Editorial: Push for excellence is encouraging

Talk about it

There is good news in this week’s story about Farmington students’ performance on the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment Science test, and it’s maybe not in the most obvious place.

Farmington students at all grade levels performed better on average than their peers statewide, and that’s good. This year’s scores showed improvement — in some cases significant — from the prior year. That’s good too. But scoring better than state averages shouldn’t be news in a district like Farmington. It should be expected.

Where we see good news is in assistant superintendent Christine Weymouth’s statement that the Farmington School District isn’t satisfied with simply scoring better than the state average. That the district wants to be considered one of the state’s best academic performers. One of the big dogs, as Weymouth put it.

We suspect the sentiment is not new. We hope, at least, that reaching the top tier of Minnesota school districts is a goal that goes way back. But this is the first time we recall hearing the sentiment in a discussion about concrete results like those on the MCA science test. The first time someone made clear above average isn’t enough.

It didn’t take long, either. One of the first points Weymouth made last week was that Farmington schools had outperformed some other nearby districts that are known for their academic achievement.

It’s a sentiment that echoes new superintendent Jay Haugen’s assertion when he accepted the job that Farmington can be the very best of school districts.

There is still work to do, but Farmington has some advantages. It has a beautiful new high school and a commitment to upgrade technology districtwide. There is no reason Farmington schools can’t be successful. The more the districts leaders make that clear, the better the chances it will happen.

Tags: district 192, opinion, farmington, editorials