Pawlenty speaks on schools, money

07/26/2006

Accountability is the main issue, he says

BY BILL SALISBURY
Pioneer Press

Gov. Tim Pawlenty says that while it’s important to discuss how much money Minnesota spends on education, Minnesotans should devote an equal amount of attention to how it is being spent.

Pawlenty outlined his ideas for accountability in education in a speech Tuesday at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs.

“We need to get more money to our schools,” the Republican governor said. “But please do not be duped into thinking that the fundamental challenge facing our school districts is the relative difference between whether they’re going get a 3 percent (state aid increase) or 4 percent or 5 percent.”

What’s important, he said, is whether that money is improving student learning and whether schools and teachers are being held accountable for results.

“What we are doing now, particularly for the disadvantaged, is not working,” he said.

Democrats and many leaders of the state’s education establishment criticized Pawlenty for cutting funding to schools in 2003, when he trimmed state spending to erase a $4.5 billion budget deficit. Last year, he and the Legislature increased education funding, and with state revenue collections currently exceeding expectations, he predicted schools will get at least a cost-of-living boost next year.

But schools should use that money to make sure students are better prepared for demanding jobs in an increasingly competitive global market, Pawlenty said.

For disadvantaged, inner-city students, who are most at risk of dropping out, he called for changing the cultures of their schools so “it’s OK to be smart… to try hard in school, when you have homework you’re expected to do it, where it’s not OK to be loud and obnoxious and disrespectful to the teacher.”

He wants to spend more money on early childhood education, but only after setting standards for curricula, quality of services and performance measurements.

He renewed his proposals to “pay teachers better.” He called for paying premium salaries to get the best teachers in the worst schools, to overcome the shortage of math and science teachers and to encourage experienced teachers to mentor young educators.

He advocated making high schools more rigorous, relevant and interesting to students by giving them more robust choices through magnet and charter schools, theme-based public schools and “in my view private schools, if that’s the choice of parents and their kids.”

“I believe this is one of the most profound challenges of our time,” Pawlenty said, “how to take a deeply imbedded system that has very powerful advocates that move very slowly and try to get that to change in a rapidly changing world.”

He can’t get it done, he said, by “pounding on the teachers’ unions. It has to be a collaborative exercise where we have us working with them on things that make them feel comfortable and secure,” he said. “We’ve got to move this along together with the establishment helping to lead the cause. I’m just pleading with them to make the change.”

Pawlenty’s was the second in a Humphrey Institute series of public policy speeches this summer by candidates for governor and U.S. senator.