commentaries

Minnesota Business Partnership: A lobbying group composed of rich white guys! Rich REPUBLICAN white guys who target for defeat Democrats running for office in MN, and who pose as experts on educational measurement systems.

The state scrapped NCLB so here's an indignant article about how Bush's program was the be all and end all of academic measurement. Baloney, Charlie, I don't care how rich you are. Stick to running your business and let educators figure out what's best for public education.

If the achievement gap between the races is so hugh after having followed NCLB for how many years now???? what leads you to believe that doing more of the same will get any different results? Maybe the state education dept. took a look at the poor results from NCLB and decided to give another system a try. Makes sense to me.

Yes that's the spirit...Politicize anything as to detract from the fact that we have a huge problem in our schools. Keep lowering the bar and adopting guidelines that will make us all feel better about ourselves.

Actually, I think the MMR makes it clearer which schools aren't doing their jobs well enough and which are only doing a mediocre job. I wish someone from MDE would explain the components of MMR more clearly, but I believe that at least one of the four components has to do with absolute proficiency--exactly what Weaver is asking for. But I'm not 100% clear on how each component is measured, and I think it's critical for MDE to do more explaining.

Key issue: do you think MN's achievement gap is a problem in only 127 schools, or is it more widespread. Under NCLB waiver, only 127 schools need to make any changes to help improve student performance. Hundreds of schools are no longer required to do anything differently. Kids in 127 schools will hopefully see change/improvement, but how many kids are in schools that now don't have to change?