't pass.  Many people have come to believe that the Profile of Learning is an evil being. We need a new name.  Northstar Standard is a better name than high standards.  I love that name."

Education Minnesota was not happy that the moratorium could not be lifted without legislative action, and responded: 

"This required action by the legislature is a problem for Education Minnesota because we want districts and teachers to continue implementation.  After two years, do we really want to bring all these issues back up to the community?"

The Director of the Charter School Association, testifying against Charter Schools being exempted from the Profile of Learning mandates, said: 

"Charter schools have not asked to be exempted.  We want to be subject to accountability measures." (Reps. Pelowski (DFL-Winona) and Seifert both challenged whether he was accurately speaking for the charter schools.)

Rep. Entenza (DFL-St. Paul), opposing the Northstar Standard, said: 

"Mr Bartholomew from the Minnesota Business Partnership thinks this goes too far, Education Minnesota thinks this goes too far, Minnesota Rural Educational Association thinks this goes too far, the Minnesota School Board Association thinks this goes too far. This will create a train wreck."  [Notice parents and teachers, who overwhelmingly support the Northstar Standard, are missing from his list of important people.]

Rep. Kielkucki (R-Lester Prairie), in defending the Northstar Standard, said: 

"Last year we were asked to come back with a replacement for the Profile.  This is that replacement. I don't believe in the Profile of Learning.  It is a fundamental philosophical shift from away from knowledge-based education to performance-based education. It is been too prescriptive on teachers."

Rep. Entenza (DFL-St. Paul), trying to keep the life-work plan in statute, said: 

"I have received a total of three calls on the unicameral legislature.  But when I put my name on Rep. Ness' bill last year that dealt with this issue, I must have received a thousand calls.  People out there really think [jokingly] that students are being tracked into careers."

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