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Education omnibus bill proposes new school district rating system

House Photography file photo
House Photography file photo

With a goal to improve transparency and clarity, Minnesota could be changing the way it evaluates schools and school district performance.

Approved as amended Thursday by the House Education Innovation Policy Committee, HF3315, the omnibus E-12 policy bill, sponsored by Rep. Sondra Erickson (R-Princeton), now heads to the House Education Finance Committee.

The companion, SF3086, awaits action by the Senate E-12 Policy Committee. Sen. Eric Pratt (R-Prior Lake) is the sponsor.

One of the most contentious parts of the bill would require the Department of Education to develop an academic achievement rating system based primarily on students’ standardized test performance. Each school and district would be assigned a summative star rating, as well as an academic achievement score based on a zero-to-100 scale.

The proposal that was incorporated into the omnibus bill came from HF3178 sponsored by Rep. Roz Peterson (R-Lakeville), and is intended to take the complex data the department already collects, simplify it and publish it. Parents and data-use advocates have championed a more transparent and easily understandable rating system in order to help them decipher how their child’s school is performing. 

During the bill’s original hearing, Aimee Guidera, parent and president of the Data Quality Campaign, said it’s difficult for parents to make sense of all the data the department collects and displays on its website.  

“We are a leader in this nation on how we collect data and how we analyze it, and yet I would say that we are one of the states furthest behind in ensuring that, that valuable data is turned into information that gets into the hands that need it the most,” she said.

It’s a sentiment that was shared by Isabel Romos, and other parents and members of the Latino Youth Development Cooperative, who said the current system is particularly difficult for non-English speakers to navigate. Ramos said they often feel their children end up in the worst performing schools because they don’t have the tools to determine which schools are best for them.

On the other hand, opponents say that the star-rating system is too simplistic to be useful.

“I do have some concerns with this bill. I worry about potentially misleading and even harmful uses of data when you distill complex information down to a single number,” said David Heistad, executive director of research at Bloomington Public Schools.

The current proposal bases the summative rating on the percentage of students who are proficient on statewide math and reading tests, the academic growth rate for reading and math, and the achievement gap scores for four-year graduation, low income students and students of color.

Critics fear that without considering factors such as English language learner success, extracurricular offerings, class sizes, and the student to support-staff ratio, the rating system isn’t providing a comprehensive or fully informative view. 

WATCH The Education Innovation Policy Committee discusses the bill 

“If you’re going to identify high-flyer schools that Latino families are going to want to send their students to, you have to have a more sophisticated model that actually concentrates on growth from one year to another for each individual student and takes into account the status of the student,” Heistad said.

Several amendments were proposed by DFL committee members that would modify the star rating program to include additional data points. None of them were adopted.

Erickson recommended “no” votes on the amendments, encouraging committee members to instead meet with Peterson to have changes implemented as the bill progresses through committee.

“She has brought forth a proposal that is complex, but refined, and if we start amending that today, without input, we are essentially gutting the proposal that she’s brought forth,” Erickson said. “I don’t believe we do that to any member’s bill without the member having input.”

However, Rep. Erin Maye Quade (DFL-Apple Valley) said the system, as proposed, is doing a disservice to students and their families, and that it’s the responsibility of the committee to correct the policy before it moves on.  

“To assume that this summative rating is in any way helpful for the diverse and wonderful families and students of Minnesota, it goes against everything that we have set up our education policy to do,” she said.

Despite disagreement over the summative rating system, and a range of other amendments that were ultimately not adopted, the omnibus bill was approved with no opposition.

“There are many good things in this proposal that we’re sending to finance,” Erickson said. “Hopefully we can come to an agreement that some kind of rating system will be good for us.” 


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