Pawlenty's spokesman rips teachers union

Posted at 3:13 PM on March 4, 2010 by Tim Pugmire
Filed under: Tim Pawlenty

Minnesota's application for about $330 million in federal education funding fell short, and the finger pointing soon followed.

Federal officials announced today that Minnesota was among the states that didn't get past the first round in competition for "Race to the Top" money. This afternoon, Gov. Tim Pawlenty's Deputy Chief of Staff Brian McClung issued the following
statement, in which he blames the teachers union:

"It's hard to race to the top with an anchor tied to your leg. For years the teachers union has fought against any meaningful education reforms. First they opposed charter schools and open enrollment and now they're fighting tenure reform, alternative licensure, and meaningful performance pay for teachers. If Minnesota is to have any chance of success in round two of this competition, the legislature must adopt these types of reforms immediately."

Update

Here's what Education Minnesota had to say:

More than 300 Minnesota school districts signed on to the state's application, promising to make changes if the state won.

One change was to implement Q-Comp, the state's teacher merit pay program, which is currently voluntary.

That was one reason Education Minnesota opposed the application. Union president Tom Dooher also considered the application a back-door way of getting schools to implement proposals that the governor hasn't been able to get passed at the Capitol.

"We wanted to work with them; we had ideas of our own that we knew were research-based and really would help kids," said Dooher. "I will take any criticism we get from any source on why we didn't sign on, because we know practitioners have the best answers, not bureaucrats in St. Paul or Washington, D.C."

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