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The Minnesota Department of Education and Minnesota State Colleges and Universities crisscrossed the state in December and January to host summits engaging secondary or postsecondary teams. Over 750 superintendents, principals, teachers, counselors, college presidents and faculty gathered together to deepen common understandings of newly-enacted legislation and to explore opportunities for new or expanded partnerships between educational systems that will better prepare our continuum of learners to be career and college-ready.

Participants had the opportunity to understand and explain the newly-enacted legislation related to college and career readiness including “World’s Best Workforce”, required college and career plans for students, aligned assessment systems, targeted interventions for foundational skills, and expansion of early college credit options.

Additionally, the summit participants were able to differentiate among the dual credit/early college credit programming available in our state including Career and Technical Education (CTE), Advanced Placement (AP), International Baccalaureate (IB) Postsecondary Enrollment Options (PSEO) and concurrent enrollment and clarify how credits transfer into the MnSCU system.

The Department of Employment and Economic Development presented regionally specific information about the workforce needs and trends.

The educators, from secondary and postsecondary worked in teams to think and discuss how we can work together to improve the transitions from secondary to postsecondary to employment for students.

Paula Palmer, Director of College and Career Success at the Mn Department of Education said, “To see so many secondary and postsecondary partners come together for this important and urgent conversation about both high school and postsecondary redesign was remarkable. It clearly demonstrates our state’s desire and commitment to courageously take a stand to innovate and enhance our programming to be relevant, and to make a difference for our ALL of our students and ultimately our local economies.”

Referring to the MDE and MnSCU collaboration to host the summits, Karen Hynick, System Director of P-20 and College Readiness for Minnesota State Colleges and Universities remarked, “We sparked local conversations and worked across our traditional party lines by bring a spirit of collaboration into these conversations. We modelled a willingness to listen to our audience to think about how we can support them at the local level.” 

The overall response from the participants was that the summit was positive, helpful and effective in spearheading the continued planning for pathways to postsecondary and employment. Participants also expressed that they appreciated that MDE and MnSCU were willing to come to them regionally, as well as, providing a context of the new legislative changes.

All information presented at the summits is available on the Ready Set Go website: http://ReadySetGoMN.org

To assist in the overwhelming response to the summits, and request for further support and redesign conversations, plans for Phase II are already underway. More information is forthcoming.

PPA: 1.22.14

 
  • Copyright 2012
  • Minnesota Department of Education