Highland Villager Apr 28 2010 - In the School's Best Interest

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Highland Villager Apr 28 2010 - In the School's Best Interest
See page 9 of the April 28 edition of the Highland Villager. My piece entitled "In the School's Best Interest" in the Inbox section was published. It is a rebuttal to Mariani's Mar 31 Viewpoint commentary.
Here it is:

State Representative Carlos Mariani (DFL-District 65B) writes that during the current session of the Minnesota Legislature he is carrying HF 3421, a bill that he claims will transform high school assessment and accountability and better focus state graduation requirements on preparing students for college (Villager Viewpoint, March 31). Mariani has served on and led House education committees for years, yet admits “the number of U.S. high school students prepared for college and the work place is lagging behind other industrialized countries.” Minnesota is now among the worst in the U.S. for performance of students, after several years of liberal control of state education policy.One thing you notice right away when studying Mariani’s legislative record is how combative he is with commissioners in his legislation. For example, he wrote HF 1818 to require “state commissioners to submit poverty-impact statements on bills when requested by a legislator.” And in 2008 Carlos Mariani co-authored HF3316 where he stipulated that the state commissioner of education, Alice Seagren, who is quite competent, “must not implement any element of any recommendation…without first receiving specific legislative authority to do so.”This is exactly the opposite education approach we need. We need to allow the commissioner to implement executive level solutions, not claim that the legislators somehow know best.
Jamie Delton Summit-University
Editor’s note: The writer is the Republican-endorsed candidate for the state House of Representatives in District 65B.