The Naked Truth about School Reform in Minnesota
1998; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 79; Issue: 9 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1940-6487
Autores Tópico(s)Diverse Educational Innovations Studies
ResumoImperial forces would put into practice in a controlling system designed, albeit with best of intentions, to make teachers and students conform to standards not of their making or choice, Mr. Nelson asserts. The emperor's new clothes are wearing thin, and in a cold winter is always just around corner. The garments in question here are school mandates touted as revolutionary reform. The naked truth is that reform ideas about to be implemented in this liberal northern state are essentially retreads of tried and untrue conservative concepts that have a history of failure. With President of United States advocating national testing and national standards and other states pursuing various centralized reform schemes, experience provides educators and public with an opportunity for critical reflection and response. On Tuesday, 26 August 1997, a panel of education specialists from what was formerly state department of education, now known as Department of Children, Families, and Learning (CFL), convened in St. Paul for a teleconference that would be beamed to various sites throughout state. Teachers, teacher educators, and invited members of the community had gathered at these sites to hear about progress of a three-year implementation plan for new Minnesota rule and its accompanying curriculum known as Profile of Learning. This velvet glove presentation was directed primarily at K-12 teachers who were called upon to embrace and implement new Only slight mention was made of iron hand of compliance audits that will no doubt follow. If attendees at August teleconference went away, as I did, disturbed about what is happening in Minnesota, it should be no surprise. The vast project discussed at meeting involves centralizing education on a scale never before attempted in a state formerly committed to local control of education. The CFL panel justified endeavor in a way that obfuscated aims and intentions rather than clarified them. What follows is an attempt to illuminate reform now known as Graduation Standards. Rooted in Outcome-based Education Graduation Standards had their genesis in outcome-based education (OBE) movement, which flowered during late 1980s and early 1990s. It was during that period that state legislators began pushing for more accountability in education. The education bureaucracy responded within framework of educational innovation most in vogue at that time. William Spady's outcome-based education movement had captured attention of many educational leaders in Minnesota, with its promise of success for all students through specific definition of expectations, assessment of student progress, and reteaching of outcomes not achieved. Many local school districts began their own OBE reforms in curriculum design, assessment procedures, and even grading. OBE advocates at state level saw movement as an answer to legislative demands for more accountability in education. Rather than graduate on traditional basis of Carnegie units accumulated, all students would be expected to demonstrate achievement of significant learning outcomes. In 1993 state legislature enacted MN Statute 121.11 Subd 7c, directing former state board of education to develop a results-oriented graduation rule. The department's tasks would be to identify outcomes and to design assessments, thus guaranteeing results. No longer would diplomas find their way into hands of students persistent enough to complete all their coursework without bothering to learn how to read, write, or compute. The state department began OBE reform by establishing state task forces to determine outcomes that would be required for graduation. But while this effort was in progress, a disturbing thing happened. …
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