mn academic standards

mn academic standards

Analyzing the Impact of Minnesota Academic Standards on Educational Outcomes

1. Introduction to Minnesota Academic Standards

Minnesota has been placing its highest academic expectations in law since 1860 when state educational leaders included state graduation standards in the foundation of the state’s first cross-district institution for advanced learning that evolved into the state’s current system of higher education. In the 1950s, Minnesota large, small, rural, and urban school districts began using a voluntary statewide high academic standards framework, PCIE, to guide individual, class, school, district, and community improvement efforts. The Minnesota Profiles of Learning academic standards infused a large percentage of state investment in acceptable high achievement curriculum frameworks and high adequate benchmarks to guide state and local investment in a more acceptable high and adequate elementary, middle, and high school achievement instructional practices, educational materials, and learning technologies.

However, public concern about low achievement led to a mass-developed, low academic standards, injection of learning entitlements that replaced the state high academic standards framework and allowed the state to de-leverage funding for low achievement. For example, the 2003 state graduation requirement that was called a “reform” to substitute the PCIE and Profiles of Learning graduation eligibility requirement that was in place for approximately 75 years. The 2010 Profile of Learning’s creation of a joint academic/hybrid system to replace the then “in-place” academic system to guide and participate in district-wide achievement was opposed. Two of the first substantive acts of Congress were to create Massachusetts and Minnesota with high-grade academic universities to support state constitutional, law, and regulatory requirements to develop, maintain, and consistently infuse high academic standards and acceptable high student learning outcomes in public schools across the state. Minnesota uses academic standards to ensure high student achievement for all students (the Profile of Learning).

2. Historical Development of Minnesota Academic Standards

The roots of what we currently call academic standards can be found in a larger school reform effort. The major transformation of public education occurred at the turn of the 20th century. The core mission of the redefined American public school was to develop an educated citizenry that would support a free society. Prior to the later 19th century, the notions of standards and democracy had no connection within American politics, and democratic credentials were developed in the absence of a national standard. The roots of the current standards movement emerged in a report titled “A Nation at Risk,” a comprehensive look at the nation’s education system and its performance. It challenged educational leaders to develop and improve academic standards. The report was a critical turning point for public education, and many educators have focused on continuous improvement of the public education system.

Education scholar Diane Ravitch identified three key elements of the new standards. First, they would provide a sense of direction so public education could respond to a specific set of priorities; second, the resulting standards for high school graduation would be a profile of what every youngster should know and be able to do as a result of his or her schooling; and third, the standards would lead to test development and assessment methods related to program goals and activities and teacher and pupil accountability. Since the mid-1990s, states were beginning to develop accountability systems to monitor progress at the school and district level toward the standards. A majority of states have implemented an accountability system that involved some type of testing as a way to measure progress in meeting the standards. The move toward standardization is well on its way. The U.S. Department of Education spoke in the late 1980s about setting high and equal standards for all students. These standards would be used in determining eligibility for federal education aid.

3. Assessment and Evaluation of Minnesota Academic Standards

In 1996, Minnesota adopted academic standards that defined a framework of minimum academic expectations that would meet the state’s definition of providing an adequate education for all children. These standards provided some impetus for greater uniformity of outcomes across varying school districts because of the requirement that students meet the standards to earn a high school diploma. Since the adoption of these standards, several policy developments have led to increased dependence on the results of standardized assessment.

The Twin Cities Research Group has undertaken a project to study the adoption of academic standards in other states. All states have standards by this time, but the study will cover the history of the reform and what has resulted from implementation.

The key to understanding the potential impact of standards-based reform is to use the student performance data that has been collected as part of state monitoring. This data is used to clarify state enforcement of federal standards and to give rigor and consistency to the application of state standards. Since the plan was developed by the Minnesota Department of Children, Families, and Learning in accordance with national guidelines, Minnesota is well-positioned to document national trends, compare the feasibility of standards monitoring in its reporting grades, and identify components that need rethinking.

Its implementation of the practical implications of changing state roles for both state and local forces has been instrumental in altering our understanding of the developmental strategies for promoting children’s well-being. This can be considered a stress test of its own design.

4. Implementation Strategies and Best Practices

Effective implementation of new standards requires practical strategies and adaptive approaches. This section highlights various implementation strategies and best practices to support schools and educators in effectively supporting all Minnesota students in meeting the new standards. The statewide implementation effort should emphasize coherence and consistency in policy, support, and expectations. As it is with all initiatives, the best strategies for successful implementation will come from both the top and the bottom, from the state and from the grassroots. Each will depend on the other for success.

Dissemination of information is key to implementation. Schools have to know what the standards are and have to receive timely instructions on the best strategies for teaching these standards. This does not require repeated sets of policy instructions from higher authorities. Most of the best strategies for effective implementation come from followers, not from leaders or overseers. At the state level, this information flow makes top-down instructions less necessary. Its corollary is in making state and national goals be adapted to local goals.

5. Future Directions and Recommendations

The study described in this report addressed several issues in relation to academic standards that have been of concern to educators, policy makers, and the public. This section draws implications from our findings and addresses several questions for further research that our research raises. At the broadest level, our results suggest that academic standards and the revisions to assessments to reflect the standards’ focus on promoting varied and complex cognitive skills have yet to produce major changes in achievement patterns and inequalities in educational attainment levels. However, such effects may simply not have been present before the data we used or not yet have appeared in the data. While our findings testify to the invariance of certain aspects of educational disparities, they cannot be taken to suggest that the standards movement in education has not or cannot produce important educational improvements.

One issue that needs further study involves how school districts direct their efforts to implement and match assessments to state academic standards. While in our study and in CEPPI, it is possible to analyze the relationships embodied in nested data, our analyses can do little to speak to how these actions emerged and whether they operate differentially across student groups or populations. We can tell little, for example, about the decision process that the National Research Council document’s policy recommendations would involve, nor can we access proprietary information about the relationship between textbook choices or other curricular policy decisions and changes in student test scores or other outcomes. Addressing these issues will require observing changes or tracking data at the classroom or district levels.