Star Tribune
Minnesota releases 2023 math, reading scores: Look up your school
Minnesota students continue to lag in literacy and math proficiency, registering standardized test scores far below pre-pandemic levels, new state data show.
The data released Thursday illustrate the lingering effects that remote learning and other pandemic-related interruptions have had on students attending Minnesota’s public schools. Scores year over year were relatively flat, with math rising slightly while fewer students met reading benchmarks.
While the results are still somewhat muddied by lower participation than before the pandemic — overall, a little less than 6% of students did not take the test this year — they provide the clearest look yet at the ground left to gain in the state’s classrooms.
Minnesota Department of Education Commissioner Willie Jett said in a statement that state officials hope to improve student achievement with new and existing programs, including a back-to-the-basics approach to reading instruction approved by the Legislature and a network of regional support initiatives for struggling schools.
“We will not shy away from what the data are telling us,” Jett said. “These results send a renewed sense of urgency and underscore the importance of key supports that are already underway.”
Here are four takeaways from the data released Thursday:
A slight uptick in math
The students didn’t score much better in 2023 than they did in 2022. Still, math scores rose by about 1%.
Michael Rodriguez, dean of the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Minnesota, said the increase in math scores made sense given that the 2022-23 school year was devoid of any major interruptions.
“I was expecting an uptick in math because we know time spent in school is more sensitive in that area,” he said. “Math had more to gain.”
Legislation aims to tackle dip in literacy
Minnesota students reading scores dropped by about 1% compared to last year — and there’s already a plan to try to address some of that.
The Minnesota Legislature set aside $70 million to reform the way educators teach children how to read and pay for new materials. The legislation will require districts to adopt a local literacy plan from a handful of programs approved by the Minnesota Department of Education.
“The most amazing thing is the volume of funding the legislature has set to do all of this,” Rodriguez said, noting some districts have are also facing staffing shortages. “The tricky part will be the implementation.”
The state Department of Education has not yet released the list of approved programs — the U is aiding the agency in identifying which strategies to adopt.
Student achievement still lags far behind pre-pandemic levels
Math and reading scores had been on the decline in the years leading up to 2019. But the pandemic exacerbated that trend and Minnesota students registered far lower scores in both subjects than they did before COVID-19.
Students didn’t lose nearly as much academic ground as they did in 2022, but schools have struggled to maintain a steady pattern of recovery.
That mirrors a national trend.
The Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA), which creates the Measures for Academic Progress exam that approximately one-third of Minnesota students take each year, in July noted that academic progress stalled across the country compared to pre-pandemic times. The organization estimates the average student needs an additional four months of tutoring in reading instruction and nearly five months of additional help in math.
Middle schoolers struggle to bounce back
While students across all grade levels registered math and reading scores far lower than they did pre-pandemic, seventh and eighth graders saw the largest gaps in those metrics. They were in fourth and fifth grade when the pandemic began.
That means students who had to transition from elementary to middle school did so during the most turbulent portion of the pandemic. Math scores for eighth graders in 2023 were about 15 percentage points lower than scores for that grade in 2019. In the elementary grades, that difference was roughly 7 percentage points.
Rodriguez noted that middle schoolers have a far less favorable view of their time in the classroom now than they did before the pandemic. Just over half of eighth graders who took the Minnesota Student Survey in 2022 said being a student is “the most important part of who I am.” That’s down from 2019, when nearly three-quarters of respondents agreed with that statement.
“We know that the transition from elementary to middle school is tough to begin with,” Rodriguez said. “If we’re not preparing the late elementary school students to the best of our ability when they engage in that transition, it’s even more challenging.”
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Star Tribune
Former Hubbard County official, school bus driver gets six-year sentence for sex crimes against students
A former Hubbard County commissioner and school bus driver was sentenced Friday to six years in prison for sex crimes involving minors.
Daniel J. Stacey, 60, was charged in April 2023 with criminal sexual conduct and electronic solicitation of a minor, both felonies, in Beltrami County District Court. He was then charged in November with nine additional felony counts related to criminal sexual contact with a minor.
Stacey pleaded guilty in June to four felony counts as part of a plea deal that dropped the remaining charges. His attorney, Joseph Tamburino, declined to comment Friday on the sentence, and officials with the Nevis school district did not immediately respond to requests seeking comment.
Stacey resigned from the Hubbard County Board in January 2023 and was placed on leave from his school bus job during an investigation by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) that began after the parent of a Nevis student filed a complaint.
In an email Friday, Hubbard County Administrator Jeffrey Cadwell said he had no comment other than that Stacey’s actions “did not occur within the course and scope of his duties with the County and the County was completely unaware of them.”
According to a criminal complaint, Stacey offered to mentor a 13-year-old male on his bus route. He brought the boy to his property, asked him to watch pornography and tried to touch him in a sexual manner, court documents state.
The boy told investigators that Stacey told him not to tell anyone, and helped him rehearse what to say about doing chores at his property. Investigators said they found footage showing times Stacey would deactivate the school bus camera when the boy was the only student left on the bus.
A second criminal complaint outlines similar allegations against Stacey with a minor who was 14 years old.
Star Tribune
Woman charged as investigation into attack on north Minneapolis homeless shelter continues
A 33-year-old woman has been charged with two felonies in connection with an attack on a north Minneapolis homeless shelter that forced 54 women and children to relocate last week.
Eureka D. Riser, 33, of Minneapolis, is charged with second-degree rioting with a dangerous weapon and first-degree damage to property, according to the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office. She was in custody Friday, a day after Minneapolis police confirmed her arrest.
Riser, also known as Eureka Willis, is alleged to have been in a group of at least three people who on Sept. 5 went to St. Anne’s Place, 2634 Russell Av. N., and threatened residents, smashing doors with a baseball bat.
Residents were forced to vacate the shelter, leaving it boarded with plywood and watched over by armed security. Building managers estimate that property damage amounts to more than $10,000, according to the county attorney’s office. Additional charges may be brought against others involved.
“This violent attack on some of our most vulnerable community members, unhoused women and children, in a place where they had gone to seek shelter and safety cannot be tolerated,” Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said in a statement.
Hoang Murphy, the CEO of People Serving People, which operates the shelter, said earlier this week that the four-hour episode was the culmination of an argument between shelter residents and neighbors over street parking that started days earlier and spilled over into violence.
According to the criminal complaint, which cites surveillance footage, Riser allegedly swung a baseball bat against the shelter’s doors, shattering glass while residents were inside. Another member of the group pointed what appears to be a gun at the front door of the building, the complaint says.
Residents have since been relocated to a hotel for safety reasons, costing People Serving People $9,000 a night — a figure that Murphy called unsustainable.
A man who was shot and wounded by sheriff’s deputies in east-central Minnesota while resisting arrest received a six-month jail term Friday.
Leo H. Hacker, 71, was sentenced in Pine County District Court in connection with his guilty plea in two cases of assault, and obstructing and fleeing law enforcement in connection with his clashes with deputies in February 2023.
Hacker’s sentences will be served concurrently and includes Judge Jason Steffen setting aside a three-year sentence sought by the County Attorney’s Office. Steffen’s terms also include five years’ probation and community work service.
According to the charges in each case and related court documents:
On Feb. 21, deputies tried to pull over Hacker’s pickup truck on a gravel road about a mile from his Pine City home. As two deputies approached his vehicle, he drove toward them. Both deputies opened fire on Hacker and wounded him.
Hacker was wanted at the time on charges of second-degree assault and obstructing law enforcement in connection with allegations that he pointed a gun at a deputy outside his home on Feb. 14 and angrily defied orders to drop the weapon.
At one point, Hacker warned the deputies that if they did not leave, he would return with “something bigger,” the charges quoted him as saying.
The deputy was there to seize Hacker’s SUV stemming from a dispute over his unpaid attorney fees, the charges read. However, law enforcement outside the home “determined that based on the totality of circumstances, it was in the interest of safety to leave the scene at that time” and instead seek a warrant for Hacker’s arrest, the criminal complaint continued.
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