Session 2003 Budget and Taxes Business Environment Higher Education K-12 Education Health and Welfare Public Safety Stadium Transportation Photos Education commissioner Cheri Pierson Yecke More from MPR Lesson on Learning: Behind the "No Child Left Behind" law DFLers to come up with their own grad standards (03/03/2003) House dumps profile of learning (02/17/2003) Resources See the new math standards proposal (pdf) See the new language arts standards proposal (pdf) Your Voice News Forum: State education officials will hold a series of 13 hearings throughout Minnesota over the next two weeks to gather public input on the proposed standards. Are you planning on attending one of the hearings?

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Legislators get peek at new math, language standards
by Tim Pugmire, Minnesota Public Radio
March 11, 2003

Education commissioner Cheri Pierson Yecke says the new standards require recognition, analysis and comprehension, not simply the memorization of facts. (MPR Photo/Tim Pugmire)

A citizens panel on school standards wants Minnesota first graders to be able to rhyme words and count up to 120. Education commissioner Cheri Pierson Yecke and representatives of the Minnesota Academic Standards Committee appeared at two legislative hearings today to recommend grade-by-grade expectations in reading and math.

St. Paul, Minn. — Commissioner Yecke told members of the House Education Policy Committee that her volunteer panel of parents, teachers, school administrators and business leaders spent a combined 3,000 hours of work over the past three weeks developing the proposed standards. She says the two draft documents outline the specific skills and knowledge students should master in kindergarten through 12th grade "What we're saying is that these are the standards and the expectations for the end of the year. The teacher will set the path in order to meet those goals, but at the end of the year this would be the expectation," she said.

The proposed standards could eventually replace the state's Profile of Learning standards. The new documents contain more specific grade-level expectations than the show-what-you-know approach of the profile. For example, the new standards call for third graders to identify literary elements, including an author's purpose, tone and theme.

A student in seventh grade would need to use ratios and proportions to interpret map scales and scale drawings.

Yecke says the new standards require recognition, analysis and comprehension, not simply the memorization of facts. But she says the fourth grade math standards, for example, do require knowing multiplication tables.

We all learned our multiplication tables, and it didn't kill us. - Cheri Pierson Yecke, education commissioner

"I think the consensus was that we all learned our multiplication tables, and it didn't kill us," she said. "And certainly this is something that there was an expectation that fourth graders should be able to do by the end of fourth grade."

The math standards favor neither the bundled approach of integrated math, nor the more traditional sequence that includes algebra, geometry and trigonometry. The standards panel also took a middle-of-the road approach in the debate between whole language and phonics.

Committee volunteer Jane Ropella, a St. Paul elementary principal, says a balanced approach is necessary.

"Not every child learns the same way, and you have to individualize for children. Some children are excellent phonics learners, some are not. I think in the standards, in the document we presented, we have both," Ropella said.

The proposed standards received generally positive reviews from the House committee that voted unanimously this session to repeal the profile.

Rep. Jim Davnie, DFL-Minneapolis, an eighth grade teacher, liked what he saw. "From a cursory overview, and kind of a gut check, they appear challenging but achievable hopefully to a majority of students. And I'm impressed by the committee's work particularly given the timeline."

Educators will measure how well students are meeting state standards through the annual test required in third through eighth grade under the federal No Child Left Behind law. It's still unclear how the state will assess the standards in other grades.

In a second hearing, Sen. Steve Kelley, DFL-Hopkins, chairman of the Senate Education Policy Committee, expressed his concern about the potential costs involved with abandoning the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments for a new group of statewide tests.

"We have tests at three of the grade levels. And so, if these standards aren't aligned with the MCAs, then we have to develop the tests at those grade levels plus the additional grade levels required by No Child Left Behind," he said.

State education officials will hold a series of 13 hearings throughout Minnesota over the next two weeks to gather public input on the proposed standards. The first hearing is in Winona Thursday night. The Legislature will get a final draft by April 1.

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