The Office of the Legislative Auditor (OLA) report given reference by the Star Tribune Editorial Board in "Lack of progress on learning gaps" (March 23) must be contextualized for proper understanding. The importance of the report resides not in specific revelations or recommendations, but rather in the reality concerning the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) and public education in Minnesota that underpins the report.

The OLA report reviews MDE oversight of four programs: American Indian Education (AIE), Achievement and Integration (A&I), World's Best Workforce (WBWF), and Regional Centers of Excellence (RCE). WBWF legislation in Minnesota was passed in 2013, and A&I was given that appellation and updated in the same year. These programs anticipated federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) legislation then under development and passed by Congress in 2015.

WBWF programs purportedly have the fivefold goal of closing the achievement gap, readying all students for school as kindergartners, promoting grade-level literacy for all third-grade students, preparing all high school graduates for career or college, and sending all high school students forth to graduation. Similarly, A&I goals are to reduce academic disparities, pursue racial and economic integration, increase student academic achievement, and increase equitable educational opportunities. None of the programs under WBWF and A&I have achieved their aims, and they have no capacity to do so. These programs serve only to meet the legalistic requirements of ESSA and the state response to ESSA known as the North Star Accountability System.

Minnesota school districts submit annual reports to MDE concerning programming for WBWF and A&I, but none of the programs are effective in increasing student proficiency for those lagging below grade level, typically serving only a fraction of the "protected groups" (African American/Black, Hispanic/Latino, American Indian/Indigenous students, and those receiving free/reduced price lunch) targeted for increased proficiency. Further, as the OLA report conveys, the MDE does little besides receiving the reports and reporting in turn to the Legislature. No follow-up in terms of investigating program effectiveness ever occurs.

As to AIE, state legislation and MDE implementation is also ineffective. The legislation, passed in 2021, serves the aim of closing the achievement gap "between American Indian students and their more advantaged peers." In this case, MDE is given an explicit statutory responsibility to develop a strategic plan for addressing the achievement gap, and to consult with the American Indian community, evaluate the state of American Indian education in Minnesota, approve pertinent district and charter school plans, assist districts and charter schools in meeting goals, and approve preparation programs for teachers of American Indian language and culture. The OLA report finds that the MDE has not met most of these statutory responsibilities.

The OLA report, reflecting negatively on the efficacy of WBWF, A&I and AIE programs and MDE oversight, is more favorable to the Regional Centers of Excellence (RCE). But the evidence cited in offering the positive comments is very thin. The success cited involved just 20% of schools served.

Although RCE staff members are not formally employed by the state of Minnesota, most of those involved in addressing academic proficiency have been teachers certified and operating within the same system that has produced such wretched proficiency rates (just 46% in reading and 53% in mathematics for white non-Hispanic students, with achievement gaps of 37, 30 and 29 percentage points between non-Hispanic white students and their American Indian, African American and Hispanic peers, respectively).

There are only 57 total staff members at the six RCEs (located in Sartell, with 11 staff members; Mountain Iron, 10; Thief River Falls, 10; Rochester, 15; Marshall, nine; and Fergus Falls, six). The Minneapolis Public Schools and St. Paul Public Schools supposedly receive direct MDE support similar to that provided by the RCEs. There are more than 2,100 traditional and charter schools in Minnesota with a total of 843,404 students. Considering that RCE staff members total only 57, this means that there is one staff member for every 37 schools and for every 14,797 students. Given the establishment qualifications of RCE staff members and those high ratios, the notion that RCEs can address lagging student proficiency rates in Minnesota is preposterous.

No federal or state-level bureaucracy will ever result in knowledge-intensive, skill-replete curriculum or improve teaching quality in the school districts of Minnesota and throughout the United States. Because of our mania for local control, only a locally centralized school district could superintend the needed overhaul. My own efforts are to induce the requisite transformation in the Minneapolis Public Schools.

And to any official in that school district, or at the Minnesota Department of Education, who would like to engage me in a formally refereed debate in a public forum regarding the analysis made above: Know that I stand ready at any time to have that debate.

Gary Marvin Davison is director of the New Salem Educational Initiative in north Minneapolis. He blogs at newsalemeducation.blogspot.com.