The Minnesota Academic Standards Committee held an open forum Friday night in Austin to discuss the proposed math and language arts standards, which were presented to the legislature Tuesday.

The proposal aims to provide more specific guidelines for knowledge requirements, while giving educators more freedom to use their own methods of teaching, Education Commissioner Cheri Pierson Yecke said.

Feedback from the public was mixed.

"It appears that the standards are designed to prepare students for a real world that no longer exists," Knowles Dougherty, president and CEO of Idea Inc. a publisher of educational materials, said. He was concerned that the material does not focus on issues that students need to survive outside of school.

Austin School Board member Susan Fell Johnson said that students need to spend more time in school. She thought that educational reform should be focused on extending the school year, rather than changing what is taught. She said the current school year is based on an old system, one that provided students time to help their families with chores and farming.

"Times have changed," she said. "I know that my kids are very bored by the time August rolls around."

Yecke said the committee did not have the power to make changes in the school year. She suggested Johnson contact the legislature about her concerns.

Royce Helmbrecht, principal at Lyle School, said that he was concerned the new standards would not correct the problem of too much paperwork for teachers.

"The goal is that these standards are the end of your expectations for the students," Yecke said. "We don't dictate what happens in the class. We certainly don't want to go back to the paperwork nightmare of the (Profile of Learning)."

Helmbrecht was also concerned that the focus was too academic and didn't provide enough technical training.

Kathy Green, a member of both the Austin School Board and the mathematics 9-12 standards committee, said that teachers at technical colleges had looked over the standards and said the math requirements fulfilled the prerequisites for a technical college.

The proposed standards are meant to replace the Profile of Learning, which the legislature is currently considering abolishing.

The new system breaks requirements down to specific grades, rather than focusing on grade "bands," or larger age groups, as the Profile does. It lays out very specific goals for each level. For example, kindergartners would have 15 goals under the heading "Word Recognition, Analysis and Fluency," in the language arts draft. These include identifying common signs and logos, uppercase and lowercase letters and beginning consonant sounds in single-syllable words.

The state House is expected to pass the proposed standards. The Senate opinion, however, is not clear, Yecke said.

Matt Merritt can be reached at 434-2214 or by e-mail at :mailto:matt.merritt@austindailyherald.com