Gov. Tim Pawlenty is expected to unveil plans today to overhaul the state's education system, including new requirements to enter teaching, a "re-tenuring" process and an idea for educational boot camps for failing students.
Pawlenty is scheduled to travel the state today touting the first batch of proposals that he wants lawmakers to support when they return to the Capitol for the 2009 legislative session.
Half of public school teachers in Minnesota and nationwide will be eligible to retire within 10 years, so now is a good time to consider reforming how they are trained, hired and paid, Pawlenty said.
"Minnesota is blessed with some of the best teachers in the country," he said, "but even we can do better in terms of teacher quality, teacher improvement."
Some of the ideas, however, are controversial, Pawlenty acknowledged in a visit earlier this month to the News Tribune editorial board. And he predicted that they will come under fire from Education Minnesota, the powerful state teachers union.
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In the Legislature, the union "owns the Democrats and a third of [the] Republicans," the GOP governor said.
Included on Pawlenty's list are new minimum requirements to enter teaching. If lawmakers don't approve those requirements, Pawlenty said, he is prepared to move ahead anyway through the state teacher-licensing rules.
Pawlenty also is set to propose new ways for professionals in business, science and other fields to enter teaching, as well as pay incentives to persuade them, and more college students, to consider teaching as a career.
To ensure that teachers' skills remain high, Pawlenty said, he supports evaluating teachers every five years in a "re-tenuring" process. He also suggested that some struggling students be sent to military-style educational boot camps where pupils would learn two years of math and reading in six to eight weeks.
"It's a last-ditch effort to intervene to save them," the governor said.
Most of the proposals deal with existing teacher policies and funding streams and will not require significant new state money, Pawlenty said.
