Requirements for Non-Public School
Participation in Federal and State Testing

Bill Name:  Students general education access grants

SF 736
Senate chief author: David Hann
Senate co-authors: LeClair; Michel; Nienow; Ortman

HF 697
House chief author: Mark Buesgens (Chair of House Education Policy Committee)

Description
SF 736 / HF 697 provides grants to parents of qualified low-income students in the Minneapolis and St. Paul school districts who enroll in accredited and approved non-public elementary or secondary schools. The grants are for tuition and fees that may not exceed the basic education formula (currently $4,061). The number of students receiving the grants may not exceed 10% of the 2003/2004 district enrollment. Each year, the number of recipients may increase by 5%. By 1012, there will be no limit on the number of grant recipients.

Students receiving access grants will be required to participate in the statewide testing and reporting accountability system under section 120B.30 that public schools are subject to under federal requirements of No Child Left Behind.

Talking Points
• Tests drive the curriculum. Therefore, to require non-public schools to participate in state and federal testing will force them to choose between access grants and independence.
• The state testing requirements would be a poison pill to non-public education. The federal and state education standards are the basis of the state assessments, and they will ultimately influence all students and the curriculum.
• Genuine “choice” would be undermined. Students may be able to choose between different schools, but the curriculum will eventually become similar or the same, diminishing academic choice.

Answers to Questions

1. Question:  If some students in a non-public school are tested, why must all students be tested?

Answer:  The pressure to teach to the test will affect what all students are taught. Furthermore, it is unlikely that schools will resist the pressure to administer the required tests to all of their students, especially as the population of access-grant students increases in a school.

2. Question:  If non-public schools object, why can’t they simply refuse to accept students with access grants?

Answer:  They could. But this system unfairly forces those schools into a financial disadvantage. Competition for non-public students is high. Since the number of access-grant students will be increasing each year, the financial penalty for not accepting them will become increasingly severe.

3. Question:  What’s wrong with the state accountability system: the standards and the assessments that test them?

Answer:  A 2002 University of Minnesota study on the effects of No Child Left Behind on Minnesota education states that “All aspects of the state standards, assessments, and accountability system will be evaluated by the U.S. Department of Education for compliance with federal guidelines.” As a result, Minnesota was unable to entirely reverse the damage done under the Profile of Learning. The science standards, for example, still significantly reflect an unbalanced environmentalist perspective. Radical multiculturalism and revisionist history is still part of the social studies standards that will be integrated into the language arts curriculum. The state standards will also be subject to continual politicized expansion and revision.

One of the strengths of private schools has been their ability to adopt academic curriculum and offer parents a real choice, away from special interest revisionism and experimental theories. Unfortunately, as written, this bill undermines those choices.

4. Question: What should I do?

Answer: Contact the authors of the bill, the Governor, and your legislators. Ask them to remove language from the bill that requires state testing of non-public school students who take access grants. Ask your legislators to oppose the bill if that requirement is not removed.

Contact your private school. Urge them to oppose this language by contacting the authors of the bill and the Governor.

Governor Tim Pawlenty
130 State Capitol,
75 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
St. Paul, MN 55155
Phone: (651) 296-3391   (800)657-3717
Fax: (651) 296-2089
E-mail:  tim.pawlenty@state.mn.us

Authors: