What's working well in public schools?

• Graduation rates.
• Innovative teachers willing to change.
• Student learning is happening in an ever-changing world; the schools are able to assimilate diversity in the population. Schools have the ability to adapt to a diverse and changing student population.
• Technology in the classrooms.
• Extracurricular activities.
• Achievement.
• Students coming to school prepared to learn.
• The schools have the support and belief of the community in what they’re doing. The community supports our schools. The community believes the schools are doing well.
• Highly qualified teachers in the classroom (teachers licensed in teacher assignments).
• Engaged parents. Parents are doing a good job with their children.
• Schools are meeting the needs of struggling students and high achievers.
• Schools are achieving exceptional results with what they have to work with for resources.

What challenges do public schools face?

• Large class sizes.
• Using students as pawns in the education game. Education is being compromised and politicized by politics.
• Schools may be coming to a crisis. Schools are on the cusp of either doing great things or falling into great decline.
• People are getting burned out by having to do more with less.
• State funding challenge. Nobody understands a formula that penalizes districts with declining enrollments. The compensatory funding formula punishes school districts in the suburbs. It’s horrifically biased against districts in our area. If a child in poverty goes to Lakeville, the district gets $100 to $200 in extra funding. If the child goes to Minneapolis, the district gets $1,000.
• We need to get the suburbs to stick together. Rural communities stick together [on education issues]. We need the suburbs together.
• Difficulty in servicing students moving from district to district and/or culture to culture. There are social issues that interfere with students moving through the system. In a mobile population, children are exposed to many crises. If a ninth-grader has been to 22 different schools, how do you deal with that student?
• Rising health care costs. There’s tension between health care and education in their competition for funding. It’s a ticking time bomb. I’m very much afraid in this last legislative session that we didn’t do enough to address it. It will engulf us if we don’t get health care under control. That’s my No. 1 concern. Every district is facing this.
• Too much testing. Excessive focus on testing.
• Special education funding is inadequate.
• Rising fees for student activities.
• Local control is being eroded.
• Teachers and schools keeping pace with the ever-changing world.
• What do we want from seniors coming out of the system? We need a common understanding of what the standards should be. As far as standards, what is that level that we want? College prep? One standard? Many standards? Can we apply a single standard to a diverse student body?
• An increasing population of English language learners.

What should public schools provide?

• An outstanding, well-rounded education.
• Recognize that schools already provide a lot more than education. Schools are becoming a social service agency. Are we really allowing teachers to have the skill set they need to do their jobs?
• The community expects more than an adequate education.
• Schools need the ability to be consistent across districts in standards and competitive with the world.
• All-day kindergarten. All kids need to come to school ready to learn. Not all parents have the ability to get kids ready to learn.
• Restore discipline and structure in kids’ lives because they’re not getting it outside school. School should be a safe learning environment.
• When kids graduate from high school, they should be ready for any career path. Not all will go to college.
• Students need a well-rounded education without excessive emphasis on testing.
• A track for the highest goals/expectations for all.
• Make a high school diploma mean something and accessible to all.
• Schools should provide the best educators in the field.

How can we all help schools achieve the above?

• We need the school boards, the teachers union, the superintendents – all the organizations within the education community – to get together and talk about the good things going on. That approach needs to be made. They should be promoting the positive things instead of taking the defensive.
• We need more meetings like this, more community input. We have to do whatever we can to get everyone to the table. More meetings with all the stakeholders in the same room talking about what works, what doesn’t and how to collectively make changes. Bring the stakeholders to the discussion.
• If we can do precinct caucuses for politicians, we can do grassroots advocacy for schools.
• Keep parents engaged. More parental involvement.
• Research the candidates and vote for those who truly support public education.
• Education community uniform in supporting schools and public education
• Continued training of teachers.
• Public education has a chip on its shoulder. If you don’t know any teachers and you don’t go in to the schools, it’s easy to criticize. Schools need to better inform the public about the good things. They should promote the public visiting the schools to see for themselves the work taking place. They will walk out believing in the schools.
• Local control of schools, under the umbrella of guidance from the Legislature. Districts and local school boards do know what is best for their local students, teachers and community.