Baseline: The Mission of Public Education in MN

There are so many challenges we are having in Hopkins 270, but as I addressed in my last two posts, the district administration seems to be focused on trying to right the wrongs of historical inequities in large public school systems in the U.S. as well as the impacts of racial prejudices our civil institutions, such as those that led to the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020. As I have already written, I generally applaud the objective of Tikkun Olam (to “heal the world”), and I sympathize with the objectives of the district administration.

The thing is this: The mission of public education is Minnesota is established by the legislature and detailed in our Education Code (MN Stats Chapter 120-129) and it is not up to the Hopkins 270 School Board or school district administration — or any other school district in the state — to rewrite the mission or to deviate from it in order to achieve locally preferred political social objectives.

Here is the official mission statement for our K-12 schools as defined under Minnesota law:

The mission of public education in Minnesota, a system for lifelong learning, is to ensure individual academic achievement, an informed citizenry, and a highly productive work force. This system focuses on the learner, promotes and values diversity, provides participatory decision making, ensures accountability, models democratic principles, creates and sustains a climate for change, provides personalized learning environments, encourages learners to reach their maximum potential, and integrates and coordinates human services for learners. The public schools of this state shall serve the needs of the students by cooperating with the students’ parents and legal guardians to develop the students’ intellectual capabilities and lifework skills in a safe and positive environment.

[Source: MN Stats Sec. 120A.03]

This mission works for me. And I am all for, under the apparent parlance, “removing the barriers to achievement” in meeting this mission. I truly want to identify the root causes that are interrupting the pathways to “individual academic achievement, an informed citizenry, and a highly productive workforce.” [1]

Yet, is that what this school district is doing right now?

This post is here as a baseline — it’s the rule that applies to all schools in Minnesota, and it’s the rule I will use to measure against when examining the policies, programs, processes, and procedures being deployed by the Hopkins 270 district administration in future posts.

[1] Side note: I believe that advancements in Artificial Intelligence will very soon fundamentally alter that final mission objective of ensuring a “highly productive workforce,” but that’s a story for another time.