MASA’s Ask to Every Minnesota District: Join the Nationwide Research Initiative

Dr. Matt Hillmann started with something that doesn’t add up.

“By many measures, students are succeeding more than ever,” he told Minnesota superintendents. Then came the turn: “And yet public confidence in education isn’t rising to meet it.”

Speaking at the 2026 MASA Fall Conference in Brainerd, the Executive Director of the Minnesota Association of School Administrators (MASA) asked every Minnesota district to help figure out why by joining the AASA x ThoughtExchange Nationwide Research Initiative: Community Conversation on Confidence in Public Education.

In this Article

• Why results and confidence don’t match (video 0:04)
• What happens if Minnesota sits it out (video 2:02)

Why Isn’t Public Confidence Keeping Up With Student Success?

Graduation rates are climbing, he noted, and recovery data shows real ground regained since the pandemic. So why don’t people feel it?

“The central research proposition is that the answer isn’t a performance gap. It’s a measurement and a communications gap.”

Districts report on what their systems measure. Communities judge on what they experience and value. When those two don’t line up, “confidence lags even when performance is strong.”

He was careful not to overstate it. “We’re certainly not claiming every indicator has improved,” he said. Results vary from district to district and state to state. But the pattern holds “often enough to ask a real question.”

Strong results don’t speak for themselves. Communities decide what they mean.

What happens if Minnesota sits it out

“If Minnesota districts do not participate, Minnesota does not have a seat in the findings.”

In other words, Minnesota’s students, staff, families, and community members wouldn’t be counted in what the research finds. “Nationwide research is only as useful as the voice it represents,” Dr. Hillmann said. Without Minnesota, the story about public education gets shaped by data that may or may not reflect what’s happening in Minnesota’s communities.

With Minnesota, districts help shape it with local evidence: “Your community, your comparisons, and your context.” Each participating district also gets its own comparative results.

He was just as clear about where that story should come from.

“It’s not from Washington. It’s not from a think tank. It’s right here in Minnesota, from our classrooms and our communities and from our students.”

Data that leaves Minnesota out will still get cited in conversations about Minnesota schools.

Watch the full video above to hear Dr. Hillmann make the case in his own words.