Let’s Unschool Minnesota’s MCA Results to Look at School Site and District Leadership because, It's Not the Students!

By Don Allen, JOABT

Every Fall, Minnesota parents, teachers, and policymakers await the release of the MCA (Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments) results. And every year, the story remains depressingly consistent: public and charter schools in the Twin Cities have campuses that have never once broken the 70% proficiency barrier in reading, math, or science. Disclaimer: In some schools that sit on the fringes of districts where the dominant culture is the majority, those schools have seen good numbers. The further you move into the Twin Cities, the lower the numbers dip.

Let’s be blunt, this is not the fault of the children. This is a direct indictment of site leadership, district leadership, and charter management organizations that continue to run schools without accountability, vision, or urgency. For too long, we’ve accepted the easy narrative that blames “the kids” or “their families”  for not being 'academic.' We hear the same tired talking points: poverty, trauma, absenteeism, or a lack of parental engagement. While those realities are undeniably part of the educational landscape, they do not excuse adults in charge from failing to move the needle. 

Leaders are hired, often handsomely paid, to confront those challenges head-on. Instead, we have principals collecting paychecks while their schools sit at 25% proficiency, district executives earning six figures while entire clusters of schools remain academic dead zones, and charter operators who market “equity” while producing results that would shut down any private business. Think about it: if a school has existed for more than a decade and still cannot produce 7 out of 10 proficient students in basic literacy and math, what exactly is the leader doing?

 Would we keep a hospital administrator who allowed a 70% failure rate in patient care? Would we keep a coach who never once delivered a winning season? In education, the stakes are higher, yet the accountability is lower. Leaders shuffle positions, districts reshuffle titles, and charter boards quietly replace directors, while students, always students, are left to carry the burden of low expectations and systemic negligence. 

The MCA results do not reflect a student's intelligence or potential. They are a reflection of leadership failure. Every point below 70% represents a decision not made, an intervention not implemented, and a lack of courage to confront mediocrity. School boards and charter authorizers bear equal blame; their job is to hold leaders accountable, not rubber-stamp contracts and extensions. But too often they are complicit, choosing stability over effectiveness, optics over outcomes. It’s time we rewrite the narrative. Stop asking why students “won’t perform.” Start asking why leaders refuse to lead. Stop measuring student resilience, and start measuring leader effectiveness.

 

The Twin Cities cannot afford another decade of adults hiding behind excuses while children pay the cost in future earnings, college readiness, and civic participation. Let the MCA results be what they truly are: a public report card on site and district leadership. The students have shown up. The failure belongs to the principals, the superintendents, and the boards who protect them. And until we demand better, we will keep pretending that 30% is acceptable.