Mission
The Minnesota P-16 Education Partnership provides a structure that will ensure consistent leadership promoting the interests of all students. By bringing together the leaders of key stakeholder groups, it creates a body that can articulate an encompassing vision of education for today and tomorrow and turn that vision into reality. What sets this partnership effort apart from previous collaborations is its broad base, fully inclusive of both P-12 and higher education, and the commitment to partnership of key educational leaders and policy makers in Minnesota who are willing to invest their time, energies, and resources to the start-up and on-going operation of this project.
Minnesota, a state with a long reputation of educational excellence, deserves strong educational leadership that persuasively articulates a clear and consistent set of educational values and standards benefiting all children. The Minnesota P-16 Education Partnership is intended to be an organization that speaks for and to Minnesotans on educational issues, plus draws from partner talents to work collaboratively to improve education within Minnesota.
Shared Beliefs about Education
Minnesota P-16 Education Partnership members hold the following beliefs about education in Minnesota:
- No skills are more important for today’s world than those developed through education.
- Educators need to hold high expectations for all students.
- All students should be given substantial opportunities to be successful educationally.
- Effective education is education that adds value to the lives of students and that prepares them for future successes.
- Effectiveness of education is increased when schools engage families and communities as partners.
- Effective education goes beyond knowledge and thinking, engaging students in society as it prepares them to be effective citizens in the society of the 21st century. Effective citizens are ones who participate in the democratic process and are engaged in civic activities within their communities.
- Effective educational systems are ones that collect and use information to help determine how well they are meeting the needs of students, what programs are working, what needs are unmet, and what changes seem likely to increase student success.
- In order for Minnesota to remain economically successful, increasing numbers of students will need to reach high levels of educational attainment.
- Education is most effective when it is guided by a broadly shared and consistent set of basic beliefs, values, and principles.
The Minnesota P-16 Education Partnership consists of key education, government, and private sector leaders. Members are the Chief Executive Officers and/or Presidents of their systems, agencies, and/or organizations. The current chair is state Commissioner of Education Alice Seagren, and the co-chair is Robert Bruininks, President of the University of Minnesota. Minnesota State Colleges and Universities Chancellor James McCormick was the inaugural chair.
Current members of the Partnership are:
- Minnesota Chamber of Commerce
- University of Minnesota
- Education Minnesota
- Minnesota Business Partnership Education Committee
- MTS Systems Corporation
- Minnesota Parent and Teacher Association
- Minnesota Independent School Forum
- Minnesota Mentoring Partnership of Minnesota
- Minnesota Office of Higher Education
- Minnesota Career College Association
- Minnesota Citizens League
- Minnesota Association of Secondary School Principals
- Minnesota Association of School Administrators
- Minnesota Private College Council
- Minnesota State Colleges and Universities
- Minnesota Minority Education Partnership, Inc.
- Minnesota School Boards Association
- Minnesota School Boards Association
- Minnesota Council on Foundations
- Minnesota Association of Charter Schools
- Minnesota Association of Colleges for Teacher Education
- Minnesota Department of Education
- Minnesota Elementary School Principals