Under Pawlenty, Minnesota continues its slide into mediocrity
Tim Pawlenty has let our infrastructure crumble, defunded our cities and counties, and treated the Governor’s office as a campaign for vice president. So it should come as no surprise that he’s allowing our schools to slip backwards, too. Our continuing decline from “the State that works” to just some mediocre place on the frozen tundra is why we need to vote down the Republicans now. They’ve done enough harm for a while, and it’s time for a change.
The latest example of our backwards slide comes from education. The Star Tribune reports:
Minnesota has long enjoyed a reputation as a nationwide leader in science education, but the results of a new test could cast a shadow on that image.
Only about four out of 10 Minnesota students can be labeled “proficient” in science, according to results released today by the Minnesota Department of Education.
More evidence from the same article:
In 2000, on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, Montana was the only state to score significantly higher than Minnesota’s eighth-graders. In 2005, five states significantly outperformed Minnesota.
Make no mistake: this is what the Republican vision for our state and our country looks like. Letting our schools fall apart is just another example of Republicans effort to cripple the government until they can “drown it in a bathtub.” Do you think that’s really the best course of action for our childrens’ future?
Conservatives have no problem throwing our children under the bus to achieve their goal — a privatized society in which the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, and in which the social mobility that used to be the American story is all but erased. But we know better than that. Minnesotans have a long history of giving people the tools they need to succeed. Don’t let the Republicans take that away.
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Education, Policy | 
Jeff Rosenberg | August 19, 2008
