I’ve been saying for some time now that Tim Pawlenty has been systematically dismantling everything that makes Minnesota exceptional. Now, I’m not suggesting, nor do I believe, that this is some sort of devious plan; on the contrary, I believe he thinks he’s doing what’s best for Minnesota, but it’s absolutely clear that he’s sorely misguided. In essentially every manner in which states are evaluated Minnesota is worse off than it was six years ago. And not worse off in the sense that most states are worse off (even though that’s not true), but worse off relative to other states. Since he took office we’ve slipped relative to other states in unemployment, job creation, transportation, commute times, average income, and the most important: education.
On the front page of the Star Tribune today:
Nearly half of the state’s public and charter schools are on the 2008 list of underperforming schools. Many face penalties ranging from warnings to complete restructuring, depending on how long they have failed to meet math and reading test score targets and other standards.
Since 2003 (when the statistics first began to be collected), the number of schools requiring phase-1 action in Minnesota has gone up over 1000%, from 10 in 2003 to 113 in 2008.
I’m sick of people interjecting and saying something to the extent of, “this is a complex set of factors and no single person can be said to be the source.” Sure, it’s complex, but the Governor is at the top of this complex totem pole because, ultimately, he sets the agenda. It might even be another matter if Pawlenty had been hands off on education, but he hasn’t been, he’s the only Governor in the history of the state to allow, much less suggest, a cut to K-12 education! EVER! I’m sorry, but the time for the “correlation not causation” argument is over.
This excerpt from Britt Robson’s recent piece on Minnesota Indpendent does a nice job of introducing a complex subject (emphasis mine):
Pawlenty’s disinvestment in real-dollar state aid to education is at odds with a longstanding Minnesota formula for economic growth. Five years ago, St. Olaf economics professor Terry Fitzgerald published an analysis for the Federal Reserve Bank entitled “Business Cycles and Long Term Growth: Lessons From Minnesota.” It is an in-depth look at how Minnesota managed to increase its per capita income from 14 percent below the national average in 1929 to 8 percent above it in 2001.
After crunching a lot of numbers and parsing through the history, Fitzgerald concluded: “Obviously there is an important interplay between an education system that supplies educated people and a state economy with enough jobs that demand those educational skills.”
State economist Tom Stinson concurs. Citing similar positive economic news over the last quarter of the 20th Century, Stinson told me late last year that “the reason that [economic growth] occurred was because far-sighted public and private sector leaders figured out how to manage the challenge that was posed by the baby boom. What they decided is they were going to invest in the education of that generation. And that paid off big time in Minnesota. Now it seems like an obvious decision to have made, but if it was, other states would have done it too and we wouldn’t have done as well.”
“Far-sighted” — That’s what Tim Pawlenty lacks in droves; the far-sightedness to see past the next budget cycle. Or perhaps more accurately: the far-sightedness to see past his next election cycle.
If only that were the only aspect of Pawlenty’s seeming complete ignorance of how to run a viable education system. Again, from Robson’s excellent article:
But rather than the tuition subsidies Stinson suggests, Pawlenty has sacrificed aid to higher education on his no-new-taxes altar, creating multiple years of double-digit tuition increases. In 2001, the average annual cost of tuition and fees to attend one of the schools in the MnSCU system was $2993. Now it is over $4000. (As someone who frequently cites his “up from the bootstraps” college education in Minnesota, Pawlenty seems hypocritical as well as short-sighted in his neglect of higher education.)
These are the casualties of Pawlenty’s no new taxes pledge. But, once again, progressives have lost the messaging war because even that pledge is a complete misnomer. In real dollars, every portion of the Minnesota population except one has seen their total state tax burden rise as a percentage of their income since 2001. The only portion who hasn’t seen this rise? The top 5% of all earners in state, their burden went from 10.5% in 2001 to 10.4% in 2009… If those people in the top decile (the top 10% of earners) were made to pay 11.7% (a full point less than the 12.6% middle class earners (the fifth decile) pay at 12.6%), the state would have $671 million more dollars. That’s enough to even get at what the Minneapolis federal reserve has found to be the single best investment a state can make: pre-K education. But, let’s not get our hopes up that our Governor will suddenly get over his near-sightedness…
The real tragedy is that Minnesota, like most states, is about to face real budget shortfalls, which will put all the Governor’s boot-strapping into even tighter quarters. Here’s to a new turn for the great state I love: mediocrity.
Tom Scheck has an 
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