EdAction
Maple River Education Coalition PAC
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Chaska, MN  55318 
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April 18, 2001
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Bills to oppose & Bills to support

"To create a seamless system of education and workforce preparation for all learners, tied to the needs of a competitive economic marketplace."

The graphic and quotation on the right (both from Minnesota’s official STW publication) show a linkage between Education, Workforce, and Economic Development - held together by the School-to-Work system. Basically, this new system is built around a three-way partnership between of government, business, and educational institutions.

First, the "Goals 2000" contract built the partnership between government and education, and gave Minnesota the Profile of Learning (outcome-based education). The "School-to-Work" act built the partnership between education and business; and redefined the purpose of education away from academics to "job skills training." Finally, the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) defines the partnership between government and business and institutes the state-planned economy, managed through the WorkForce Center system.

The bills on the following pages that we ask you to oppose are, for the most part, offensive in and of themselves, some might appear to be rather benign, and others may seem practical. However, each and every piece is a part of the whole federal School-to-Work system as described above. The freedom of our country and state have been built upon a limited and constitutional government, separation of powers, local control and academic excellence. This new system has no regard for such principles.

BILLS TO OPPOSE

Reasons to Oppose: This bill puts the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) of 1998 on a fast track for implementation. It takes the state in the direction of a state planned economy and away from a free market economy. Speaking to the intent of this bill, the chair of the Governor’s Workforce Development Council (the council that would play a vital role in the new department): "The reorganization of state agencies together with a look at the several governing boards in this arena is a first step toward getting our arms around employment, education, and economic development as separate parts of a single system" (Roger Hale, March 2^nd testimony before senate committee on Jobs, Housing and Community Development; emphasis added). The DCFL was created out of several departments and was a two-year process, resulting in a new mammoth bureaucracy. We are rushing to centralize an entire workforce system and in half the time. Tabling this bill gives Minnesotans time to explore options for protecting our free market system from a federal workforce system. [NOTE: THIS HAS BEEN INCLUDED IN THE HOUSE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT FINANCE OMNIBUS BILL.]

Reasons to Oppose: This bill is the opposite of a free market system. It establishes by statute official state career clusters under the federal workforce plan. The bill forces investors in non state-supported industries to subsidize investors of state-selected industries, gives authority to the Commissioner of DTED to run a "brokerage house" to invest in privileged industries with taxpayer money (with no guarantees), pays for job training skills for state-preferred industries while ignoring other industries, creates a higher-ed/private-industry partnership to promote their own research departments and industries with tax-payer money, establishing an entirely new bureaucracy and department at the UM for just one industry. The starting point of taxpayer money is hundreds of millions in each biennium.

Reasons to Oppose: Rubberstamps the central planning workforce system designed for MN by the federal government: sets up performance indicators, centralizes authority over local workforce boards, establishes the bureaucracy to run the entire workforce system - sets us on the fast track toward a managed economy. Read quote from Roger Hale’s testimony above under HF1859/SF1745.

Reasons to Oppose: It continues to redefine the purpose of schools. Schools are becoming a "one stop" center for medical and social services as well as mental health care. Parents are no longer seen as primarily responsible for their children’s needs. They are being treated as little more than "breeders and feeders." It establishes a "service" for children; that is, assessment, diagnosis and treatment. Proponents of this bill see this as necessary since they have been misled to believe that as many as "10% of school-aged children have mental disorders" (testimony given before Health and Human Services). Even the Surgeon General's Report on Mental Health admits this estimate is just a guess when it said, "The annual prevalence of mental disorders in children and adolescents is not as well documented as that for adults." Professionals testified to the danger of all-too-common misdiagnoses of young children due to vague criteria about which even qualified professionals disagree, resulting in invasive and harmful treatment.

Sections to Oppose: Part of this bill will give teachers an extra $150 per pupil IF 1) a district or school fully implements the POL (all 24 content standards), 2) parents become accountable to schools rather than vice versa, and, 3) schools provide other necessary information required by the Commissioner (the word "necessary" is left undefined). This is bribery. Another portion expands the breakfast program in the schools with a mandate to work to eliminate social stigmas that school meals are somehow less preferable to those that are provided by the parents. [NOTE: THESE ITEMS HAVE BEEN REMOVED FROM THE HOUSE OMNIBUS BILL]

Section to Oppose: Section 127A.42, is amended to give the commissioner of the DCFL more authority: the commissioner may not only reduce the amount of special state aids to a school district, but may also withhold all state aids to a school district if in the commissioner’s estimation a school district is not in compliance with a mandatory rule. [NOTE: THIS ITEM HAS BEEN REMOVED FROM THE HOUSE VERSION OF THIS BILL.]

Reasons to Oppose: Service based learning is one of the four elements of our state STW system. Education at one time gave children a broad-based, knowledge-based liberal arts education to prepare them for citizenship in a free republic. STW has re-defined the purpose of education so that children are merely given skills to prepare students for a job so they can serve the economy. The official MN STW resource guide specifically refers to the commission mentioned in this bill as the organization that oversees this aspect of Minnesota’s STW system. This will cost over $600,000 per biennium. [THIS BILL HAS NOT BEEN INCLUDED IN THE HOUSE EDUCATION OMBIBUS FINANCE BILL.]

Reasons to Oppose: The evaluation called for in this bill incorporates the POL and its assessments, the MCA’s. An independent evaluation service can only evaluate the data supplied to it by the school districts, which in our case includes especially the MCA’s and BST’s. MCA’s are used to measure how well a school is implementing the POL, not the increase of knowledge of individual students. The BST’s measure sixth-grade level, minimum competencies. Furthermore, the scores on the BST’s are adjusted annually by a method called "scaled scoring" in which the benchmark can be moved up or down from year to year. This could be an excellent bill if it were clearly stated that the evaluated data included primarily academic tests that were knowledge-based (see T. Kielkucki’s bill: HF2057). [This bill has been amended in the House Education Omnibus Finance Bill to require testing to be based on a genuine test of knowledge. The Amendment, if included in the final conference committee agreement, would make this a good bill.  However, if the amendment language is removed in conference, we oppose its inclusion.]

Sections to Oppose: We oppose the portion of the Governor's Tax plan that centralizes all general education tax collection for operating expenses at the state level. This state-determined, state-collected tax removes all local control over the school districts. While the bulk of district operating expenses is presently provided by the state, this bill would cement into place total and permanent state control over the entire operating budget. It removes any semblance of independence from local school districts.

 

HF1454 (McGuire) / SF2034 (Sabo): The Early Childhood Care and Education Services Act

Reasons to Oppose: This bill is extremely dangerous, because it concentrates all of the decision-making power and funding control for ALL of these wasteful, ineffective, and invasive early childhood programs into the hands of non-elected county boards, analogous to the county workforce development boards. The early childhood plans of each board must be approved by the commissioner of the DCFL, another appointed official. We have been told that the House opposes this bill and it will not be included in the omnibus bill.

Reasons to Oppose: This bill expands pre-kindergarten screening down to age three, with an option to do it as young as age two. If done at age two, the child must be re-screened at age three. It expands government monitoring to ever-younger children. It will lead to over-identification of children with developmental problems, because the screening process becomes less accurate at younger ages. Finally, it is wasteful because it gives the option to screen at two, but children must then be screened again at age three with taxpayers footing the bill.

This has been included in the House Early Child Omnibus Finance Bill.

Reasons to Oppose: This legislation subsidizes the training and retention of child care and early childhood workers and teachers according to a politically correct curriculum that includes teaching toddlers about homophobia and sexual identity and suggests children celebrate Halloween by making their own potions at a witch healer’s table. This same curriculum is part of the DCFL’s Early Childhood Indicators of Progress, their "Profile" standards for pre-K children. This is not going to appear in the House omnibus bill, but SF 1585 is the vehicle bill for the Senate early childhood omnibus spending bill.

Reasons to Oppose: A pilot project is the "foot in the door" approach, which, once begun, is hard to stop. This bill makes ALL early childhood programs, including home visiting and early infant programs, available to ALL children. It is not going to appear in the House omnibus bill, but is an example of big-government-as-parent liberalism at its finest. 

HF1745 (Nornes) / No Senate Companion: Creating A Bonus For Accredited Child Care Centers

Reasons to Oppose: This bill is similar in concept to the HF1449 above, but pays a bonus from the state of $1,000 for each center that is accredited. Although probably well intentioned to accredit centers based on health and safety concerns, it spends more state money and risks the same politically correct foolishness already discussed.

This bill has not been included in the House Early Childhood Omnibus bill.

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