For several decades the radio show Prairie Home Companion declared the Minnesota fictional town of Lake Wobegon to be the place where “all the children were above average.” Of course, statistically this is impossible, but the saying captured the belief of Minnesota exceptionalism, including its schools.
Yet according to the most recent educational rankings of state school systems, Minnesota’s schools are now average at best.
Over the last 40 years, Minnesota has held a reputation for high-quality education. From the 1980s into the early 2000s, the state consistently ranked among the top ten nationally in test scores and graduation rates. Students in Minnesota regularly outperformed national averages on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Even into the first decade of the twenty-first century its eight grade NAEP scores placed Minnesota in 2003 at the top in terms of math scores. That strong performance continued into the early 2010s. In 2013, Minnesota 8th graders ranked third in the nation—and among global leaders—in math and science achievement, based on international comparisons.
At the same time the state was also known as a national pioneer in educational policy innovation. It was the first to adopt interdistrict open enrollment in 1988 and the first to authorize charter schools in 1991.
Yet, beneath the surface, warning signs emerged. Despite its high averages, Minnesota began to develop some of the nation’s most persistent achievement gaps. Racial and economic disparities in test scores, graduation rates, and college readiness widened. While white students often performed near the top nationally, a Federal Reserve report found that Black, Latino, and Indigenous students in Minnesota ranked near the bottom when compared with their peers in other states.
As the 2010s progressed, Minnesota’s national standing began to slip slightly. Then came the pandemic. Like every other state, Minnesota saw declines in academic achievement between 2019 and 2022. But what was striking was how far the state fell. In 4th-grade math, NAEP scores dropped from roughly 10 points above the national average to just 4 points above it. In terms of learning recovery, Minnesota ranked 45th in math and 34th in reading gains through 2022. Those numbers improved somewhat in the following two years—moving up to 16th in math and 8th in reading by 2024—but the damage was done.
While still above average, the state was no longer in the top five or ten in every ranking. In 2024 Wallethub, a well-respected personal finance company known for its quality reports and analysis, examined state K-12 systems across 32 dimensions. Minnesota had slipped to twenty-fourth.
Now according to the most recent Wallethub data released on July 21, Minnesota has slipped to twenty-seventh when combining both quality and safety concerns. In comparison, Wisconsin comes in at sixth, Nebraska at thirteenth, Illinois and North Dakota at fifteenth and sixteenth, and Iowa at twenty-third. Except for South Dakota at twenty-ninth, Minnesota overall has the worst performing schools in the upper Midwest.
I see this slippage in my classroom as do many of my peers. Coming to college students are less prepared with basic study skills, the ability to read and write, and a sense of self-discipline and desire to learn.
There may be many factors explaining this slippage. Money is not an issue since Minnesota spends a lot of money on K-12—but on how the money is spent. It could also be the racial and educational disparities in the state, or about what is taught or how.
Certainly, there is no evidence that open enrollment and charter schools have helped and in fact, given the latter’s expansion in the last twenty or so years they could be one of the causes of the decline. Some may argue for vouchers, but there too there is mixed evidence that they improve overall performance on a large scale.
Yet what vouchers, magnets, charters, and the racial and economic disparities all have in common is one thing—public indifference or abandonment of its commitment to quality education and learning for all.
This abandonment of education is significant but it also speaks to a larger issue—government needs to deliver. Over the weekend the Minneapolis DFL nominated a socialist Omar Fateh as the endorsed candidate for mayor. Whether ultimately he, incumbent Jacob Frey, or someone else becomes mayor, and whatever the composition of the city council, Minneapolis has real problems it needs to fix. They range from schools, public safety, racial disparities, housing costs, and delivery of safe, affordable, and equitable city services for all.
At present Minneapolis City government is failing on addressing these most basic needs and issues. The task for the next City administration and council is tackling these real issues, not with promises but with policies that work. Hope and promise are not viable public policies, identifying and solving real problems is the art of governance.
Whatever the reason, Minnesota and Minneapolis schools are not performing well when compared to other states and they are mired in a mediocrity that takes us far afield from the place where all the children are above average.
Schools boards and board members as apolitical? I will consider that the next time I see the DFL endorse candidates for the school board in St. Paul or elsewhere.
Additionally, again the public I assert views school boards as part of government and as I stated in my essay, the State and Minneapolis need to worry about the performance of its institutions, including schools.
Finally, all of you so far are missing the core point of my piece–the decline in performance of MN schools compared to other states. Other states are doing better, but why?
I think you answered your own question, David. Any actual decline of Minnesota K-12 education parallels the growth of charter schools. As you pointed out, charters, choice, and vouchers are a clear and demonstrable abandonment of public schools.
The governance of the public K-12 schools in Minnesota is not a function of politics. The school board and administrators are not Democrats, Republicans or Democratic Socialists. The only obligation of the political entities is to fund the operation of the school and at the state level ensure compliance with laws and statewide policies.
The mayor and city council have no authority whatsoever over the nonpartisan school boards. The city of Minneapolis provides no money for the operation of the MPS. Politicians and political science professors like to offer opinions about all kinds of things, but public education is complicated enough without obfuscating the lines of authority.
How can the author fail to mention the Minneapolis School Board? Failing MPS schools are impacted by their composition and decisions.
In the 1990s, I attended a Minneapolis School Board meeting where two items on the agenda were the addition of lights to the Roosevelt High School football field and the reduction of support for the “Gifted and Talented” program. The goal of the school board at that time seemed to be to strive for mediocrity. One of the board members said, “The good students can take care of themselves; we should support those who are struggling.” I agree that we should support struggling students, but if we are to succeed as a society, we also need to support and encourage those who are capable of excellence.
At that time, the football lights were projected to cost about $100,000 per year in additional utility and maintenance costs. Since that time, lights have been added to all Minneapolis high school football fields. I don’t know what efforts are currently being made to support and enrich students’ academic experience, but If the statistics are to be believed, the $22,000 per student per year that we spend is neither effectively supporting struggling students nor encouraging students to excel.
To Artswenson – Amen. I was a public school zealot in my earlier years. Would not even consider sending my own child anywhere else. But as long ago as the late 90’s, when my child was having difficulty in one class at a MPS high school, I was told by the teacher of that class, at a parent-teacher conference, that she had too many students who had challenges at home, and that I, as a white, highly educated, upper-middle class person (all true characterizations), was responsible for helping my child, myself. Period. Talk about saying the quiet part out loud…! I would later, belatedly, realize that this was basically one manifestation of teachers-union-itis – a sense of entitlement, coupled to belief among leadership and too many (though thankfully not all) rank-and-file teachers, that the only things standing in the way of better public education are more money, more money, more money, and more teachers’ union control over everything that happens in the schools. My teen turned out fine – but never actually recovered the lost momentum in the subject of that class. Now my grandchild is in a really excellent Charter School, and I am quite proud that two MPS-schooled parents made that tough choice. I don’t have simple yet concrete solutions any more than David Schultz does, but we could start just by going back to electing at least some school board members who truly care about schools actually performing well academically, rather than focusing on almost everything else while being de facto wholly-owned by the teachers union. I have been involved in Mpls DFL politics for 35 years, and can tell you that we used to have at least some of the former, because for quite a while, I knew them all. Presently, we just do not. It’s our own fault. There is very little reason that being DFL Endorsed should matter to folks deciding who to vote onto school board, and there is absolutely no reason that being endorsed by the teachers union should be a litmus test for those of us involved in deciding DFL endorsements. Yet here we are… WE have to change.
Dear Liz:
I disagree with you on several fronts.
First, saying I have to propose solutions if I am to criticize education in Minnesota is simply wrong. I know my car does not work but I do not know how to fix it. I know my furnace does not work but I do not know how to fix it. I am not arrogant enough to propose solutions to how to reform education in Minnesota. Wallethub’s data along with other reports, some of which I cited point to this long standing erosion of educational quality across the board in Minnesota. I too see it from the perspective of a college professor of more than thirty years and what I see landing in my classroom.
To say that someone has to propose solutions is simply a tactic to silence people. It is perfectly okay for citizens to criticize or point out problems, I do not expect them to have the solutions. To think all of us have the answers simply seems to suggest that policy making or education is not something that requires expertise and that anyone can simply propose ideas. That is exactly part of the problem. Too little evidence and thought goes into policy making and too much politics instead.
Second, what part of superficial do you seen here in what was meant to be a brief essay? Do you contest the methodology of Wallethub, of the Federal Reserve, or the many other reports that are reaching the same thing about the erosion of educational quality in Minnesota?
Moreover, in looking to the causes, do you deny there are racial disparities that impact student performance, test scores, and graduation rates? On multiple scares, as Wallethub points out, the state is falling behind.
If we are simply looking Minneapolis, the issue is not money alone as I pointed out. The statewide average per capita ons students in K-12 id around $17,200. Minneapolis spends about $22,000 per capita students, second only to St. Paul. Thus, a lot of money is spent in Minneapolis and still there has been as I noted a long term erosion in test scores and other measures of academic achievement.
My point is that in a brief essay I made my case to indicate that MN public school education is falling behind the rest of country and, if I may add, no one seems to notice, care, or seems to think we are still a leader. We are not. However, had you criticized me for not pointing to other factors that impact learning, such as family support, race, and class then your criticism would be fair.
David, what are your specific proposals, beyond “government needs to deliver?” I would dispute the assertion that the problem is “public indifference or abandonment of its commitment to quality education and learning for all,” especially since you indicate that “[m]oney is not an issue since Minnesota spends a lot of money on K-12.” It’s discouraging to read a relatively shallow recitation of systemic problems, and then vaguely call on one city (less that 7% of the state’s population) to solve them.
I believe a good place to start fixing our schools is with student accountability. Do people know that when a student misses 15 days in a row the school district has to remove the student. These are the students who need to be in school more than most others because of their home dynamics. Rather than call in the troops to figure out how best to support this student, they are simply removed and lost in a failing system. Often times the kids are not reenrolled or perhaps they are reenrolled months later falling further and further behind. We need community and caring adults to work to catch these kids and support them as well as hold them accountable in ways other than removal from the one place that can actually improve their lives.