Report on
The Public Hearing regarding the Profile of Learning
taken before the Minnesota House -- Education Policy Committee
Tuesday, February 29, 2000

During Tuesday’s testimony on the Profile of Learning (POL), references to the rights of parents were few and far between. While there was excellent testimony from students, teachers, taxpayers and others affected by the Profile of Learning, there were few references to parental authority and the responsibility of the educational system to the parent. Perhaps the reason we seldom hear parents advocate for themselves is because of years of mental re-training. They have been told they are allowed a "partnership" in their child’s education. They are told they will be held "accountable" to the state. They have been placed in the same category as all the other stakeholders of education, somewhere down the line after employers and the community. Government has lost sight of who it is accountable to in education: the parent.

Over 50 people testified Tuesday. The order in which testifiers had signed up had no relevancy. Committee Chairman Mares took the liberty to use his own order. Testimony began at 10:00 AM, and all of the representatives from various government and educational organizations were allowed to speak first. The media was present at that time as well as most of the representatives and were on hand to hear paid employees of the Profile of Learning System go on about its redeeming virtues. As an advocate for thousands of Minnesotans, primarily parents, MREDCO does not seem to have a place at the table. Testimony stopped at noon and resumed at 4:00 PM with representatives running in and out to other committee obligations and almost no media coverage. Never were all 30-something representatives in the room at the same time. As the day wore on and ordinary individuals testified, the number of representatives dwindled to nine. At 7:00 PM, when I testified, only those nine were still present. I would like to thank them for listening all day. I am very unhappy with those who chose to leave and ignore the other testifiers. After all, some of us left our homes at the crack of dawn to accomplish the two and a half-hour drive from our home, sit until 7:00 PM to testify and drive the two and a half-hours again.

The testimony in support of the Profile of Learning overwhelmingly came from those who have a financial or positional stake in it. Lobbyists for educational institutions such as the Minnesota Rural Education Association (MREA) made sweeping statements of support for the Profile of Learning encouraging the legislators on behalf "of all rural Minnesotans" to "stay the course." They were questioned intensely about how they had arrived at this type of blanket endorsement of the Profile from school board members, administrators, and teachers when so many oppose it. The MREA maintained that their interest is in what is best for the students and "they," undefined, had determined that the POL is best for students. MREA’s representative also stated that "with all due respect," teachers over 50 years old are somehow outdated and not up to speed with what works in education. This did not sit well with several of the legislators on the committee who are teachers over 50.

Claiming to be a grassroots group of 2500 members, MISSLE (Minnesota Initiative to Support Standards-based Learning and Education) founder, Lysa Olson Lindberg, gave loud, emotionally charged testimony filled with all the performance-based rhetoric you can get into five minutes. After being questioned and admitting that she had not actually taught in a classroom using the Profile of Learning and that she is paid to train teachers to use the Profile of Learning, she became quite livid with the representatives, pushed herself back and forth in her chair, and on the verge of tears returned their questions with curt, loud answers.

Education Minnesota, the teacher’s union, offered some of their harshest criticism of the Profile to date. They reiterated that the system would collapse if something were not done immediately. However, they also maintained that with more staff development, time, software, support, and funding, they were ready to press on with the Profile of Learning.

What I found very distressing is that some of the most excellent testimony came late in the day but few legislators were there to hear it. An example was a group of three individuals from P.A.C.T. (Parents Allied with Children and Teachers). PACT is a charter school in its sixth year of operation. Their opening statement was,

"The Profile of Learning has profoundly impacted our curriculum structure and has interfered with our autonomy to continue to implement our educational program as designed. In addition, it has prevented us from developing other new and innovative instructional strategies and new forms of accountability as we are called to do by charter school law." (Opening statement from P.A.C.T charter school)

We all know that legislation like Rep. Sondra Erickson’s bill (file number yet to be assigned) needs to be passed to protect Charter schools who wish to excel on their own merit and by their own design without having the state-imposed educational mandate of the Profile of Learning. Essentially, the mandate means that their method must go and the State’s must replace it. This testimony was powerful and should have been heard by all the committee members, not just nine or ten. It was almost 6 PM when they were allowed to testify.

A representative from the Alliance for the Gifted and Talented and the Minnesota Educators of the Gifted and Talented, testified that the Profile of Learning should not be holding students back from taking more rigorous advanced placement classes, nor should they be trying to imbed the less rigorous Profile of Learning standards into the advanced placement classes.

The Minnesota School Counselors Association testified that

"school counselors are growing increasingly concerned and frustrated about their abilities to meet student needs in the areas of their academic, personal, social, and career concerns, while at the same time responding to the added demands of tracking and compiling the clerical material which accompanies their responsibilities in the total Profile picture." (Testimony from Minnesota School Counselors Association)

Cheryl Moen, a teacher, gave incredible testimony from many standpoints. She stated,

"We need to come to a screeching halt before even more programs are destroyed — programs which will never again be reinstated once they are lost from curriculum and budgetary planning." (Testimony from Cheryl A. Moen, teacher from La Crescent, MN)

You can read a summary of her testimony and others on our website at:  http://mredcopac.org.

Several testifiers endorsed the Northstar Standard, Rep. Tony Kielkucki’s HF 3668. Moms and Dads presented articulate, moving emotional appeals to the legislators. One mother, Kari Stienke, in a totally quiet room, summed up the entire issue. She reminded the legislators that her grandfather who had served in the legislature in Minnesota had always told her that their job was not to support mandates that remove our freedom, but to protect the freedom that we already have. Rep. Bob Ness complimented her on the "clearest testimony of the day."

Renee T. Doyle,
President
Maple River Education Coalition