Are we are asking too much of our schools

We learned this past week consumer spending in Minnesota has been at a level contributing to yet another projected budget surplus.

Wasting no time, Education Minnesota, the union representing teachers in the state, offered its opinion the state should continue to help fund teachers’ wages at a level able to address the shortage of instructors. E-12 education is already among the largest line items in the state’s biennial budget. Being a teacher is challenging and at times under-appreciated yet vitally important work.

Before the announcement of the projected surplus, Catrin Wigfall, a policy fellow at Center of the American Experiment, posted the state’s mission statement for education online. It states, “Today’s post is simply a reminder of the mission of public education in Minnesota, as written in state statute. May it prompt necessary next steps to return public education in the state to a top K-12 system, as too many of the goals below are not being realized.”

Minnesota Statute 120A.03: Mission statement

The mission of public education in Minnesota, a system for lifelong learning, is to ensure individual academic achievement, an informed citizenry, and a highly productive work force. This system focuses on the learner, promotes and values diversity, provides participatory decision making, ensures accountability, models democratic principles, creates and sustains a climate for change, provides personalized learning environments, encourages learners to reach their maximum potential, and integrates and coordinates human services for learners. The public schools of this state shall serve the needs of the students by cooperating with the students’ parents and legal guardians to develop the students’ intellectual capabilities and lifework skills in a safe and positive environment.

In a perfect world, the mission statement of public education in Minnesota is an admirable set of goals on what public education ought to be. Sadly, it was authored with seemingly no recognition of what is happening in today’s schools. Why are the goals not being realized? Schools are being asked to deal with issues never intended of them, issues which prevent them from accomplishing their stated mission.

The opening sentence of the statement is on target. Yes, we want our children to be lifelong learners, to always strive to learn more and constantly be asking important questions needed for greater understanding, not just gulping the Kool-Aid and accepting statements as fact. Naturally, we want students to eventually be prepared for their place on the workforce.

We have before us a system aimed at focusing on the learner, promoting values, diversity, providing participatory decision-making, ensuring accountability, modeling democratic principles, creating and sustaining a climate for change, providing personalized learning environments, encouraging learners to reach their maximum potential and integrating and coordinating human services for learners.

Might we also expect educators and administrators to sell popcorn at halftime as well? Educators are asked, perhaps expected to do an awful lot of things, some being necessary and some being arguably beyond necessary, to meet the needs of almost everybody. Everything comes at a cost, a cost we’re seemingly not always willing to pay? At the risk of calling an occasional meeting of the Get Off My Lawn Club, have we reached the point where schools should remind parents some of the expectations of educators are tasks parents should handle? Schools should not be teaching children how to behave. Schools should not need to remind children about the consequences of violating laws involving social media. School staff shouldn't have to call police to address what they and the police department label, a “student issue” so the public doesn’t become aware of what kids are doing in school. State lawmakers should not have to fund meal service for families able to cover the cost of meal service themselves. In New Prague schools last year, 23 percent of elementary school students, 20 percent of middle schoolers and 18 percent of high school students at NPHS and Compass Learning Center qualified for freeand-reduced meal service.

It seems schools today aren’t willing to tell parents to take care of their own responsibilities. They should but probably can’t and won’t.

The one-size-fits-all, fixeverything-for-everyone approach probably carries a bigger price tag than needed. There are folks who need varying forms of help and if they can’t help themselves, we ought to help them to keep education moving forward. Students who are not appropriately nourished won’t learn as they should. Students with unmet mental health needs and those who are not taught how to behave appropriately can derail the educational process for others.

This is all a grand oversimplification. Life is almost never black-and-white. If we are going to expect our schools to seemingly do more than they were intended to do, how can we honestly say we won’t pay the freight?