The Dayton Dust Bowl: No Child Left Paid-For
By Mitch Berg
If you are a K-12 student, you will see a $230 million cut in funding for your schools because Dayton plans to eliminate testing.
Now, I personally am ambivalent about testing as a goal, an end in and of itself, as happens all too often in our current educational system.
But like it or not, the Fed requires this testing to make sure students are actually learning things at school – a putative goal of education, somewhere down there under ” prevent union teacher layoffs” even in the Minnesota Federation of Teachers’ canon of goals.
A state that doesn’t have an accountability system in place will not receive federal funding.
Now, debate if you will the wisdom of focusing on testing. I certainly do.
But remember – in the last week in August, the DFL was spitting tacks because Tim Pawlenty “left federal money on the table” for various “health aid” programs.
Now, they’re proposing leaving more federal money on the table – and not a word.
Why?
Other than the fact that that money would hold Education Minnesota accountable for its ongoing failure, I mean?
Coming up at 9AM: The Incredible Do-It-All Commissioners!
Check out the Dayton Budget “Plan” for yourself! Find another howler? Leave it in the comments!
September 7th, 2010 at 8:20 am
the most half baked idea that jumped out at me was:
11. Reduce Private Contracting. State agencies spent over $850 million on outsourced professional and technical services during the 2008-09 biennium. Cutting this outsourcing in half would thus save $425 million.
first this is a direct attack on Minnesota private businesses because it intends to put several thousand people out of work and this is not, as some would think, localized to organizations like Accenture, but it will focus on small business state wide that provide infrastructure and support services to the state (local electricians, gardeners, snow plow, plumbers, carpenters etc).
While the contracts to be eliminated usually run 6-36 months at which point the state can contract with any vendor that offers the best price performance thus saving the taxpayers money. The real goal of this pledge is to vastly enlarge the state government workforce by bringing all the necessary skills in house. In stead of paying for services on an on call or per contract basis with full accountability, the state will undertake to employ these people full time for thirty years at an increasingly prohibitive cost with an almost complete loss of accountability (they will be union after all and virtually impossible to fire no matter how incompetent they become).
This is not a cost saving measure in fact take the $850m number and multiply it by 22% every year and you have a truer idea of the potential cost to Minnesotans
September 7th, 2010 at 8:32 am
That one’s coming up shortly.
September 7th, 2010 at 9:41 am
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/columns/todays-question/archive/2010/09/should-public-schools-have-to-seek-voter-approval-for-operating-funds.shtml?refid=0
September 7th, 2010 at 9:50 am
Mitch, is this statement intentional?
But like it or not, the Fed requires this testing to make sure schools are actually learning things at school .
September 7th, 2010 at 10:18 am
Kerm,
No, it was a flub. Corrected.
Thanks.
September 7th, 2010 at 10:46 am
I did not want to make an assumption. You’re welcome.