Resources

Reach for the Stars is your guide to high-quality academic enrichment programs and activities to supplement classroom teaching and learning and broaden student performance. It is a free resource published annually as a public service by Synergy & Leadership Exchange. The programs listed in the catalogue have applied and met the criteria for approval by the Minnesota Academic League Council.

“As a broad coalition of Minnesota educators, we’re proposing legislation that directs the State Board of Teaching to create a new interdisciplinary teachers license. This license would set high standards for competencies needed to teach in the kind of smaller and innovative schools and programs that today’s diverse student population both needs and is demanding.”

“We oppose high-stakes testing required by the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) statute for reasons widely shared among scholars, researchers and psychometricans. We do not believe that high-stakes testing leads to achievement of broad educational goals and the efficient learning of basic skills. We believe high-stakes testing produces unintended consequences damaging to schools and students. We describe our reasoning in this brief paper…”

“Alternative programs exist to offer an educational option to students who have not met with success in the traditional school environment and therefore, we believe in a system of continuous improvement that reflects the beliefs, values and practices of our programs. Just as we opposed 'high stakes tests' in a previous position paper because of its 'unintended consequences damaging to schools and students,' we must oppose this practice for much the same reasoning…”

“Our concern with the Commissioner’s Education Finance Working Group recommendation to roll extended time funding into the compensatory formula is that our most at-risk students will be shortchanged. Without extra support these at-risk students may not be able to attain their diploma, nor continue on with further education to help them to be productive members of our state and communities…”