A majority of Minnesotans favor raising the minimum wage, legalizing marijuana for medically-prescribed purposes, and conducting background checks on firearms purchased at gun shows, while more people than not (3 to 1 margin) also believe that graduating MN students ought to achieve cut scores in certain subjects for a diploma. (See annual poll conducted by the MN House Information Office at the just concluded MN State Fair as summarized by Politics in Minnesota.)

Being a candidate in an explicitly non partisan race, I honor the set of ideologically-mixed views expressed by 2013 visitors to the fair’s education building.  Were I to be elected to the Mounds View school board, any inputs I would make would keep the spirit of nonpartisanship by evaluating topics and issues on a case-by-case basis.

But while there are certainly pros and cons to the “cut-score” debate, the Minnesota Legislature has spoken, the result of which is a new, 2013 state statute the Revisor’s office believes will be publicly issued September 30th.

Because the Mounds View District performs at a higher level than most in the metropolitan area, the lack of cut scores for graduation shouldn’t be as critical an issue, as it would– say– for a weaker school district where a greater percentage of students are “on the bubble” regarding the extent to which they are college or career ready at graduation.

Note: In case you are not familiar with the exams affected, the pre-2013 legislative session GRAD (cut score) exams included the 9th grade writing, the 10th grade reading MCA, and the 11th grade mathematics MCA exam.  As explained in the “On Writing” tab of this site,  the future of the writing exam at Mounds View is in doubt, while the reading and math MCAs will continue to be administered at the grade levels previously provided– but no specific score on them will be required to obtain a diploma.