Shouldn't schools be about students learning?

Alan Page, the former Minnesota Supreme Court justice pushing for a constitutional amendment to give children a civil right to a "quality education," now has an answer to the question he poses.

Essentially, his question is: Should Minnesota's public schools be obliged to ensure that students learn?

To that question the major associations in Minnesota public education have answered, "No."

The teachers' union, Education Minnesota, came out in opposition to the amendment even before the initiative was launched by the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Neel Kashkari, early in 2020.

Last winter the school boards association and the superintendents association both suggested the Legislature ought not put the proposed amendment on the ballot for a public vote.

This in turn raises its own interesting question:

Do Minnesotans understand that our public education system opposes a requirement for it to deliver on the mission it is given to perform?

Given the Legislature's inaction, efforts to move "the Page amendment" are on hold. On the positive side, the initiative might soon see one of its major problems solved.

That problem was the proponents' inability in their many presentations to answer three questions always — and reasonably — asked.

First: By "quality education" do you mean what the district offers, or what the students learn?

Second: How do you define "quality"?

Third: How would the Legislature make it happen?

The group began, but stopped as it became clear the Legislature was not going to act. It too is on hold, but will start up in the fall.

It won't be easy to design an obligation to ensure students learn. Adults write requirements for learning, teaching and testing. But school does not deliver learning: Students control what's learned. "I taught it but they didn't learn it" is a classic teachers' lament.

What school can do is to improve students' desire to learn. Motivation matters for effort; effort matters for achievement. The group should advise legislators and Gov. Tim Walz on how to go about getting young people seriously engaged in learning.

Meantime, remarkably, Page is personalizing the concept of achievement. The goal, he now consistently says, is "to realize the potential of each individual child."

That implies a new direction for the group as it reconsiders the amendment's current language about "quality," "skills necessary" and "uniform achievement standards." The achievement gap will become the difference between the performance and the potential of the individual student.

Having an obligation to ensure students learn seems a good idea, for public education as for the public.

The associations worry that creating a civil right will produce a rash of lawsuits.

Surely, then, the right course is for the state to help districts get students learning better. Do that, and a constitutional amendment might not be needed.