I fear that Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty may be pulling a "cassiani."

My reference is in regard to the governor's push for education reform this week, which apparently will be carried outon the backs of school teachers.

Minnesota, like a lot of other states, is experiencing a decline education, as evidenced by decreasingtest scores and below normal graduation rates.

Pawlenty's solution involves stiffening the requirements to become eligible for teaching programs, stepping up the number and frequency of teacher evaluations, obliging those teachers to re-qualify for tenure every five years, and sweetening incentives to lure new teachers from other professions.

Individually, each proposal merits discussion.As the sum total for an education reform package, it arouses suspicion.

Another politician, for instance,may perceive it as a well timed and accurately placed assault against an enemy, Education Minnesota, the state teachers union,which the governor complained, "owns the Democrats and a third of the Republicans," in the state legislature.

An accountant may applaud Pawlenty for making proposals that cost little or no money.

A psychologist, on the other hand,might infer that Pawlenty's frontal assault on teacher education and the teaching profession in Minnesota may have grown from some long held grudge because of an imagined cruelty by a second grade gym teacher, and now it's payback time.

But an educator, like myself, who knows from the latest literature on educational theory, that toughening up the standards for the teaching profession, has been found to have little or no dramatic effect on student achievement, thinks the good governor might just be trying to pull that "cassiani."

Ronald "Cassiani" was a 15 year old student in my sophomore U.S. literature class, too long ago for me to mention the year.But I remember him as clear as yesterday, since Cassiani was a real "challenge" in the classroom, to use the contemporary euphemism, rather than one of a handful of profanities I might have thought more precisely descriptive back in the day.

No self control, no attention span, no regard for authority or quietude, Cassiani was actually a likeable kid, but a real liability in a group learning situation.Talking, fidgeting, dropping pens and books, laughing, snoring (yes, even when I thought I'd get a break from him, I didn't).

And whenever I was about to stop him from bothering his neighbor, or shooting a spitball, or flinging an eraser, he'd sense the reprimand coming, and raise his hand high, jumping nearly out of his seat, to successfully divert my attention before I could utter a word.

"Would you please ask James to stop tapping his pencil so I can hear the instructions?" he'd ask.And James would protest, and I'd breakup the ensuing quarrel, try to move on, and the original offense was lost in the shuffle!

It was always something else: Alice's big hair was in the way of his seeing the blackboard; or the rain patter gave him a headache; or the heat in the room had caused him to become dizzy and forget his homework assignment..Cassiani had instinctive mastery of the art of diversion.

Now, as I peruse Governor Pawlenty's list of teacher reforms, in view of the study done this past spring by the National Research Council, that found no substantial gains in education from fortification of teaching standards, I sense a similar diversion.

Most educators do know that the single initiative for improving measurable student achievement in the long term,that has been indisputably proven in study after study (such as the Rand Corporation's recent finding), is early childhood education.It overcomes parental educational neglect in home environments, equalizing school readiness across the board.

Presently, however, the state of Minnesota provides pre-Kindergarten education for2% of its four year olds, and a mere 1% of its three year olds, according to the National Institute for Early Education Research.

This places Minnesota near the bottom of a list of all 50 states, including, for example, Vermont, which provides essential pre-K for 45% of four year olds, or Florida, at 57%.

Nearly all other states have efforts ongoing to increase these percentages, to ultimately reach the 100% level.But when urged last year to endorse a $320 million legislative proposal to at least fund all day kindergarten last year, Pawlenty said the state has other important priorities.

Like Cassiani, Pawlenty, as far as I know, is a likeable guy.And it makes sense to him, I suppose, to scapegoat teachers, and ignore a costly but effective solution, because that will enable him to remain likeable to legislators and school administrators and budget makers and taxpayers, voters,and especially to parents, who are let off the hook.

I never said Cassiani was dumb.

David McGrath is an instructor at the University of South Alabama, and owns a home in Hayward, WI.Email him at dmcgrath@usouthal.edu

Published September 27, 2008