Link archives

Spring 1999

The Profile of Learning

The good, the bad, and the controversy

At its most innocent, the Profile of Learning simply endorses good learning experiences and attempts to standardize their use around the state. The brouhaha that erupted when it was implemented this fall, however, suggests that a lot of people didn't see much innocence or simplicity in the plan. Parents of students doing well in school felt the standards were not academically challenging. Conservative groups claimed that the basics were downplayed and chafed at what they saw as the state's attempt to control local curricula. And teachers have weighed in with more than a few complaints of their own.

"I think when they saw these packages for the first time, teachers just felt overwhelmed," says Pat Avery, associate professor of social studies education in the college. "It was easy to overlook the reasons why they were being implemented."

Kyla Wahlstrom, associate director of the college's Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement (CAREI), had a front-row seat for the process that led to creation of the Profile of Learning and, along with her CAREI colleagues, is deeply involved in the third year of an ongoing study of the Profile's implementation. "It's totally predictable that we are in a state of disequilibrium," Wahlstrom says of the current political turmoil surrounding implementation. "People are being asked to let go of the old and take on the new."

A source of much teacher and parent resistance, Wahlstrom thinks, is simply the fact that the state made the new standards a "high-stakes activity. They said students have to successfully meet these standards to get a high school diploma. Those are high stakes. And that makes people—kids, parents, districts-very nervous."

Change is scary, Wahlstrom acknowledges. She believes the state Department of Children, Families and Learning is trying to provide training to make the process of implementing the Profile less scary. "The state offers two annual sets of regional conferences, in April and again in June, for teachers to meet, compare notes, and attend training," she says. "Eighty percent of the 10,000 teachers in Minnesota who have gone through more than one training are reporting that they feel they are heading in the right direction and can handle implementation. So it's clear the state must continue to offer massive and continual in-service training for all teachers if this is going to work and be accepted."

Complaints that the Profile is the state's attempt to dictate curriculum and lesson plans, downplay the basics, or mandate "one-size-fits-all" are simply off base, she says. "The state is not telling teachers how or what or when to teach anything," she says firmly. "The packets were created to help teachers, to offer ideas and inspiration. They are not mandated. Now, some local administrators with limited resources may be taking the packets and telling their teachers, 'This is how you have to do it.' But that is not the intent at all."

The process of creating the Profile involved thousands of Minnesota teachers who were asked to specify exactly what children need to know in each subject and how they help children learn those things. A statewide committee composed of teachers took the results of those reports and collapsed them into what is now called the Profile of Learning. "At that point, each district was asked to take these standards and find where they fit in the existing curriculum," Wahlstrom says. "Since the standards literally came from existing curricula—based on what those thousands of teachers had already sent in—they weren't anything new.

"The standards aren't requiring that students learn more or less in particular subject areas, but, by changing the way that material is being taught, the standards allow students to develop skills that business, community, and educational leaders said were important—critical thinking, ability to work in teams, etc. We're asking teachers to be facilitators of knowledge and spend less time as dispensers of knowledge. That's definitely more work, but we believe these changes will produce graduates who are better prepared for work and life."

Missing the Mark

"I never wrote a letter to the editor until this came up," says Paul Renslo, a 1973 graduate of the college, speaking of the Profile of Learning and the controversy that surrounded it last winter. "I felt like I just had to put my two cents in."

Renslo believes that the Profile isn't addressing a fundamental problem in the state's educational system. "Over the years, we've seen a lot of new ideas in education," he says. "There's been school choice, high-tech classrooms, outcome-based learning. You name it. None of them has really focused on what I think is the biggest problem in the system, and that's how to deal with students who might actually be failing."

Renslo has been teaching eighth grade social studies in the Stillwater School District for 31 years. He's seen innovations come and go, and has applauded many of them. "I was creating activities-based curriculum 25 years ago," he says.

When the new graduation standards were first being discussed, Renslo was an advocate of the plan: "I was defending it to my fellow teachers. I thought it would help address problems [with failing students]." He still thinks parts of it are worthwhile—mainly the standardized testing—but he feels that the plan as rolled out by the state "was like painting the house without first choosing a color."

Like many other teachers, Renslo feels that the packages are too lengthy and time-consuming. He also feels that the concomitant assessments and 1 through 4 grading system are unrealistic. "I teach 150 kids, 30 an hour. It's an unbelievable amount of work to sit down with each of them and go through these assessments."

And the Profile still doesn't address the central problem, he says: "Nobody wants to face the fact that some students should fail."

While the standardized tests will help measure students' capabilities, kids will continue to pass upward in the system, says Renslo, because that's what students, parents, administrators, and some teachers want to see happen. "Until students are held truly accountable for their performance in the classroom, we're going to have problems."

Renslo believes the Profile itself can be improved and made workable. He favors maintaining the areas of learning but reducing the number of required standards. He'd also like to see acceptance of local control over curriculum.

He's doubtful, however, that the legislature is ever going to create a panacea for what ails the educational system. Society as a whole needs to make a stronger commitment to high-quality education and the consequences of failure. Until then, says Renslo, "our students won't have the focus or the concern to achieve at a higher level."

Creating a Community of Thinkers

The idea is to design your own city park: draw a scale model, explain its dimensions, write a justification of your choices for park entertainment, and take questions from your classmates. Rachael, a student in M.J. Savaiano's fifth and sixth grade at Barton Open School in Minneapolis, is drawing heat about her tennis court.

As she holds up a neatly drawn park, complete with picnic areas, basketball courts and winding paths, printed on a large sheet of graph paper, a fellow student raises her hand with an oblique question: "What size is the tennis part?" Rachael gives dimensions that would make for an awfully long sprint to return a lob and the next question is more pointed: "Are you sure that's right?"

Savaiano, who received her teaching license from the college in 1975, gently picks up the questioning: How did Rachael arrive at the size that she used? Where could she find more accurate dimensions? ("The encyclopedia!" "The Internet!" "Maybe turn it into two tennis courts!") To encouraging applause, Rachael returns to her seat, assigned the simple task of revising her tennis courts.

Though no one acknowledges the fact, Rachael's park has moved her one small step closer to fulfilling Minnesota requirements for her high school graduation, seven years down the line. With the completion of her project, she will have finished one of 24 required "content standards," which, along with basic standards testing, constitute the dual components of Minnesota's new graduation rule, the Profile of Learning.

For Savaiano and many other teachers, the Profile is working well. "I've heard lots of criticism [of the Profile]—that it holds back gifted students and doesn't do enough for special needs kids," Savaiano says.

"I don't think it does either. It puts activities at different levels for different kids."

Savaiano has been teaching for 31 years, 19 of them at Barton. She has been using activities-based teaching exercises—the meat and potatoes of the Profile—for almost 20 years. Her classroom at Barton spills over with examples of past classroom activities, including a long shelf laden with papier-mache dolls dressed in costumes from around the globe. This "Wear in the World" project combined lessons in art, culture, geography, and language. "The Profile could stand some fine tuning," she says, "but I think it helps create a community of thinkers in my classroom."