Is Our Children Learning?

It would seem not, based on the latest statewide test scores.  The latest figures are the first to reflect the massive increase in state government spending on public education, the “Minnesota Miracle 2.”

As it turns out, merely pouring more taxpayer dollars into the same old broken system does not produce measurably better results.  Most disappointing, the state’s achievement gap (the difference in test scores posted by the state’s minority students) hardly budged.

The state’s teachers’ union wishes the testing would stop.  Tired of the reminders that the extra millions are not buying better results, the union would prefer that parents be kept in the dark about actual educational achievement.  The Education Minnesota union is the state’s wealthiest political organization, spending millions of dollars to elect Democrats who will vote to give the union millions of dollars more in taxpayer money.


There are no shortage of good ideas out there to improve student performance, even in our poorest areas.

I devoted the April 5, 2014 episode of my Minnesota Radio Forum show on AM 1570 to the subject of education reform.  We covered the entire K-12 education spectrum with Ambassdor Ben Whitney on public schools, Fr. Timothy Manatt of Cristo Rey High School, and Beth Topoluk on charter schools. It's worth a listen.

We need to get past the issue of resources and have a serious discussion on how those resources are used to educate our children.