By: Charlie Kyte
This audioblog is 4 1/2 minutes long. Legislative budget allocation for K-12 Education at 42 seconds and MDE MCA II Test release dates at 2 1/4 minutes.
St. Louis Park Superintendent Debra Bowers at the MASA Member Service Committee Meeting on APril 7, 2006.
MEMBER SERVICE COMMITTEE: This Friday, The MASA Member Services Committee met to help us to fine tune our communications to members and our professional development programs. Their feedback was well received and will allow us to do a better job of serving MASA members.
LEGISLATIVE BUDGET TARGET FOR EDUCATION: The House of Representatives set the K-12 budget target at $6.6 million. The Governor had earlier identified a budget of $27 million. We will see the Senate's budget target next week and we expect it to be at, or slightly above, the governors targetted amount.
MCA II TEST RELEASE DATE: Normally the results of the MCA tests are released in time for the State Fair in August. This year, because the tests are newly upgraded (MCA II's) a release that quickly will almost surely result in errors and mistakes. Thus, with the support of MASA and other associations, the MDE will follow a more deliberate timeline that will minimize errors. Expect to see the test data for preliminary review late this summer. You will have 30 days to correct any errors at the district level. Then the state level staff at MDE will carefully norm and re-analyze the data for all districts so that the results, when made public, will be correct.
Expect to see your districts final data in late October, and expect a public release in November. We feel the MDE is acting in the best interests of schools in this decision. We thank them!
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